Kickstarter Question

[periwinkle]

Hello MajCom! We are almost ready to launch a Kickstarter campaign. Our project has been approved BUT we need your suggestions for the reward levels/incentives....so....

What do you think some good rewards/incentives are?

We would love to offer free membership BUT currently everyone is playing for free at the moment so we can't offer that. Once Marcos codes that in, then MajCom will be charging for membership....when will that happen? Well...there's about a gazillion things that we need to code before that...kinda like the chicken and the egg thing....but I digress.

So, what do you want? This is what we have so far...

Bronze: recognition on our donor page & a donor service award

Silver: recognition, service award plus entry into a donor's tourney

Gold: recognition, service award, tourney and ???

yup....we need suggestions...

Keep on mind...we are hoping to have non-MajCom people donating since we are bringing this to a public space....what would they want?


All suggestions are appreciated!

 

[spirop]

So I would love the tee shirt with Majcom South America map on the back and a tasteful MajorCommand
at the left front pocket-space.
At a more practical level, perhaps Thone's avatar can be modified to add a caption giving our thanks and
an invitation to visit us.

 

[periwinkle]

So I would love the tee shirt with Majcom South America map on the back and a tasteful MajorCommand
at the left front pocket-space.
At a more practical level, perhaps Thone's avatar can be modified to add a caption giving our thanks and
an invitation to visit us.

Love that too...but the only problem is I have zero budget to work with. So unless someone can print out T-shirts and send them out of their pocket (their own personal donation) then that would work. Any other ideas that doesn't cost money?

The only thing I could donate is my time. Would people be interested in a 1 on 1 coaching session on a particular map like nukes? I could offer my services that way? I just need to know is that a good idea or a terrible idea.

 

[Wisescarab]

Looking forward to this, I will definitely support.

Hmm. T-shirt wise, once you get a graphic drummed up for it...I am sure we could work something out for the start-up investment? I would donate a bit to help that.

 

[Biliam82]

Give donors the option of a custom color rank other than the standard gold sliver bronze (blue for example).

Allow the donors to have player images be the game markers.

Give donors access to more stats. Stats are fun and help people connect to the game.
- would love to see a luck rating showing how friendly the dice have been in the last day, week, month, etc
- view other player's % missed turns so that you know who you are teaming with
- view own and other players winning % per map
- view own and other players most common teammates

To make this worthwhile, we really need to get the names hyperlinked like they used to be. It is really hard to look someone up anymore. I think this is very important to keep people interested and maintain a community.

To be fair all of the above should end up in the gold membership at some point, but give it to the donors first maybe as a beta test.

Stuff is problematic. Lots of random stuff (promotional items, etc) is available at low cost. The packaging and shipping is the real barrier here though. Once this is factored, it is hard to add value especially for international members.

 

[periwinkle]

Thanks for all your suggestions MajCom

Keep them coming if you have more ideas.

The kickstarter will commence after August since we are approaching the quiet time on the site. So enjoy the re-opening for some of you!

 

[PITMAN212]

i like the onyx badge for top donor , and to de able tom test the new maps , special tourney for top five maybe? anyway, i will just be happy to be a part of making this the best site on the net !!

 

[edmondtheknight]

Hey all (and Peri),

It is good to see this initiative. If we are targeting non-MajCom community I don't imagine that anyone would be interesting in T-shirt with MajCom logo or the map (although, perhaps map could be interesting as a map of the country or continent/world in itself). But I like Peri's original idea about the map tutoring and this is what we can truly offer without breaking a buck. This could at the same time allow us to recruit new members and have them support kickstarter campaign. Let's offer 5 games teaming up with generals, or other ranks (majors & colonels), then having 1st, 2nd and 3rd tier rewards depending of the size of donation. I would volunteer to coach up/team up with 5 newbies. I expect many MajCom players would be willing too. Perhaps there are people who are interested in joining online gaming community (which is well suited for adults) and are curious about playing the risk online but don't know how/where to start. It is like a joining the gym and having personal trainer for free to show you the ropes. Getting personally involved as a player would also make easier for us to share this kickstarter campaign on our social networks among our friends/family. Anyhow, count on me in if you think this idea could work.

Btw, have we discussed any fund raising event among regular members? Or should we prompt them to participate in kickstarter campaign? Perhaps this would be good to have separately so we don't pay commission to kickstarter? Maybe an event for a few hours where everyone could tune in for couple of hours for a live chat. Perhaps this has all been discussed already and I am coming late to the party. Most likely.

