The NSKN Method

The topic of Kickstarters being late comes back to me every few weeks. Talking to other gamers, reading content on BoardGameGeek, or listening to a podcast, I encounter yet another story of a game, an expansion, a box of miniatures or wargaming terrain being just late – or horribly late. In fact, more than 90 percent of Kickstarters arrives to their backers late, and it seems that everyone expects their products to be late. But it does not have to be that way.

We’ve recently been to UK Games Expo, where we had the chance to talk to our backers about both Exodus: Edge of Extinction and Mistfall. Most were pleasantly surprised that everything is on time, and that they will be receiving their games as planned. Some even jokingly asked us if we could reveal some of our secrets to other publishers, so that they could do what we did. And now, with first copies of Exodus: Edge of Extinction reaching the backers, we decided to did exactly that: reveal our method. So, if you want to be on time, just follow these three steps:

1. Do your research. 

This is really crucial: be sure that you know beforehand what the costs of everything are and how much time you will need to manufacture your product. If in doubt, try to ask others who already know how some of these things are done – or at least take a good look at Kicksarters similar to yours – and never leave anything for later. Have everything you possibly can researched and planned, always taking into account the possibility of things taking exactly as longs as expected (basically, treat 3-5 weeks as 5 weeks), and giving yourself some extra time in case something is late.

2. Set your deadlines. 

After researching everything and giving yourself some extra time just in case, set a hard deadline for each step of your project – including deadlines for you personally. Put each of them in a single timeline (using any software you see fit – or even a traditional paper calendar), and be sure that anyone involved with the project knows and has accepted them, and has easy access to them.

3. Stick to your deadlines. 

No matter what, do not change them. Do not move them. And if you’re late, don’t throw up your hands and delay everything by a week. Instead, burn the candle on both ends if needed, work through the night, and minimize the consequences of the delay in such a way, that as many of the following deadlines as possible are met.

And that is it. That is seriously it. That is how we managed to be on time with Progress: Evolution of Technology, with Exodus: Edge of Extinction – and that is how we will be on time with Mistfall. Now you also possess this not-so-arcane knowledge, and can pass it on – free of charge! – to anyone you think might need it. And if you make a use of it, come to our booth at any convention to brag about it. We’ll be happy to shake your hand!|| 

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A Refreshing Experience

During the last few weeks Andrei has shared some of what had transpired before Progress:The Evolution of Technology reached the first of its backers. Designing and developing the game was an experience NSKN Games is no stranger to. Crowdfunding it was a wholly different matter, both to spectate and be a part of.

The first time I played Progress was at a relatively late stage of its development. Some artwork had already been done, the card layouts looked a lot like what you get in the final game box. The working title was still different – it suggested a game about evolving species, which is why I had not been too keen to play it in the beginning. My interest was piqued however, when it was revealed to me, that I would be playing a civilization game.  

Every gamer seems to enjoy civilization games – myself included. The number one of my all time top ten games has been occupied by Through The Ages for several years now, and a civ-building theme is definitely enough to turn my head. However, for me to fall in love with a civilization game, it needs to... sing to me. Yes, well, I know it sounds tinfoil-hat crazy, but bear with me for just a moment longer.

Some civilization games capture me the moment I play them for the first time, with the theme, the scope and, most importantly, the potential to tell stories that spam through ages or even millennia. Sometimes the process is by far not instantaneous, it takes some time (I needed to expand Sid Meier’sCivilization to start really enjoying the game) and a big chunk of my spending money. Sometimes, the game just does not gel with me (I cannot believe everyone’s love for Clash of Cultures), and there is no way I can enjoy it despite the favoured theme. And sometimes, like with Through The Ages, everything clicks within a few turns. I look at the game and I hear its song – and the song is beautiful.

Progress was one of these games.

From the moment I looked at my first hand, from the time I played my first technology (Musical Instruments – the singing voice needed some company), understanding how I will be able to build upon it to move into an exciting future. As the game unfolded, it sang me a song of a technological civilization of poets and engineers, who finally came to rule the world (I won). My mind’s eye saw a magnificent gaming construct, a tree I was immediately ready to hang from for nine days just to see where the roots and branches fork, where they go, and where the beating heart of Progress was.

My first Progress game... in progress ;-)

Simply put, I fell in love with Progress and I got even more excited, when I heard of the plan to kickstart the game. In my heart I knew that with its solid gameplay, the gorgeous art and a most popular theme, Progress would be a great success on Kickstarter. My optimistic approach prevailed in the end, but Agnieszka and Andrei had been much more cautious about their plans before the campaign started – and during its first few hours.

