Astonishment; Gratitude & White Bits; Etc.
over 7 years ago – Wed, May 17, 2017 at 11:32:29 PM

Truly Astonishing

Jeff here, with a confession: Before this campaign started, I gave The White Box a 15–20% chance of flat-out failing to fund. I figured $40,000 was the very top end of what it could possibly do. Nothing comparable had ever appeared on Kickstarter, and we had no idea what to expect.

And here we are, finishing out the campaign at three times my best-possible prediction.

As veteran screenwriter William Goldman wrote in his memoir of Hollywood, Adventures in the Screen Trade, “Nobody knows anything. … Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.”

All of you have a lot of games on your mind, it turns out. We’re so thrilled and excited.

So, Thank You, Truly

Thank you, backers. Can we give you a present?

Let’s put those white cubes, meeples, discs, and dice into every copy of The White Box, even though we didn’t quite make our 100-retailer goal.

Sound good? Good. Let's do that.

What’s Next?

Next, you all chill for a little bit while Kickstarter processes charges. We'll be getting everything at BackerKit set up while plowing full speed ahead on our editorial and layout work.

Backer surveys will come around in early to mid-June — we’ll need certain information to fulfill pledges, you may want to upgrade your pledge or add add-ons, and so forth — but you’ll hear from us again before that happens.

In fact, we'll be in touch all throughout the rest of the process, not only in backer updates, but you can track us down to ask questions, check our progress, and say hi at Origins, Gen Con, PAX Prime, Essen, and PAX Unplugged. (Although of course, by PAX Unplugged in November, it'll all be a wrap.) So if you'll be at any of those shows, do track us down. We'd love to meet you.

Questions?

Don’t hesitate to send a message. If you send one right away, you might not hear back before next week, because Jeff will be at Geekway to the West tomorrow though Sunday. (If you’ll be there, come say hi!)

And One Last Time: Thank You Very Much.

Cartamundi Signs On; Shipping News; Etc.
over 7 years ago – Wed, May 17, 2017 at 12:30:37 AM

Cartamundi Becomes a Sponsor of The White Box

Cartamundi is a global manufacturer of card and board games, with whom Atlas Games has established a long-lasting, 20-year-old relationship going back to On the Edge, one of the very first collectible card games.

Cartamundi has joined us not only to manufacture and handle European fulfillment for The White Box, but also to offer physical backers a $10 discount on custom card decks, ordered by the end of 2018, produced in their European facility.* In addition, we’ll join Cartamundi at Spiel 2017 in Essen for their presentation on October 26, promoting and celebrating games and game design.

*We can’t extend this to the entire first print run of The White Box, as we’ve been able for all other offers and stretch goals. It will be available to all physical tier campaign backers, and the first wave of orders placed by Brick & Mortar backers. There may be a smaller discount for the entire run.

Modest EU, Australia, and New Zealand Shipping Credits

One of the reasons we’ve been delayed in offering concrete international shipping and handling reductions is that the details of Cartamundi’s joining our fulfillment effort have been late-breaking.

At this time, due to cost savings, we’re able to offer a $5 pledge manager credit to backers in the EU, Australia, and New Zealand. It’s possible — it would be too much to say it’s likely, but it’s possible — that prices for some locations will drop further as we know more about the exact tax implications (for us) of our various foreign origin points.

EU and Australian Shipping Partners

We’d like to re-iterate that EU shipments will originate in the EU, which should eliminate nearly all customs fees and taxes for most backers in that region.

Also, Australian and New Zealand shipments will originate in Australia with our new partner Aetherworks.

We thought we had a Canadian fulfillment partner lined up, but unfortunately it hasn’t come together. We’ll continue trying. Apologies, Canadian backers.

Stretch Goal Update

Our $95,000 stretch goal for four additional essays was met almost before we had a chance to send out our update yesterday. We exceeded $100,000 in pledges earlier today. We don’t have any new stretch goals to add as we go into the last 24 hours of the campaign. We’ve already added more to the campaign than we imagined was possible when we launched it, and we’re going to focus on delivering those things on time, and with the quality you expect.

Our final outstanding stretch goal — for 100 retail backers, to add a sixth color of components — has also come closer than we ever expected. Let’s see what we can do in this last day of pledges.

BackerKit

We’ll be using BackerKit as our post-campaign pledge manager. You’ll get another update before it happens, but backer surveys are tentatively scheduled to go out in early June. You’ll be able to upgrade your pledge, purchase add-ons, and specify your shipping address at that time.

Thank you, backers, for your generous support of The White Box. We can’t wait to see what you make with it.

Two Days and Counting, a Mike Elliott Foreword, More Essays, Etc.
over 7 years ago – Tue, May 16, 2017 at 06:18:19 PM

Less than 48 Hours Remain

Your enthusiasm for The White Box has demolished our expectations. But we know there are even more people out there who'll want to get the game designs out of their heads and onto the table.

