The Final Days of Kingdom Death: Monster
Board Game King of Kickstarter Ends Late Pledge Option on March 23, 2017.
It’s been heralded for its brutal combat and unforgiving mechanics. It’s been discussed relentlessly for its sexual themes and body horror imagery. It’s been awarded honors for gameplay and miniature designs. And it’s been in varying states of availability, despite its $400 retail cost.
This is Kingdom Death: Monster, a self-described “boutique nightmare horror” tabletop board game that raised $12,393,139 on Kickstarter during the late months of 2016, which makes it the fourth highest-funded Kickstarter campaign of all time, rivaling the Pebble watch, surpassing Exploding Kittens, and far exceeding the now-forgotten video game system, OUYA.
Although the campaign technically ended on January 7, 2017, the game’s creator, Adam Poots, opened a post-campaign system for the 19,264 backers to manage their contributed funds, which came with an option to “Request Late Pledge,” for those who missed the campaign but still want in on the action.
That being said, on March 14, 2017, Poots announced that this post-campaign system — along with the Request Late Pledge option — would close on March 23, 2017, at 1:00 PM EST.
There have been online discussions about late pledge requests going unanswered by the Kingdom Death: Monster team. It may already be too late to join the post-campaign, but you won’t know until you try.
So, how did a board game raise $12M?
The road to Kingdom Death: Monster’s creation is wound tightly around the website on which it raised millions.
On May 15, 2009, just under three weeks after Kickstarter launched, then-unknown game designer Adam Poots created a Kickstarter campaign titled, “Indie Nerd Board Game, Needs Player Character Miniature Sculpted!”
The campaign had a goal of raising $1,500, with backers receiving such products as a personal invitation to “the official launch party” (for $1 pledges) or a first-run miniature molded in resin (for $35).
In what has since become signature communication behavior for Poots, the campaign’s description included little regard for structure or grammar, as seen in the photo (left). I’ll spare your eyes: The text opens with an ambiguous description of the Forsaker miniature intended to be made (though lacks details about its size), touches upon Poots’ background as a web designer, then moves to the topic of a board game still very much in the alpha stage. There is no mention of the iconic Kingdom Death: Monster universe, besides that the campaign was created by a user named “Kingdom Death.”
“the game will be targeted at 2 to 6 players. our goal is to bring our modern design and layout expertise to assemble attractive packaging and game-boards… the aesthetics of our game will have a boutique bent that will hopefully jump off the shelves… the rules of the game have been written in anticipation of the game components being manufactured… each playable hero and enemy you will fight in the game needs a small game piece sculpted…”
If a Kickstarter campaign launched today with this description, it would be met with distrust. Today, people want campaigns hyper-focused on producing specific, reliable outcomes. This campaign needs X amount to make Y product. Pledge levels receive ABC outcomes. Here is my track record for success. Consumers want confidence in the creator, because campaigns — even successful ones — can over-promise or suffer from mismanagement, resulting in failure.
Back then, however, Kickstarter was still in its Wild West era. It was new and experimental. Consumers were fine with throwing hard-earned cash at an unknown game designer asking for $1,500 to produce a miniature sculpt of unknown size, which in turn would be used for a yet-finished board game, which in turn would require every enemy and hero to have a unique miniature sculpt.
Back then, people just wanted to see something made.
The campaign ended 30 days later, on June 15, 2009, with 28 backers giving a total of $1,741, which put the average pledge around $62.18. And on November 4, 2009, Poots announced completion of the project: “To everyone here, thank you so very much! You guys all really came through for me and I am proud as hell to have a physical result of everyone’s support.”
From Success to Utter Failure
On September 14, 2009, six weeks before the announcement of the sculpt’s completion, Poots created a new Kickstarter campaign, “Help Kingdom Death iphone game!” The campaign sought to raise $10,000 to create “the best iPhone horror adventure game ever.”
As with the last campaign, very little information is provided. No art assets, outside of a single photo (left). No explanation of what “Kingdom Death” is or why it needs an iPhone game. No discussion about the horror or adventure elements. It’s all still very amateur and unfocused.
“We’re two computer nerds with web and programming experience and two iPhones. We’ve hired a kickass artist who’s mindblowing [sic] and disturbing artwork will make up the assets for the game. We imagined a comic book style storytelling approach, panel by panel with animation and some cool sounds. Sort of a choose your own adventure style game where a dark and twisted story unfolds around a cast of characters.