It may be hard to believe, but repeatedly pressing F5 might become an activity that will keep you at your computer for hours – especially when you are following a Kickstarter campaign like the one Progress had. When it goes well – and it was going well for Progress – it validates the hard work put into the game and into its presentation. It clearly indicates that what you find interesting, what lures you into gaming, what makes you want to play a given game is shared by enough people to fund your idea. And the taste of this is sweet enough that, while not being a Kickstarter project creator, I could feel some of what is felt by those, who are directly involved. And by becoming invested I suddenly caught myself just sitting there, looking at my screen and pressing F5 from time to time to see a planted seed grow, much like a civilization during a game of Progress, before my very eyes.

A prototype wall on a prototype card.

But a Kickstarter campaign, even as successful as this one, is not something you just leave on its own, thinking of the benefits you will reap when it is over – and woe betides any project creator who thinks this to be true. It is an ongoing task, a job that needs to be performed almost 24/7, an effort common to both the creators and those backers who not only come on board, but also take it upon themselves to get more involved, actively helping to grow a sprawling sapling into an impressive tree. And as you press the F5 once again, you are not only watching the growth, but also the labours of those who tend to it on a daily basis.

Progress: The Evolution of Technology was a great crowdfunding success and from a personal perspective I am happy I could see the whole process – and even help a tiny bit to build the game’s initial success. Now, as the game reaches its backers, another chapter begins, and one we hope will be as fascinating as the previous one.

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Latest confirmation and a big thank you to Korea

A board game is in a way like a soldier at war, it's skills and value are tested over and over again and only the strongest will survive. If soldiers risk their lives, board games have their reputation to put on the line. Every time someone talks about a board game it represents a small victory or a small failure. Like one day on a battlefield. But there are also big battle and losing too many of them may put one down while winning lots of them means winning the war.

Just yesterday Praetor has won its first major battle in its quest to conquer the world (of board gaming of course). For the past 30 days Praetor has been looking for the support of Korean gamers, looking to raise critical mass. And it did! 

Praetor is officially funded and we can confirm that there will be a Korean version of the game, published by NSKN Games and Board M.

In short, Praetor raised more than 11.5 million Korean Won which is a little more than 10,000 US dollars. Taking into account the size of the market, the competition and the target audience, our partners from Board M have all the reasons to be proud. We are proud of them and with them and we are hoping that Praetor will only be the first from a long list of titles from NSKN Games which will stir the interest of the awesome Korean gamers.

We are thanking all those involved and promise to make our best efforts to deliver as soon as possible.

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Find out more on the NSKN official website | Facebook  | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine 

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NSKN @ 2 years (part 2)

I felt nostalgic today and it felt like a good time to tell the rest of the story of building NSKN. The first part ended with the 1-year anniversary of the company... well shortly after we went for the first time to the UK Games Expo, with high hopes yet knowing quite little about the event.

May 2012 - We still had only one published game, but we had ready-to-play prototypes of Exodus: Proxima Centauri and Wild Fun West and we had prepared one table for each, hoping to raise awareness and interest for our planned release in Essen or Nurnberg.

NSKN was among the very few publishers daring to show off prototypes during the expo, and while we were a bit afraid that they won't be well received, most people reacted quite well and some even wanted to pay us to make sure they'll get a copy of the final games. Pushed by people's interest, we decided to put the games on Indiegogo later in 2012, hoping to raise some money for the production and a spark the interest in Essen.

Jun 2012 - GobCon LAGNA and the first expansion. Right after the UK Games Expo, we took a trip to Italy to meet our friends from La Tana dei Goblin for the second time. We prepared for them an expansion of Warriors & Traders called Italia, with a cotton map and a more interactive game play. It was a small series of only 50 copies, but after the first week of preorders it was all sold out. Add this to the sun and wine from Italy and you have the perfect small gaming event!

Sep 2012 - We started our first two projects on Indiegogo, Wild Fun West and Exodus: Proxima Centauri. Most people thought we were crazy and we shared their opinion at first, but there was a good reason behind this decision. We knew that only one game will succeed, NSKN was too small to advertise and keep two projects alive, but with little experience in crowd-funding we did not know which of the two games had better chances. As soon as Exodus took off and reached a quarter of its goal in less than a week, we directed all our advertising efforts into supporting it. And it was worth it.

Oct 2012 -This was the craziest month in the history of NSKN. We had a place in Essen booked long time before and waiting from Exodus and Wild Fun West to arrive from China, go though customs and ship immediately to Germany for the big event. Two weeks before Spiel Essen, the ship carrying the games was delayed in Istanbul, we later found out that the games were not packed on pallets and the truck we had booked to carry the games backed out of the deal. 

I will spare you the details and get to the conclusion. The games made it on time, but just 5 days before Essen. We had to rent a van and drive all the way to Germany, with 1.5 metric tons of games and furniture for the booth. While part of the team was enjoying Essen, the rest were packing games and shipping to our Indiegogo backers.

