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Slaughterball Cancled – Don’t Blame the Others!

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Slaughterball Kickstarter

The Slaughterball Kickstarter has been stagnating for a while, now the project was canceled and is looking to re-launch later this year.

#1 – Slaughterball Canceled

The official cancellation message from Kickstarter…

A new plan…

Over the past couple of weeks many of you great Slaughterball fans have been posting and messaging great ideas to help us get our game to production (in addition to pledging your hard-earned cash!)

I would never claim to be an expert at marketing or Kickstarter management, so I have greatly appreciated the suggestions and advice.

Additionally, it seems we chose poorly when setting the date for this Kickstarter, considering that two other sports games popped up at the same time. Being an unknown, tiny, new business, it’s hard for us to compete against big companies with actual employees, established communities, business contacts, lots of funding, and industry cred.

So, we’ve decided to end this Kickstarter project and relaunch within a few months.

We’d like to thank all of you for your support. Especially those of you who consistently posted positive and helpful comments here and on forums, blogs, and other places all over the internet. Your efforts have helped spread the word about this game and we really appreciate it!

Emphasis mine.

#2 – Thoughts?

One thing I have to say is, the backers and fans behind Slaughterball are easily the most dedicated bunch of people I’ve ever saw on a Kickstarter-campaign.

When I wrote my DreadBall vs. Guild Ball article, I ended up with a mass of emails and comments asking me to give Slaughterball it’s fair share of coverage.

That said, taking the “easy excuse” and blame the lack on funding on marketing and the competition from Mantic Games doesn’t sound like the makers are taking the hard look at the game itself, to see what is currently still lacking.

Guild Ball equally had to start from nothing, launched their Kickstarter on February 20th, and funded in less than 24 hours.

The DreadBall Kickstarter launched on February 21st.

The Slaughterball Kickstarter launched on February 4th.

Other, more recent Sports Game Miniatures-campaigns, like Hand of Death, aren’t doing too bad, even with the handicap of running on Indiegogo, and not on Kickstarter.

Slaughterball

Slaughterball was in the doldrums, weeks before DreadBall Xtreme or Guild Ball (who funded in 24h, remember) where on the radar.

It is great to have fans as enthusiastic as Slaughterball, but the game (and it’s fans) are doing it a disservice, by blaming DreadBall or Guild Ball or the “timing” of their Kickstarter campaign. The problems must be more intrinsic to Slaughterball itself.

If they fall for the comforting false conclusion that the “others” are to blame, and its not the game itself that needs some work (and by that, I don’t mean the marketing part), I fear Slaughterball will struggle again.

Let me know what you think!

Z.

Zweischneid

Zweischneid

I am Zweischneid. Wargame Addict. Hopeless painter and founder of Pins of War. I hope you enjoyed this article. Don't forget to share your favourite miniature pictures and wargaming videos at www.pinsofwar.net.
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  • Denny Crane

    I am one of the guys who messaged you concerning the GB VS DB article.
    But even as I prefer SB before DB (which I also own), I agree with your conclussion.
    Dreadball defintly didnt help, but the SB could never use the time advantace of nearly 2 weeks.
    None pre-advertising via fb (Teaserpictures, Fluff etc) and the shipping costs were giving a hard start.
    As this will be different with the 2nd attempt, I am quite confident, that we will see a great SB KS-campagen 2.0

    Whoever is interested, sign in for the newsletter ( http://www.slaughterball.net/newsletter/ ) and you will see, if Frog-Games does it better this time

    • Peer

      Yeah, I think too that the Pledge Levels have been the problem, but I am sure this will be sorted out with the next KS. There will be more levels, more value and more money for the project. It will fund.

  • DAJ1974

    IMO it had nothing to do with the the other two, as you said it was struggling before them turned up.. also guildball is not a massive company. its a tiny KS that only needed £50 to get the game. All the problems came from the pledge lvls imo. to get the game with goals to the UK was over 200$ .. simply never going to happen. also delivery on sept? again did not seem possible considering discussion were (according to the comments) still on going about product and shipping. nice looking game but needed way my planning and thought around goals, cost, and delivery

    • Denny Crane

      Your calculation are not right tbh.
      Over 200$ was the initial numbers.
      But this is already outdated.
      But while the KS was life the shipping was drasticly reduced.
      With a normal All inclusive pledge (without EB bonus) you would have to back 170$ at the end.

