Monday, October 18, 2010

Kickstarting Kickstarter

There's a website called Kickstarter.com which helps people raise funding for creative projects. I've been wanting to utilize that ever since I saw how well it worked for Clever Mojo Games funding Alien Frontiers. Michael was skeptical, but I have finally convinced him that it's a good idea, so we'll be launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund Eminent Domain.

Michael has made a video explaining why we need the funding:



He also started a thread on BGG about it. On his blog he listed the rewards we're considering, and I'll do the same here. Please leave a comment with your opinion on the rewards! Which are good? What would you like to see that's not listed?


  • Copies of the games (at various quantities).
  • Limited edition cover of the game which would be digitally numbered and signed by the designer and artist.  Either 100 or 250 of these available total.
  • Promotional Eminent Domain T-Shirts – my current favorite ideas are: “I <3 Eminent Domain”, “I <3 ED”, and “Eminent Domain for President”.
  • Tasty Minstrel or Eminent Domain Polo Shirts (nice collared shirt with the logo embroidered on the breast.)
  • Poster of the box art.
  • Name in the rules at various supporter levels, such as bronze, silver, gold, etc.
  • Tasty Minstrel Games sponsored game night.  Expensive and Awesome!
  • Shipping outside of the USA.  This would be to cover additional costs for sending things outside of the USA.
  • Your name on one of the Tech advances.
  • Prints of the original art for Tech cards
In addition, we will also be having some sort of contest for one person to have their name or their likeness on the game box cover.  You will get entries for this, by spreading the word about the project on Kickstarter. Maybe the guy in this concept sketch of the box cover could be you!

We'll be kicking off this kickstarter campaign in a week or so. Thanks for your support, and please leave comments about the rewards!

5 comments:

Seth Jaffee said...

I'll tell you, I am not a fan of T-shirts. I feel like they're cheap, tacky, and I have WAY too many of them already. If I were to get a shirt, I'd want a nice, quality shirt that I'll like and want to wear.

Also, I do not like Mike's ideas for what to put ON the T-shirts - amusing jokes perhaps, but this is something people should want to wear around, it's a reward for people who pre-order the game!

Nolan said...

Personally, I'm most interested in the basics: a copy of the game or a limited edition copy.

Shirts and posters I have little interest in. Maybe the polo.

Name in the rules, sponsored game night, name on tech advances, likeness on box, and original art are all cool, but unless some extra discretionary money falls in my lap, it's unlikely that I personally would go for these.

Seth Jaffee said...

I hope to have reward levels that are custom made for certain archetypes. For example, one level should simply be "a copy of the game" - which is like a regular pre-order. Another level will be several copies of the game, at a discount. For example, if 1 copy were $30, maybe the bundle would be 4 copies for $100 - this would be for a couple of friends in the same town who want to go in together to get a discount (and it would save us some shipping as well).

Part of the reason I'm asking this question is to determine these archetypes and set the reward levels! :)

Renee said...

The I <3 ED thing *REALLY* does not work. just had to put in my two cents.

Greg W said...

I'm with nolan