The previews vs. reviews thing is so frustrating. I'm possibly interested in Wandering Galaxy: Crossroads Game, but we're almost halfway through the campaign and there's not a single review out - only the paid previews. Not a single opinion anywhere from which to gauge whether the game is fun or not. For me it's an easy decision not to back in this case. I'll wait for retail or, if it never hits retail, a 2nd campaign. If it never hits either, probably wasn't good anyway. I just can't justify backing something with no objective reviews.
It’s not really a fair complaint when literally no other entertainment industry allows non-screened reviews of their product before the general public has access to buy/consume it. Video games don’t do this, the movie industry doesn’t do it. Why would board games be any different?
@@Revariance Respectfully disagree on the movie industry comparison. A kickstarter is typically 4 weeks or a month long, right? A movie is typically in theaters for the same time period. The difference is that I can wait after a movie's been out a week to see what the public thinks of it, before deciding to pay to go see it myself. In that month-long Kickstarter, if there's only previews, it's like insisting that everyone who wants to see a movie has to sign up to see it on opening day. Except in the case of a kickstarter with previews only, you have to wait a year or two, and then only maybe can buy it after the reviews come out - if it's in retail or otherwise available direct. Many aren't.
@@tteshera Consider a movie coming out in theaters is the same as when a game comes out into retail. At that point anyone can go and consume the content and you as a consumer have a lot of opinions. Also most Kickstarter games still undergo some form of development after the campaign is done. Why would they open themselves up to critical review when their product is incomplete? Then they’ve damned themselves with bad reviews in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign when the game isn’t even finished. How does that make sense?
I have a strategiest pledge from Chip Theory Games and it has already paid for itself by allowing me to sell the games that I wasn't so keen on (burncycle + expansions and Hoplo + expansions). I get every other game for free and can continue to sell the ones I don't like. 'I don't see how this is encouraging my consumerism'. Quite the oposite - I am actually now incentivised to go for base pledges only and not go for expansions which are often unneeded.
It has now been 7.5 months since the last update from The Red Joker on their Okko Chronicles: Cycle of Earth campaign. Their last update, in Dec 2023, stated that they were "still looking for production partners." 7.5 months later and no update and no responses to any messages. In addition, their website no longer seems to exist. Sure would be great if you could find out what is going on!
For the Gamefound trend to include 'pre-orders'. I think that's a wonderful move, as we get some consumer protection with pre-orders. We get nothing with crowdfunding. I'd love to see true pre-orders switch to that model, whilst true crowdfunding projects could still exist with a clearer boundary.
Wingspan is nowhere near the best game we have at home but it is still the one that gets the most plays. And from what I can see at my local game store it still sells very well including all its expansions.
The reason that the God of War campaign failed is because the game is extremely lackluster, extremely limited, and it doesn't really evoke the franchise it's based on. I was really looking forward to it because I love the IP, but I was disappointed on nearly every single level with the campaign and the game itself. Sure you get a ton of miniatures, but even the miniatures look weird and distorted.
Thunder road vendetta - it shouldn't be fun. If you've not seen / played the 80s original, it's worth a look to see how impressive Thunder Road Vendetta is. That original was severely dated, even more luck dependent, and pretty dull e.g. the 'slam' in the original was merely a D6 dice-off, loser took a point of damage. Compare that to the car pinball of this edition, plus the wide variety of damage effects, it's worlds apart. They really did an amazing job to turn the 80s original into what we see today, yet still maintaining a link to what it was.
You might be thinking of Hel as the CMON game that was sort of announced, for eventually. Glad to hear GF Stores mentioned. I haven't seen an impact from that yet but I'm curious to see how it will work out.
AI art is going to get used more and more and more. We may as well get used to it. It’s going to be used everywhere…everywhere. Think of it from a business standpoint. Why pay an artist a good chunk of money to make all your art when a program will do it for next to nothing and it will still look good? It’s really going to fall onto the true artist to step their game up and create truly amazing art that businesses want to spend the money on. My hope is that it pushes artist to their full potential and we get the artist of a generation that end up in history books.
It is my opinion that the successful artists in the near future will be the ones that quickly adopt ML tools into their art work flows to increase their productivity allowing a reduction of their prices as one group and the Michelangelo types you discuss as a second type with many of the mediocre artists being forced out. This happened in music already without AI / ML -> the internet allowed the top tier to be experienced anywhere around the entire world competing with all the smaller music artists who were regional only and didn't have to compete with superstars constantly. Sure, people will always enjoy the smaller band live shows at a reasonable price, but the ticket prices for something like a Taylor Swift concert are evidence of the 1% of the 1% being lifted up even more by connectivity technologies and taking your concert going dollars away from a wider group of musicians who weren't necessarily the best of the best.
