In the midst of a 2-week period when we released two new products (Scythe: The Wind Gambit on December 5 and Charterstone on December 12), someone on Facebook asked me why we even have release dates. Why not just let stores hand over our products to paying customers as soon as they arrive? It’s a […]
It’s video day on the blog! I’ve added 3 new short videos about Kickstarter, crowdfunding, and entrepreneurship to my YouTube channel. You can find the previous videos on our website or mixed in with my game design videos on YouTube. The corresponding written entries are in the description of each video (click through to YouTube to see them). […]
On Friday I paid $30 to watch a live recording of a podcast I could have downloaded for free a few days later. I wasn’t alone. Powell Hall in St. Louis seats 2,689 people, and it was sold out. We were all there to watch Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark record a new episode of “My Favorite […]
Every year I release 100 blog entries and 100 videos (more, now that I’ve been filming crowdfunding videos too). That amounts to about 5-7 hours a week writing this crowdfunding/entrepreneurship blog, filming content for my game design YouTube channel, and replying to comments/questions about this type of content on the respective platforms and social media. […]
Stretch goals are one of the blessings and curses of Kickstarter. As a backer, I love stretch goals because they make me feel like I helped to make a product bigger and better as a part of a greater community effort (and that I’m getting more stuff for the same pledge amount). Stretch goals are […]
I received a message a few weeks ago that changed the way I think about mass emails. If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know that I’ve advocated strongly against using mass emails when asking friends and family to support you (see here and here). Especially on your first campaign when friends and […]
I’ll be out of the office next week, so in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to express my gratitude for various types of people who have had a positive impact on me and Stonemaier Games this year. Perhaps some of these people will be good resources for you as well. In no particular order, […]
Leo at Mythic Games has cracked the code on Kickstarter Live. One year ago, Kickstarter announced a new featured on their website: At any time during a live campaign, you can launch a streaming video of yourself that appears as the first thing people see on the project page. People can comment on the stream, […]
I frequently ask people for all types of feedback: I request in-depth thoughts and data from playtesters of our games. I talk to a variety of people–including readers of this blog–about ways Stonemaier can improve as a company. Whenever I have a new project page to launch, I seek input from ambassadors to ensure the […]
Today marks the 2-year anniversary of Stonemaier going Kickstarter-free, as our Scythe campaign ended on November 5, 2015. Since then I’ve loved seeing other creators continue to use Kickstarter in innovative and evocative ways. I’ve also enjoyed seeing publishers use traditional model of distribution in ways that simulate some of the benefits of crowdfunding, like […]
