If you haven’t heard yet, we’ve got news regarding the V20 Companion. In particular, we’re using Kickstarter to help finance a prestige print run of the book. Response to the limited Grande Masquerade edition of V20 was so positive, and we heard so many times that players wanted to be able to find other limited-edition copies of the V20 material, we figured, well, there’s got to be a way to make this happen.
In the distribution model of games publishing, the publisher creates the book, the printer prints it, the distributor buys it from the publisher, the retailers buy it from the distributors, and the players buy the book from their retailer. That creates a lot of overhead and it eats a lot of time, with books hanging around in warehouses or riding on multiple trucks before they even make it to the the place where the player can see them. That doesn’t really work for us like it used to.
With Kickstarter, we don’t have to gamble on estimated print runs, and we don’t have to wet as many beaks along the way. When the funding window closes, we order exactly as many books as have been paid for, we send them to the printer right away, and we don’t even have to receive them before they’re mailed out to you. This shaves as much as three months off the print-to-player time.
Even better, by doing our publishing in the same open way we do our development, we have immediate indications of what the players want, how they want to receive the titles, and what sorts of value-added propositions we can use to say thanks. For example, the V20 Companion Kickstarter offers players a chance to commemorate their contributions (or their characters’), to participate in creating the artwork for a later title, or to talk directly on the line with us about their game or their desires for future material.
On the development end, this is a real benefit. There’s no more guesswork on my part — I don’t have to bang out a 12-month schedule and cross my fingers that you like the books I maybe kinda-sorta thought and hoped you would. You give your feedback directly, both on future title proposals and what’s immediately in development. We integrate it directly, and then it’s both printed and delivered to you on a schedule that’s made plain from the outset.
Now, we’re new to this. This is our first Kickstarter project, and we’re going to be learning at every step. What we also want to do is be as transparent as possible with you. That desire informed the open dev process, it shaped the art direction and layout process, and now it’s here in the publication process. You see our costs and have a direct understanding of the benefits we can offer at which contribution levels, so there are no surprises along the way. (Well, no surprises in the process. I still hope to throw a few curve balls into the setting material that makes for great chronicles, of course.) In particular, we want your feedback. Do you want more books in the prestige format? What other perks can we offer to enrich your participation? Where can we let you know more, and what more do you want to know? We’re going to be learning how to maximize this new publishing model together.
If you can’t get in on the Kickstarter version, don’t worry — the book will still be available via POD and PDF, through our regular partner, DriveThruRPG. What we do hope, though, is that you’ll join us on this, our first of hopefully many Kickstarter ventures that bring you new World of Darkness material, and a few other creative endeavors we want to explore. So here’s to your health, and the success of or ongoing relationship together!
The idea of being able to be involved in the art or creative layout is something that really appeals to me. This is a great idea! The thought that the community might be able to leave a footprint with such an iconic game is fantastic.
Is one month really long enough to reach the goal amount of money? Time will tell I suppose, but it seems awfully short to me. 🙂
Rich T put the message up on the WW board 13 hours ago. We’re already at 12% of the target amount – not quite 1% an hour, but close. The $200 pledges have sold out already. There are no guarantees, but I think we have grounds for cautious optimism.
The research we’ve done indicates that one month is the peak window for Kickstarter financing. It looks like leaving too great a window encourages people to put it off and the project to lose momentum, while having too small a window doesn’t give enough time for buzz to build.
But, as Rich say, we’ll be watching how you guys use the interface and make whatever adjustments are necessary to suit the players’ use of it. (Me, I want the book out yesterday 😉
What I didn’t fully understand is: will contributors be refunded if the 50k$ are not reached? Or they’ll be billed just in the case it is?