Love your content! I think AI Art is a difficult one, I think that there are varying levels of quality of AI art. If the quality is good, it has been generated and then edited with corrections added and made to be a good standard then why shouldn't it be used. If people use AI art straight from the prompts with errors in the background, multiple fingers, bad art then the product is bad. AI doesn't necessarily mean bad, its just another tool in the box for artists to use.
I don't back many games and in fairness my collection is sizable enough to be able to take this position, but I will not support a campaign that uses AI art, whether smaller or larger. I guess I would be shocked if Chip Theory Games suddenly used AI art but I would take this position even with their games.
A few years ago none of the 'hot' new games were doing it for me. Not that, I wasn't interested in them, I'd play them and think 'wow, this isn't an interesting game, why do people love this?' It got so bad that I even questioned if I liked games anymore. It wasn't until I started going back to older games that I realized I still love playing boardgames, but the new trend in games being mostly solitaire experiences is what's off putting. You mentioned Earth...yeah, absolutely hated that game. Way to take the fun of the action selection in Puerto Rico and just water it down to nothing. Then I hear people say how interactive it is. No, not really, not when compared to games that revolve around interaction. These hot new games seem very much designed to be a flash in the pan, maybe live on for a few years thanks to some expansions...but they don't have the lasting power as the great games over the decades. There's survivorship bias in there, sure...but it really is comical to hear people rant and rave about 'best game ever' only for it to be crickets a year later. Add Lacrimosa to that list, next it'll be 'Unconscious Mind', and many more to come. Add on to that any trend of publishers delux-ifying a game so that a $30 game now costs $100...nope. Don't care. But minis! Nope, dont care. A lot of it's just flash, not substance. What game from 2022, 2023, or 2024 do you think will be relevant in 10 or 20 years like Catan, El Grande, Dominion, TTR, Carcassonne, etc.? There's got to be a few.
8:25 I want to know what you're referring to or what you're saying when you mentioned Stonemaier Champions. Can you explain that further? I'm not trying to goad you into a fight. I just don't understand the context of what you're saying. Thanks.
His point was that he focuses on supporting good games, not good publishers. Being Stonemeier champion means that you are sending money to them, regardless of whether they put out a game that you like or not. You could have used that money to instead by a different game that suits you better.
@@jacobjslee from what I remember, it is free shipping and a discount on games bought from their website. It pays for itself if you buy multiple SM games/expansions a year
@@jacobjsleeI’m a SM champion trying it out for the first year. The discounts you get for buying their products is worth it if you plan to buy a lot of SM games or you’re a big SMG fan
Earthborne Rangers is "a game you should never buy?" Who is the "you" you're talking to here? It seems odd to tell your audience not to get a game just because the game is being recommended, and then you're also assuming it won't get played. I discovered EBR before SU&SD and NPI released their reviews on it. I've already played through a campaign and will likely play again before the end of the year, and it's already become my second favorite game of all time. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to those who like this sort of LCG-style game or who love open world adventure like Sleeping Gods. Sure, there are always the usual cautions to give people when they're deciding whether to pick a game up, but perhaps you could phrase those in a more helpful way than just a blanket "this is a game you should never buy," which isn't true or useful. Obviously, everyone has to know their own tastes and preferences and evaluate whether a game matches those or not. But how is telling people that EBR is "a game you should never buy" going to help people do that?
AI art is fine, i am a fan. it allows more people to make games. which is good. plus no one actually cares about AR using it or Grimcoven wouldnt be doing so well. at least not enough people to matter. never even heard of harmonies. Ark Nova is fine. not top 10 all time but its fine. i gave Earth away, totally dont get the love that one got. there probably will be another hot game before years end. someone somewhere will get the right group to pay attention and the hype train will start rolling. itll get played like 3x by most of the people who bought it and shelved forever like the rest haha.
I agree on the solo (or 5th / 6th player etc.) demands resulting in too many games trying to cover all bases, and failing at most of them.
The previews vs. reviews thing is so frustrating. I'm possibly interested in Wandering Galaxy: Crossroads Game, but we're almost halfway through the campaign and there's not a single review out - only the paid previews. Not a single opinion anywhere from which to gauge whether the game is fun or not. For me it's an easy decision not to back in this case. I'll wait for retail or, if it never hits retail, a 2nd campaign. If it never hits either, probably wasn't good anyway. I just can't justify backing something with no objective reviews.
