The Kickstarter for Moa is live now. While it’s likely to fund, it’s not getting the stellar numbers that we had hoped for given that this is a new Martin Wallace game.
We have some ideas for improvement – some which involve rebooting the campaign. But before we do that, we’d like to hear from you about what could be improved! Here are some of the items we’ve already heard:
- There are no gameplay videos! This is being addressed, and I think is the biggest problem we have now. My excuse is that everything is coming together as quickly as it possibly could in order to hit Essen. If we reboot the project it will not hit Essen, but I honestly think that’s a secondary concern. We are also going to BGG Con and PAX Unplugged in November and could introduce the game there.
- Shipping price to X is too high! We heard a lot of this early, and I think that we addressed this, for the most part. We’re not hearing much about shipping being too high in the last week.
- The game is for ages 10+! That means it’s a kids game! This is on the lighter side of Wallace games, so may turn away folks looking for an Age of Steam level of strategy game. Martin himself called it a Medium level game, so maybe we could get away with 12+ if people think that’s what is pushing people away from the game. Personally, I think that once people see the gameplay video they can make their own decision on the game’s weight.
- Localization. The game is language-independent except for the rulebook, box, and small reference cards. We will do the game in English, German and Polish for sure. We’re investigating Italian. I know that we also need to look at French and Spanish.
- It’s not being publicized! My own team gets on my a lot for this. I need to be more active on Twitter, Facebook and (most of all) BGG. I don’t use social media much in my own life, but that’s not an excuse for not using it for my company!
If you looked at the Kickstarter project but didn’t back it, then what should we fix that would make you jump on board?
Well like i said in the comments of Kickstarter:
This campaign need a lot of work on publicity … and really fast …. only 5 comments on BGG????? only 3 ratings …. Why???? at least the backers need to comment and rate…. and why dont put publicity on BGG?
Hope APE put more effort in the campaign …
maybe an strategy is offer adds of your others games …
I backed initially but then dropped back to the ‘park it’ pledge Level. It felt like the campaign was just very disorganised, I really don’t understand why the campaign began with basic formatting issues?!? It just looked so amateurish, there should have been reviews and play throughs etc. Almost from the word go, they should have been in place in my opinion before the campaign opened. This game has very little online presence and looks like it won’t his very many stretch goals etc. And with so few backers the forum is so quiet. Brass, another Martin Wallace game – the reason I initially backed, had a wealth of everything mentioned above as did Petrichor. Much more should have been made of the Petrichor link and shipping them together – essentially pretty much free shipping for Mia anywhere on the world if you already backed Petrichor as I did.
Heya, the thing holding back my backing at the moment is a) lack of gameplay video, but mostly b) unknown shipping charges. I don’t want to commit $40 only to find I need to cough up another $40 to ship it…
I haven’t backed yet. For me it’s not the shipping anymore, since I backed Petrichor and the shipping will be reduced.
For me I’m missing some play through, reviews and component pictures or videos. Or a live stream.
I agree with the lack of comments. For Petrichor we felt involved, more talk about what could change and how game could be improved or involved, which makes us exited for the game to come.
Make some social goals to unlock something with xx likes/fans/shares are met. This will make people aware of the game and the backers feel like they are interacting more and making the game even greater.
I don’t think it’s too late, since many games get a lot of backer on the last 48 hours. But something needs to happen now.
If you can’t have the review now or a play through, just make a simple video or live stream showing the components and simple games rule. I think cancelling now and short after starting again will look more bad.
If the game lives up to the graphics I will definitely back this game.
Shipping charges is the big one for me. I still haven’t heard any changes to this since the first time I heard this KS was live and I’m not keen to move on it until I hear something more. As an aside, I’m from NZ so hearing Martin Wallace’s name and the setting for the game, I was almost willing to back it without knowing anything else.
Obvious appeal to gamers who live in NZ (and to a lesser extent Australia), yet no special postage for down under. How about AU/NZ friendly shipping? This piece of news might bring a string of new backers…