However I LOVE this way of managing orders and distribution. Less passages mean less wasted money, less oil be burned, less pollution, less lack of knowledge about the process and less responsibilities to cover behind if something in the process goes wrong =)
I just say this: I’m the proud owner of one of the only 2 books of the V20 Europe batch with a print defect on the first and fourth page. I’m a comprehensive person, so I’m just ridiculously happy for the other 518 pages to be disappointed by those two pages, but maybe others wouldn’t be so reasonable. So I suggest that a strong quality check must be assured from the printer, so that nobody will ever more meet such problems. Actually, with this way of managing orders we lose the possibility to chose our own copy among the ones in the shelf, so we are putting a lot of trust in you. Don’t betray our trust 😉
Check out the Kickstarter terms of service. If a project doesn’t meet its goal, everyone who contributed receives their money back. KS is set up to be the agent of trust — we don’t touch the money until our terms have been met, and your money remains in their holding until they turn it over to us to pay the printer 😉
Great! ^w^ I think I’ll join the 70 dollars contribution as soon as I recharge my prepaid card 😉
I love that you guys are letting the fans literally buy their own images and names into the books. V20 seems to be a great “fan service” line, and with allowing people to give their own ideas, be models, submit characters and be immortalized in the book for their contributions, it’s cool to see a gaming company shining the mirror back on the fans and showing their appreciation and acknowledging that it is the buyers/fans who have made them successful, not just the talent that makes it (it’s symbiotic! 😀 ) I know that my $200 contribution was directly influenced by the idea of my likeness being used in a book.
However, I too am a little apprehensive about the short window on projects to get noticed/funded, or they get dropped. Buzz seems like it can take some time to get around, starting with the initial shock troops finding out and throwing money down first, and then there are others who have to take some time to figure out if they can balance it in their budgets, look at other expenses/projects, get permission from S.O.s, or even have the information trickle down to them through word-of-mouth/networking methods to even know that it’s happening.
Maybe put longer times on some projects and let them go into production (even go to writing) once there’s enough interest?
Take, for instance, “W20: Changing Breeds”. Put up the project now and give it 365 days (or more) to be funded. That doesn’t mean it’ll be released in February 2013, but that you’ll begin work on it then IF the investment is there. Hell, you might WAY over-shoot your target and offer new targets to increase its scope, or other details ($20k=250 page book. $30k=500 page book, $50k=Deluxe Edition 500 page book, etc.) In the meantime, you can write up the guideline for the book and the other preliminary information to add to the proposal so folks know what they’re investing in. However, if you hit the 365 day mark, and it fails, well, I guess you have your answer on the book and you can put it on the back-burner, or you can develop it at your own whim. (This all assumes Kickstarter allows you to make dates that far in advance.)
I’d just hate to see a good book shot down, or not given the best treatment because a 30-day time frame wasn’t enough to rally the troops, or inform the public enough to throw money at it before it was made. The idea of “buy now, get it later, maybe you’ll like it” isn’t for everyone either, so its uses may not be universal either.
Obviously, something new like this is an experiment. We based the time frame on Kickstarter’s own metrics that indicate that 30 days is the optimum time and our experience with V20. Certainly, we’re looking at the percentages and could be wrong, but if our current network of fans that was strengthened by all of our communications with V20 can’t reach most of those same folk again then another month or more isn’t going to hit critical mass anyway.
What happens if we don’t hit the goal? All pledges are cancelled and we’ll most likely drop the deluxe idea for this book and just publish the PDF/NiP versions. That was the original plan anyway. It will tell us a good deal about whether our fan-base and our current communications can sustain an effort like this though, so whether we’ll offer more Kickstarters in the future will be a big question.
As for quality control, well I agree that you have to be even more careful but the fact is that there’s no way we could review every single book before it ships- that’s thousands and thousands of books. What you need is a number reserved for replacement and an effective way to get feedback from folks who purchased the book and an efficient way to get a replacement copy to them. Obviously, the efforts with V20 left a bit to be desired in that area- but we’re determined to do better with these next Onyx Path books.
So, for now- tell your friends about the Deluxe V20 Companion Kickstarter and let’s spread the word.
Thanks!
Having a number reserved for replacement would be by itself a great feature 😉
I love more and more each minute how White Wolf is evolving it’s way of managing editions and deliverance. I feel involved!
Couple of questions about this – when you say it’s an experiment, is it an experiment in the sense of “we might use this in future for a few special projects” or in the sense of “if this works, it’s a way to reduce or eliminate our risk right across the board”? I’m thinking of big-ticket items like Danse Macabre or Damnation City, where in the past you had to make a big up-front commitment without any guarantee that you’d make your money back. Or is your fan base loyal enough that the risk for those kinds of projects isn’t that great in practice?
Secondly, you had (well, have – I still don’t have mine), huge problems with the V20 distribution. I’m not trying to rant over that – I’m one of the $200 pledges, so I’m still White Wolf’s bi… er, loyal fan… but I’m curious about how you’ve fixed your distribution issues for this new limited edition, not least since I’ll also be after a W20 Limited if you produce one.