If you’re willing to help us spread the word in these last two days of the campaign, especially to retail stores to increase our chances of hitting our sixth-color stretch goal, we’d be grateful.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jefftidball/the-white-box-a-game-design-workshop-in-a-box

Announcing Foreword Author Mike Elliott

Mike Elliott’s list of game design and development credits is astonishing — check his Wikipedia page for yourself. Mike has agreed to write a foreword for The White Box Essays, which we’re as eager to read as you are.

More Essays at $95,000

We’ll add four new essays written by Jeremy to The White Box Essays if the campaign reaches $95,000. They’ll cover contracts, Kickstarter, writing sell sheets, and promoting and demonstrating your game at conventions.

Post-Campaign Pledge Management

The White Box will have a post-campaign pledge manager. Using it, you’ll be able to add more copies of The White Box and other add-ons. You’ll also be able to increase your pledge level.

If you’re in doubt about what backer level is right for you, we encourage you to back at a lower level and increase your commitment later. Refunds are much more difficult to grant and process than additional or increased orders.

Non-U.S. Shipping

As the campaign winds to a close, we’re getting lots of questions about shipping outside the U.S. We apologize that we still are not able to make an absolute promise about reducing these.

What we can say at this time is that shipments to European destinations will ship from within the EU, and shipments to Australia and New Zealand will ship from Australia. This will help many of you know more about what duties, fees, or taxes to expect.

(What’s the hold up? A reasonable question. The answer is that there are many moving parts to adding a new shipment location, like the overall cost of an additional drop-shipment form our factory, shifting tax and duty burdens, and new vendors to negotiate with. The fact of our Gameplaywright & Atlas Games co-production also means that multiple parties inside the campaign must all agree. It all takes time.)

We continue to encourage international backers who think shipping is too expensive to back at the digital levels.

Budgeting Game Projects Well

This isn’t about The White Box at all, but since you’re probably interested in this campaign because you’re at least passingly interested in the business of publishing games, we wanted to point you to a blog post and spreadsheet tool that Jeff wrote last year with the goal of helping people do a better job budgeting their game projects.

More Essays, More Free Money, Etc.
over 7 years ago – Wed, May 10, 2017 at 12:29:02 PM

More Essays

We made our $60,000 stretch goal, so we added three new guest essays, bringing the total number in the book to 23.

Five Dollars at DriveThruCards

DriveThruCards is a print-on-demand service for game cards. They’re adding a $5 coupon card for their printing services inside every copy of The White Box. This isn’t a stretch goal, it’s just something they’re offering in each box to help card game designers get their ideas onto the table.

Retail Stretch Goal Progress

Right now, we have 47 brick-and-mortar backers, which means we’re almost halfway to adding a sixth color of components to every physical edition of The White Box. Our 100-store goal is aggressive, but it’s also within reach. Especially if you’re willing to help us reach out to as many stores as we can.

Shipping, Handling, Taxes, and Other Types of Fun

We’ve written on this in comments and message responses, but to put it somewhere more public:

We also think the cost of shipping outside the U.S. is too high. We’re actually subsidizing it a bit to make things slightly more affordable. We’re also continuing to work on finding the right partners to reduce expenses further. If we're able to reduce the cost of shipping to a region, we'll pass our savings back to backers by giving credits within our post-campaign pledge manager.

We also know that there can be tax consequences (e.g., VAT) of receiving goods shipped from different countries. At this time, as a point of information, we're planning to ship European rewards from within the EU, and other backers’ rewards from the United States. We’ve talked to potential Canadian and Australian partners, but those discussions are less far along, and might or might not come to fruition.

Stretch Goals; Online Chat Tomorrow; Schools & Non-Profits
over 7 years ago – Mon, May 08, 2017 at 01:05:04 PM

Stretch Goal Overcome

Since our last update, we’ve overcome our $50,000 stretch goal and added a print-and-play copy of Letter Head for every digital and physical backer.

Stretch Goals Added

Since our last update, we’ve added two new stretch goals. We’re already half-way to achieving the first.

• At $60,000, we’ll add guest essays from Erin Hawley (on improving board game accessibility), Jay Little (on board game economics), and Jeff Tidball (on act structure for gameplay experience) for all digital and physical bakers.
• At $75,000, we’ll embark on the adventure of audiobook production, and create an audio version of The White Box Essays, which we’ll give to all digital and physical backers.

We’re really hoping to make the 100-retailer goal that will let us add a sixth component color. If you haven’t, let your Friendly Local Game Store owner know that you’d like to see them join the campaign. Perhaps bring them a copy of the one-sheet we made to help retailers promote their involvement.

Jeremy’s Chat at The Game Crafter is Tomorrow

If you have game design questions for Jeremy, he’ll be answering them in The Game Crafter’s chat room tomorrow night (Wednesday 6/3) at 9:00 US Eastern time. Visit thegamecrafter.com/chat.

Schools, Libraries, Non-Profits that Teach Game Design

If you teach game design and you're a school, library, or other non-profit, we’ve added a new FAQ entry about how you can make bulk purchases of The White Box for classroom use.