For NSKN it was the first fair with more than one published games, so we attracted some attention, had about 30 business meeting and around 10 interviews with reviewers, so all the effort paid off in the end. Our distribution network expanded quite a lot and our games ended up in store in 31 countries.

Nov 2012 - While most publishers are late with delivering their crowd-funded games, we managed to beat the deadline. By half of November all the pledges were shipped out and about 1/3 of them had already reached their new owners. 

Every success story has its shadows. By December 2012 we started receiving complaints about the quality of the components in some of the Exodus boxes. We looked into it and asked the help of the manufacturing company to replace the defects. To this day they have refused to support us in any way. So, we sacrificed some of the game boxes and sent out replacement to every owner of a flawed games who has reached out to us. It has been a giant amount of work, but we need to make sure that everyone gets what they pay for.

Jan 2012 - We released the second expansion of Warriors & Traders, called Middle Ages, again in Italian for La Tana dei Goblin. It was our third presence in GobCon and we were already feeling like part of the community. We also showed the prototypes of Praetor and W - The Board Game and got quite a positive reaction.

Feb 2012 - We had another premiere, we had a booth in the Nurnberg Toy Fair, a quite expensive and exclusive trade fair where the big names in the industry show they latest inventions. It was out first corporate event and even though we were a bit lost in the beginning, we managed to get the most of the fair, establishing a few long term partnerships and selling out whatever was left of our stock of Exodus: Proxima Centauri.

Mar 2012 - We took out all the upcoming games and went on a play-testing spree, trying to see which of the four games (W, Praetor, Perfect Storm and Evolution) will take priority for the rest of the year. Praetor and W were the two games that stood out and made it past the finish line and even though we don't have clear deadlines yet, we are trying to make them available as soon as possible.

In 2013 we did not have a formal celebration of two year of NSKN, but we plan to do that in Essen. Being still quite an international team, we don't have that many chances to be all together in the same place, but there's always one big event that gathers all of us and that is obviously Spiel Essen.

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Kickstarter and the future of board games

If you are a frequent user of BoardGameGeek you might have noticed that the majority of the adds there direct you to Kickstarter or other crowd-funded projects and most of them are board games.

A year and a half ago, most Kickstarter projects were coming from start-up publishing houses from the US and only a special few were able to raise more than 20-30 kUSD. Also, there were no more than 2-3 relevant active board game project at a time. Today, the big picture looks totally different. There are at least 20 project currently running on the crowd-funding platforms with real chances to succeed and become board games and the amount they raised is increasing day by day. Just at a fist glance I discovered a project that has already raised 325 kUSD and it still has 40 days to run. Furthermore, even Kickstarter is expanding and is now allowing UK residents to start projects.

Retailers used to be happy to carry in their store board games previously funded on Kickstarter, most likely because they were benefiting from the free advertising campaign. A game that has gathered one thousand backers is likely know by several other thousands who are not early adopters and they want to see the real board and to check the quality for themselves. But that was a while ago already and the attitude is slowly shifting. Now, brick and mortar store owners are asking "are there any gamers left who don't already own that game?" and they think twice before ordering even one case of a successfully crowd-funded game. There's a very interesting article I've read on this matter here.

In all this dancing around Kickstarter and the attitude of store owners towards it, there are two more important actors, or maybe even three - the gamers, the publishers and the distributors. 

Judging by the increasing amount of projects and the success rate, I believe that gamers learned to trust crowd-funding and that an immense majority are satisfied with what they're getting in the end. And in the whole gaming community there no voice more important that the one of the gamers, the final consumers who end up approving or rejecting any new project. 

As a gamer, I am using Kickstarter or Indiegogo to get more and more games (5 projects backed in the last 2 months) because I know I have a very good chance to get good games with a discounted price before anyone else. What more can I ask?

As a publisher, NSKN has already used Indiegogo with some degree of success and we're planning to do that again soon. We are adapting our business strategy to what is happening in today's world. It would be foolish t ignore this trend and only the really big players have the luxury of working the old fashioned way knowing that the community will embrace their game anyway.

I would say that overall, the whole industry is growing thanks to Kickstarter and the other platforms alike and as long as the end users - the gamers - are satisfied this method of publishing will keep increasing in popularity. There's also the risk of abuse, but that has been there all the time. In any functional community there are those 'special' few who don't play by the rules, but break and abuse them and the crowd-funding world cannot be any different. But as along as they will remain special cases and not become a significant percentage (and so far I do not personally know of any successful board game project which did not deliver), the trend will be the same and the board gaming community will increase in size and more and more awesome games will reach the market.

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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

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