It’s not really a fair complaint when literally no other entertainment industry allows non-screened reviews of their product before the general public has access to buy/consume it. Video games don’t do this, the movie industry doesn’t do it. Why would board games be any different?
@@Revariance Respectfully disagree on the movie industry comparison. A kickstarter is typically 4 weeks or a month long, right? A movie is typically in theaters for the same time period. The difference is that I can wait after a movie's been out a week to see what the public thinks of it, before deciding to pay to go see it myself. In that month-long Kickstarter, if there's only previews, it's like insisting that everyone who wants to see a movie has to sign up to see it on opening day. Except in the case of a kickstarter with previews only, you have to wait a year or two, and then only maybe can buy it after the reviews come out - if it's in retail or otherwise available direct. Many aren't.
@@tteshera Consider a movie coming out in theaters is the same as when a game comes out into retail. At that point anyone can go and consume the content and you as a consumer have a lot of opinions. Also most Kickstarter games still undergo some form of development after the campaign is done. Why would they open themselves up to critical review when their product is incomplete? Then they’ve damned themselves with bad reviews in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign when the game isn’t even finished. How does that make sense?
I have a strategiest pledge from Chip Theory Games and it has already paid for itself by allowing me to sell the games that I wasn't so keen on (burncycle + expansions and Hoplo + expansions). I get every other game for free and can continue to sell the ones I don't like.
'I don't see how this is encouraging my consumerism'. Quite the oposite - I am actually now incentivised to go for base pledges only and not go for expansions which are often unneeded.
I rarely go for expansions for the same reason. More than enough content in base games plus stretch goals!
It has now been 7.5 months since the last update from The Red Joker on their Okko Chronicles: Cycle of Earth campaign. Their last update, in Dec 2023, stated that they were "still looking for production partners." 7.5 months later and no update and no responses to any messages. In addition, their website no longer seems to exist.
Sure would be great if you could find out what is going on!
Good down to earth commentary on games, subscribed! Great that you use timestamps and hover images.
For the Gamefound trend to include 'pre-orders'. I think that's a wonderful move, as we get some consumer protection with pre-orders. We get nothing with crowdfunding.
I'd love to see true pre-orders switch to that model, whilst true crowdfunding projects could still exist with a clearer boundary.
Wingspan is nowhere near the best game we have at home but it is still the one that gets the most plays. And from what I can see at my local game store it still sells very well including all its expansions.
Keep up the awesome videos Chris!
The reason that the God of War campaign failed is because the game is extremely lackluster, extremely limited, and it doesn't really evoke the franchise it's based on. I was really looking forward to it because I love the IP, but I was disappointed on nearly every single level with the campaign and the game itself. Sure you get a ton of miniatures, but even the miniatures look weird and distorted.
Thunder road vendetta - it shouldn't be fun. If you've not seen / played the 80s original, it's worth a look to see how impressive Thunder Road Vendetta is. That original was severely dated, even more luck dependent, and pretty dull e.g. the 'slam' in the original was merely a D6 dice-off, loser took a point of damage. Compare that to the car pinball of this edition, plus the wide variety of damage effects, it's worlds apart.
They really did an amazing job to turn the 80s original into what we see today, yet still maintaining a link to what it was.
You might be thinking of Hel as the CMON game that was sort of announced, for eventually. Glad to hear GF Stores mentioned. I haven't seen an impact from that yet but I'm curious to see how it will work out.
So basically big box games, heavier euros and minis bad buys...60 min or less are good buys?
AI art is going to get used more and more and more. We may as well get used to it. It’s going to be used everywhere…everywhere. Think of it from a business standpoint. Why pay an artist a good chunk of money to make all your art when a program will do it for next to nothing and it will still look good? It’s really going to fall onto the true artist to step their game up and create truly amazing art that businesses want to spend the money on. My hope is that it pushes artist to their full potential and we get the artist of a generation that end up in history books.
It is my opinion that the successful artists in the near future will be the ones that quickly adopt ML tools into their art work flows to increase their productivity allowing a reduction of their prices as one group and the Michelangelo types you discuss as a second type with many of the mediocre artists being forced out. This happened in music already without AI / ML -> the internet allowed the top tier to be experienced anywhere around the entire world competing with all the smaller music artists who were regional only and didn't have to compete with superstars constantly. Sure, people will always enjoy the smaller band live shows at a reasonable price, but the ticket prices for something like a Taylor Swift concert are evidence of the 1% of the 1% being lifted up even more by connectivity technologies and taking your concert going dollars away from a wider group of musicians who weren't necessarily the best of the best.