      • DAJ1974

        true it did come down and it ws 200$ to start with as i even messaged the guys if that was really true. .. but it should have all been sorted from the start .. it turned a lot of euro backers off and they never went back.. me being one of them

        • Denny Crane

          Jup, the initial shipping gave the KS a bad first impression…..and I also heard quite often the phrase “Slaughterball?…is this the game with the high shipping?”, although already reduced prices AND EU-shipment were announced.
          So a restart with fair shipping costs from the beginning might work faaar better.

          • DAJ1974

            reduced shipping is good .. but also the pledge levels need to be addressed .. razor was a good price. BUT you have to pledge an extra 50$ to get any goals .. that was a massive issue also that wasnt sorted.. hope it funds as it is different .. but not 150$ plus shipping different .

  • gamer

    this all GW’s fault those greedy swine!!! lol jk honestly though. this was a small little company it really doesn’t surprise me they held off. I must ask and I feel I might get a bit of a rebuke here but what makes Slaughterball so different from the other two “ball games”? (that wasn’t meant to sound dirty lol)

    • Denny Crane

      I did a longer article about the things I like about that game.
      But its in german on another blog.
      Dont know if its ok to send that link….
      i also did a english translation, but this translation never experienced any fine tuning :-/

    • DAJ1974

      watch ryan metzlers preview on youtube gives a good overview. . price/shipping were a massive problem. For me it was a bit different but still a sports game ala blood bowl etc. thing is you could get dreadball season 1(only £40 new), a 2nd hand bloodbowl and back the guildball KS for the price of this shipped to the uk.

      if they reboot the KS with price/shipping sorted properly it will fund .. as Archied said people are really clued in on KS now and what they get for their ££. the 150$ pledge lvl to get any goals was real problem as it looked like it might only just fund which meant you would get nothing.. you could end up getting the game for $90 or $150 with no goals if it just funded. how annoyed would you have been if you were in for the 150$ hoping to get some goodies . only to find out you paid $60 more than others for the same thing.

      • archied

        This is a big part of what turns me off the whole shebang actually. I was initially very interested in the AvP kickstarter until when i looked closely most of the ‘stretch goals’ were unlocking purchase upgrades.
        “Hey guys! If loads of you support us with cash, guess what!? We’ll let you spend MORE cash! Great huh!?”

        I think companies need to stop treating it as a way to pre-fund projects which they incentivise with exclusives that you still have to actually pay for or pledge at a certain level to get.
        I’d be much more inclined to pledge towards a game offering 2 or 3 exclusive minis for free if they go way over their goal than one offering 2 or 3 dozen exclusive minis that i have to pay extra for or pledge above the basic amount to actually just buy the game to get.

        Thats my 2 pence worth anyway.

        • DAJ1974

          totally agree. i was pumped for the AVP KS as well . then every goal was give us another $10 .. PASS . ive backed a few ZC2, Krosmaster Arena and Myth . they gave LOADS away with no extra cash other than the core game pledge .. Myth went bonkers with free extra stuff in the end as did ZC2. Im really looking forward to the KS coming soon from the guys that did Myth (Mercs Recon) if myth is anything to go by it will be ace and not have every goal as something i have to pay for

  • archied

    Is it possible that folks on kickstarter are just getting a bit pickier and are a bit more discerning with their cash now?
    Might Slaughterball have succeeded say, a year ago? Even with an identical pitch?
    Just a thought.

    Personally i’ve not jumped on the kickstarter bandwagon yet, i’ve found a few campaigns tempting, but not so tempting that i wasnt happy to just wait and buy the finished product at some point when its released.
    I do know a few guys who really love kickstarting things but the problem then becomes actually making any use of it all. One of them received a big box of a game (i forget what he said it was) recently that he’d completely forgotten all about, he opened it and looked at it, and its sat in the box untouched since then.