Edmond

 

[periwinkle]

Hey all (and Peri),

It is good to see this initiative. If we are targeting non-MajCom community I don't imagine that anyone would be interesting in T-shirt with MajCom logo or the map (although, perhaps map could be interesting as a map of the country or continent/world in itself). But I like Peri's original idea about the map tutoring and this is what we can truly offer without breaking a buck. This could at the same time allow us to recruit new members and have them support kickstarter campaign. Let's offer 5 games teaming up with generals, or other ranks (majors & colonels), then having 1st, 2nd and 3rd tier rewards depending of the size of donation. I would volunteer to coach up/team up with 5 newbies. I expect many MajCom players would be willing too. Perhaps there are people who are interested in joining online gaming community (which is well suited for adults) and are curious about playing the risk online but don't know how/where to start. It is like a joining the gym and having personal trainer for free to show you the ropes. Getting personally involved as a player would also make easier for us to share this kickstarter campaign on our social networks among our friends/family. Anyhow, count on me in if you think this idea could work.

Btw, have we discussed any fund raising event among regular members? Or should we prompt them to participate in kickstarter campaign? Perhaps this would be good to have separately so we don't pay commission to kickstarter? Maybe an event for a few hours where everyone could tune in for couple of hours for a live chat. Perhaps this has all been discussed already and I am coming late to the party. Most likely.

Edmond

oh yay! i'm glad the coaching idea is getting some traction! i think it would be a great idea especially if we launch on a public platform like kickstarter....as many of you know i had quite a bit of coaching when i was a noob and was very thankful for everyone's generosity with their time. i think without the coaching, i would not have stuck around and moved on.

lemme know who else would be interesting in coaching. I was thinking of introducing the coaching idea for all silver awards and higher.

as for keeping the donation drive off a public space to avoid commissions....we thought of that but honestly, we need more traffic here and money outside of MajCom members. it's a price we are willing to pay i think.

no worries edmond! you are not late for the party. we are planning to launch the kickstarter in september....there is a greater chance of success if we launch either in september or january. the summer months for the northern hemisphere is quite dead and people are not as incline to donate when most are enjoying the outdoors.

 

[sannheten]

oh yay! i'm glad the coaching idea is getting some traction! i think it would be a great idea especially if we launch on a public platform like kickstarter....as many of you know i had quite a bit of coaching when i was a noob and was very thankful for everyone's generosity with their time. i think without the coaching, i would not have stuck around and moved on.

lemme know who else would be interesting in coaching. I was thinking of introducing the coaching idea for all silver awards and higher.

as for keeping the donation drive off a public space to avoid commissions....we thought of that but honestly, we need more traffic here and money outside of MajCom members. it's a price we are willing to pay i think.

no worries edmond! you are not late for the party. we are planning to launch the kickstarter in september....there is a greater chance of success if we launch either in september or january. the summer months for the northern hemisphere is quite dead and people are not as incline to donate when most are enjoying the outdoors.

Good idea Peri/Edmond. Coaching I can do

 

[clarkenfeld]

I would happily coach someone! I offer specialist tutorials in how to stifle groans at failed eliminations and 4 cardsnoset. Also in how to cheerfully complain to other Eeyores such as as Engelbrekt. There may be other skills I could coach people in but they slip my mind after these months of mc starvation.

 

[xsb1977]

hi there! good initiative, I'll be happy to help coaching someone

 

[melanie]

Hi, If it’s not too late maybe coaching with facetime/zoom? I kinda like the live event idea too.

 

[melanie]

been thinking on this and I would enjoy watching the top players playing with commentary. Kinda like those. You tube channels where a gamer does a walk through?

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

Give donors the option of a custom color rank other than the standard gold sliver bronze (blue for example).

Allow the donors to have player images be the game markers.

Give donors access to more stats. Stats are fun and help people connect to the game.
- would love to see a luck rating showing how friendly the dice have been in the last day, week, month, etc
- view other player's % missed turns so that you know who you are teaming with
- view own and other players winning % per map
- view own and other players most common teammates

To make this worthwhile, we really need to get the names hyperlinked like they used to be. It is really hard to look someone up anymore. I think this is very important to keep people interested and maintain a community.

To be fair all of the above should end up in the gold membership at some point, but give it to the donors first maybe as a beta test.

Stuff is problematic. Lots of random stuff (promotional items, etc) is available at low cost. The packaging and shipping is the real barrier here though. Once this is factored, it is hard to add value especially for international members.