With this method, they’ll leave the shipping to the supplier.
Rich wrote:
This probably means that final quality control will be up to the manufacturer, not put on White Wolf’s head and such complaints can go back to the manufacturer?
I love the idea of using Kickstarter to help drive development schedules:
1) Developers/writers/whoever pitch ideas.
2) Ideas with merit get Kickstarters.
3) If people actually like the idea, it gets funded.
4) Writers get assignments, etc.
That said, don’t use just one Kickstarter as the barometer of a new strategy. I’m deeply scared at the amount I might contribute to a Mage 20 Kickstarter, but I feel my existing (beautiful) copy of V20 fills my needs for VtM and probably won’t kick into this one. Part of the point of Kickstarter is that you can evaluate fan interest in different products independently and pick and choose what you actually create.
I will kick in for a MET20
I would love to see a V20 Live and would contribute to any kickstart effort!
Well ajpursell beat me to it, but I would totally kick in for MET20 as well
It’s a shame I was on vacation or I would have donated more. Though I am happy with the $100 backing. I am glad there were plenty of those available.
hi from brazilian fans!
the $150,00 dollars are sold out, there is another way to get my character name in the book game play example? or another way to have him in the book, other than just in the credits?
like a image of him/her?
this is the kind of reward we players want!
nice way to run things!
waiting the book and a reply!
lets make it happens!
felipe 15 to 17 years brazilian fan!
One of the cool things about Kickstarter is that it allows the addition of tiered rewards during the process. I think for the V20 Companion, we’re probably set as far as rewards go, but if there’s enough feedback that players want more opportunities to see their characters’ names in print, Rich has the ability to add them.
These types of rewards in particular have received a lot of support, so we’ll aim to maximize them on future projects (and maybe a little more on this one, if we can find a place for it).
Art is harder to coordinate than writing because writing allows us, in concrete terms, to specify a character. IN art, the visual presentation is a lot more subjective. But I’m saying that as a line developer and not an art director. Rich may have more insight.
thank you for the reply and your time.
as a player this is a great, great thing to imagine. Be in the gameplay example in the book, that one was a great reward to dream about, but only 7 avalible is not that much oportunity for such good stuff. For the art part i do understand the problem and complications, well i can imagine it, at least.
anyway, next book i will be quicker! and so far lets be in the elder credits!
again,
thank you for this long crazy run.
Felipe Moulim.
I just got the email from Rich about this project. (School has been getting in the way far too much this semester.) I think this is a fantastic idea! I’ve put my $50 towards a hardcopy. It’ll be a great match to my V20 hardcopy.
Two things if you guys keep doing this:
1. Send out emails earlier! =p
2. You have a guaranteed buy from me every time.
Thanks for all of the hard work you put in for us fans!
James
I too was like James got the email quite late (thankfully not too late). I’ve put in for a hard copy and will likely do the same with future similar editions.
If there is still any room left in the companion for a request; I was sad to find the Black story pages missing in the V20. They were excellent as a way to give new players a glimpse into game, often with an emotional impact that hooked them. I’d love to see them or their kind make a reappearance in the companion. Perhaps with a new clever addition to show off modern themes (IE: a well timed text message or use of social networking to thwart a otherwise well thought trap/plot)
Best wishes either way,
-Chris
🙁 unfortunately i missed the kickstarter project. Is there the possibility to join in after a project pledge is founded?
Yea … this is crazy … I found out about this thing just a moment ago 🙁
I have the v20 limited edition and now it looks like i can’t get the Companion limited edition because of this 🙁
Hi I have been out of the country for the last few months, but I am a huge fan of WW of V20 is there any way to get a hardcover V20 companion now that the kickstarter is closed
Hello, I am a huge fan of V:TM over in the UK but only just found out about this limited edition companion, the kickstarter is closed does that mean I can’t now get my hands on the limited edition version?
Unfortunately, once the Kickstarter is funded and the window closed, that means there won’t be any more of the prestige edition printed. (We use the actual numbers from the Kickstarter pledges to determine print run and quote printing prices.)
On the plus side, the book will be perennially available at Drivethru, in PDF/ POD format, so even if you miss the Kickstarter, you can always get a hold of the book’s content.