“Playing the game will be about fighting and surviving by completing arcade style challenges and puzzles of cleverness, swiftness, rhythm, and balance to stay alive.
“We are trying to raise the funds to pay our artist and buy ourselves enough ramen to stay alive while we do the programming and testing.”
After a funding period of 89 days, the campaign ended on December 13, 2009, with a raised grand total of $10 from only one backer.
The $2M Runaway Success
For the next three years, from 2009 to 2012, Poots made no effort to create a Kickstarter campaign. He continued using the site, as evident of his backing of such projects as the board game Zombicide and the Double Fine adventure video game, but he requested no funds and created no campaigns. During these years, it seems, he was creating and refining what would eventually become his successful board game.
Then, on November 22, 2012, he returned with a professionally crafted campaign completely unlike its two predecessors. Titled simply “Kingdom Death: Monster,” the campaign sought to raise just $35,000 for a “cooperative board game set in a nightmare-horror world,” where players will “fight for [their lives], scavenge, craft, and band together to survive.” The game could be acquired for as little as a $100 pledge.
Possibly having learned from watching other successful Kickstarter campaigns, Poots included loads and loads of artwork in his campaign: concept designs, 3D renderings, professional-grade photography of completed miniatures, colorful narrative scenes. He included numerous videos showcasing the game’s mechanics and imagery, so consumers saw the horror he was trying to construct in the game.
Gone were the iPhone descriptions of the world requiring rhythm and balance and swiftness. Gone were the silly admittances of needing money to eat ramen. It’s so unlike the two previous campaigns, one could mistake they originated from two different entities.
This campaign — through its vivid images and detailed videos — promised a game requiring tactical acuity, mental focus, thematic mechanics, and a need for players to push through hardship. And the campaign showed exactly how it could deliver on these premises.
Furthermore, it claimed to have 39 “unique highly detailed plastic miniatures,” similar to the miniature created years before in Poots’ first-ever Kickstarter campaign — the campaign that delivered one miniature for the price of $35, whereas this campaign promised 39 unique miniatures, in addition to the board game itself, for the price of $100. It was a no-brainer deal.
The campaign earned its $35,000 goal within 1.5 hours of creation. It then broke $1M on January 4, followed by $2M within just hours of the campaign coming to a close on January 7, 2013.
In the span of about three years, Poots had gone from raising enough to create a single miniature, to failing to fund an iPhone game, to raising a couple million to create the board game briefly hinted at in the unrefined text of his first-ever Kickstarter campaign.
Little did he know, just a few years later, he would break this record by more than $10M. But to get there, he would need some help from the board game community’s constantly churning hype machine.
Word-of-mouth makes money.
The board game community, although growing, still remains rather small. We are a tight-knit band of individuals from all walks of life, often bound together by the impossible search for more time to enjoy more games. We are fathers and mothers, children and adults, hobbyists and completionists, collectors and creators. We love board games, and we love telling others about really good ones.
In the late months of 2015, two years after the campaign ended, backers began receiving their copies of Kingdom Death: Monster, and — similar to the release of Gloomhaven — word quickly spread. Board Game Geek gave it a 9/10 and ranked it the 16th most thematic board game of all time. People took to forums such as Reddit's /r/boardgames, either asking for advice on how to beat the game or inquiring about how to buy a copy. People wanted to talk about it.
Most importantly, people wanted to know when another reprint would occur, because the game wasn’t being published by some huge company that could continually churn out 17-pound board games. This created an anticipation for the next Kickstarter, “Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5,” which opened on November 25, 2016.
Two hours after the campaign began, it had raised $2M. It was up to $4.3M by the end of the first 24-hour cycle, and up to more than $8M by Christmas, one month after the campaign’s creation. On the final day, it went from $11.3M to $12.3M, increasing by approximately $41,666 per hour.
Since Poots opened a post-campaign system that has allowed people to add more cash to their pledged contributions, there’s an undeniable belief that this $12.3M amount by now is much higher.
Maybe when the post-campaign system closes on March 23, 2017, Poots will announce the new grand total. Or maybe he will keep it all to himself, relishing in his lucrative creation.
Regardless, you only have mere days to join this board game bandwagon. If you are even remotely interested in acquiring the game, send a late pledge request. There’s no telling when the next big Kickstarter for Kingdom Death: Monster will come around.