Love your content!
I think AI Art is a difficult one, I think that there are varying levels of quality of AI art. If the quality is good, it has been generated and then edited with corrections added and made to be a good standard then why shouldn't it be used. If people use AI art straight from the prompts with errors in the background, multiple fingers, bad art then the product is bad. AI doesn't necessarily mean bad, its just another tool in the box for artists to use.
I don't back many games and in fairness my collection is sizable enough to be able to take this position, but I will not support a campaign that uses AI art, whether smaller or larger. I guess I would be shocked if Chip Theory Games suddenly used AI art but I would take this position even with their games.
Always awesome work. Thanks!
38:20 I had a chance to play Intarsia recently and think it could be be the next Harmonies-like mass market game
A few years ago none of the 'hot' new games were doing it for me. Not that, I wasn't interested in them, I'd play them and think 'wow, this isn't an interesting game, why do people love this?' It got so bad that I even questioned if I liked games anymore. It wasn't until I started going back to older games that I realized I still love playing boardgames, but the new trend in games being mostly solitaire experiences is what's off putting.
You mentioned Earth...yeah, absolutely hated that game. Way to take the fun of the action selection in Puerto Rico and just water it down to nothing. Then I hear people say how interactive it is. No, not really, not when compared to games that revolve around interaction. These hot new games seem very much designed to be a flash in the pan, maybe live on for a few years thanks to some expansions...but they don't have the lasting power as the great games over the decades.
There's survivorship bias in there, sure...but it really is comical to hear people rant and rave about 'best game ever' only for it to be crickets a year later. Add Lacrimosa to that list, next it'll be 'Unconscious Mind', and many more to come.
Add on to that any trend of publishers delux-ifying a game so that a $30 game now costs $100...nope. Don't care. But minis! Nope, dont care. A lot of it's just flash, not substance.
What game from 2022, 2023, or 2024 do you think will be relevant in 10 or 20 years like Catan, El Grande, Dominion, TTR, Carcassonne, etc.? There's got to be a few.
8:25 I want to know what you're referring to or what you're saying when you mentioned Stonemaier Champions. Can you explain that further? I'm not trying to goad you into a fight. I just don't understand the context of what you're saying. Thanks.
His point was that he focuses on supporting good games, not good publishers.
Being Stonemeier champion means that you are sending money to them, regardless of whether they put out a game that you like or not. You could have used that money to instead by a different game that suits you better.
@@joshualewis8923Thanks. That's a good point. I wonder what those Stonemaier supporters get for the money they're giving him?
@@jacobjslee from what I remember, it is free shipping and a discount on games bought from their website. It pays for itself if you buy multiple SM games/expansions a year
@@jacobjsleeI’m a SM champion trying it out for the first year. The discounts you get for buying their products is worth it if you plan to buy a lot of SM games or you’re a big SMG fan
Earthborne Rangers is "a game you should never buy?" Who is the "you" you're talking to here? It seems odd to tell your audience not to get a game just because the game is being recommended, and then you're also assuming it won't get played. I discovered EBR before SU&SD and NPI released their reviews on it. I've already played through a campaign and will likely play again before the end of the year, and it's already become my second favorite game of all time. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to those who like this sort of LCG-style game or who love open world adventure like Sleeping Gods.
Sure, there are always the usual cautions to give people when they're deciding whether to pick a game up, but perhaps you could phrase those in a more helpful way than just a blanket "this is a game you should never buy," which isn't true or useful. Obviously, everyone has to know their own tastes and preferences and evaluate whether a game matches those or not. But how is telling people that EBR is "a game you should never buy" going to help people do that?
@@nitro1048 There's certainly a point at which the "don't back this" videos become just as unhelpful as crowdfunding previews.
Ha, with a young family, I’m in the place where if a game doesn’t have a solo mode and plays over 90 minutes, I’m out, F word or not.
@@SardonicArtery Well, lucky for you, EBR does play solo and doesn't take over 90 minutes per session.
AI art is fine, i am a fan. it allows more people to make games. which is good. plus no one actually cares about AR using it or Grimcoven wouldnt be doing so well. at least not enough people to matter.
never even heard of harmonies. Ark Nova is fine. not top 10 all time but its fine. i gave Earth away, totally dont get the love that one got.
there probably will be another hot game before years end. someone somewhere will get the right group to pay attention and the hype train will start rolling. itll get played like 3x by most of the people who bought it and shelved forever like the rest haha.