Custom color rank is a cool idea, though it requires programming, and that's what we need the money for, so we can't promise it just yet.

The rest regarding the stats are all on the to-do list. Eventually everyone will have access to all (or most) of those stats. Again, stats will come after we hire programmers....

Hyperlinks are something I can look in to. Which ones worked before, but don't anymore? Let me know and i'll try to fix that.

Thanks!

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

So I noticed several people offered to do some coaching. That's is great. I was wondering if we could have a semi-firm commitment to that. Kickstarter is launching next week, and I'd to get an idea of who is able to commit to coaching, and for how many players.

For example, can you please post below something like this:

I offer to coach:

• up to 3 players
• on 1 map each
• on any setting
• on any map

Or something like that. So I get an idea of how many rewards I can give out.

And I understand if a the last minute something happens and you can't do it, we can always find a replacement, but for now, just give me an idea of who is interested in offering what.

Thanks!

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

So I would also like some feedback regarding donation amount and rewards.

This is just a rough draft of the rewards and amounts.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Donation Amount USD	Introductory Video	Kickstarter Service Award	Gold Membership	Play Tester for New Maps and Features	1000 Point High Donor Tournament
1	Yes
10	Yes	Bronze	6 months
20	Yes	Bronze	1 year
25	Yes	Bronze	1.5
30	Yes	Silver	2
40	Yes	Silver	3
50	Yes	Silver	4	Yes
60	Yes	Gold	5	Yes
70	Yes	Gold	6	Yes
80	Yes	Gold	7	Yes	Yes
100	Yes	Onyx	10	Yes	Yes
150	Yes	Onyx	lifetime	Yes	Yes

PLUS:

These are ADD-ONS that any donor can purchase regardless of donation amount

Kickstarter 1000 point Tournament	Get your Name on a Map
(different than the high donor tournament)	(limited to only 12)
$10	$275

 

[Wort]

You could sell maps that have permanent advertising on them for businesses?
Are you going to tell us how much you are looking to raise? As that will help with determining the fees above

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

You could sell maps that have permanent advertising on them for businesses?
Are you going to tell us how much you are looking to raise? As that will help with determining the fees above

The Goal is $5k USD. Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing venture, so we need at least $5k or we get nothing. Of course, more would be great, so we're hoping for more, but we need 5 at the minimum.

 

[matildathehun]

So I would also like some feedback regarding donation amount and rewards.

This is just a rough draft of the rewards and amounts.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Donation Amount USD	Introductory Video	Kickstarter Service Award	Gold Membership	Play Tester for New Maps and Features	1000 Point High Donor Tournament
1	Yes
10	Yes	Bronze	6 months
20	Yes	Bronze	1 year
25	Yes	Bronze	1.5
30	Yes	Silver	2
40	Yes	Silver	3
50	Yes	Silver	4	Yes
60	Yes	Gold	5	Yes
70	Yes	Gold	6	Yes
80	Yes	Gold	7	Yes	Yes
100	Yes	Onyx	10	Yes	Yes
150	Yes	Onyx	lifetime	Yes	Yes

PLUS:

These are ADD-ONS that any donor can purchase regardless of donation amount

Kickstarter 1000 point Tournament	Get your Name on a Map
(different than the high donor tournament)	(limited to only 12)
$10	$275

I'm not a money guy so much, so take my input with that little grain of salt. I do think though based on my work with non-profits that you may have too many tiers. Too many choices leads to decision paralysis. (Kickstarter says that most campaigns are between 3 and 10 tiers -- I'd still say 10 is too many, but that's me...) I'd also axe the $1 one for sure and maybe other low ones -- those aren't worth administering and aren't going to get you over the hump. Maybe start at $20?

I love the "Get Your Name on a Map" idea! Is that like a name on a territory? Or is it more like "12 Domains Sponsored by Matilda the Hun"? That should be clarified. (Either way, a cool prize!) Or maybe you could have both -- a territory for one price, a whole map for another.

An exclusive Service Award medal would be cool too for the higher tiers. (Maybe that's what the "Service Award" column is? Not sure...) I know that would take coding, but this is an all-or-nothing fundraiser as you say. Presumably, you'd have the money to add that in.

I like the tournament idea too. Maybe you could set aside some of the money for a special, real-life medal to play for, like they did with the old Atari tournaments in the day. Wouldn't have to be anything fancy-fancy, just something different.

Anyway, my two cents.

-MTH