Warzone Kickstarter Paused

 Hi,

The big news has been that the Warzone Kickstarter has been paused as although it has successfully funded, it stalled with 20 days to go.

Here's the update from Alex:

Hey everyone,

A third of the way into the campaign is a good time to look at what has been accomplished thus far and where it looks like things are headed.  And, unfortunately, the road ahead does not look particularly smooth.  Most Kickstarter campaigns experience a lull after the initial excitement around the launch date, so a slow down was expected, but we've very nearly stalled and the trend is not promising.  It is abundantly clear that I have miscalculated what the Mutant Chronicles/Warzone community is looking for in a relaunch of Warzone.  And in looking at other recently completed miniatures game Kickstarters, it doesn't look like the long-reliable tail end funding bump to a campaign is anything to presume.

So, I have decided to cancel this campaign immediately, and after discussing this decision with our Licensor, Heroic Signatures, they agreed.  I've learned a massive amount in the run-up to this campaign, and during these first 10 days, and have a far clearer idea of what a relaunch of Warzone requires to be successful.  The form this takes, whether simply as a revised Kickstarter relaunch or something completely different, will be the subject of significant internal conversations in the short term and a continued commitment to this property in the long term.

Below I've tried to offer some more context for this decision and preemptively answer some likely, and reasonable, questions.

But you hit your funding goal!

We did, and we want to thank everyone who jumped on board with the project right away.  Those first 24 hrs were absolutely exhilarating and suggested a momentum for this campaign that left us highly optimistic. But it's no closely guarded secret that Kickstarter funding goals rarely reflect the full total necessary to make a campaign a success.  It's a gamble that unfortunately has become a part of working through Kickstarter.

But what does "success" mean for Warzone Eternal?  I can promise you it's not massive profits for Res Nova - miniatures games are a poor bet for folks interested in getting rich.  No, what "success" meant was a campaign that hit funding goals that not only ensured that the funded products could be manufactured and fulfilled in a timely manner, but also provided the necessary capital to cover at least a portion of the production costs for the next wave of miniatures releases.  Unlike a board game, miniatures games require a steady infusion of new releases in order to sustain the interest of the gaming community and retailers. Because, yes, retail was absolutely a future plan.

Warzone has gone through previous periods of sparse release schedules and unreliable distribution to the game's detriment, and we have no intention of creating another version of those issues, further damaging the property or contributing to the idea of a "Warzone Curse" (a nonsense idea anyways). This isn't some "White Knight" excuse - I didn't pursue the opportunity to bring this game back simply to leverage a passionate fanbase for a quick buck; I did it because I love this universe and wanted to enable far more opportunities for people, including myself, to play in it.

Why were the unit boxes so expensive?

We’ve heard from plenty of you that the price of the unit boxes were a turn-off. As any Warzone veteran knows, this property, at maturity, consists of dozens of unique units, resulting in a massive catalog of products.  Given our desire to eventually get into retail, as noted above, this meant the future prospect of retailers having to devote significant wallspace to our game (to reiterate, we've been focused on the long game from the beginning).  For only a handful of the largest gaming properties is a retailer able to do that.

But by producing sets of models that contained the components to build all variations on two different unit types, we could drastically reduce product count.  This would also allow gamers to assemble models the way they wanted, from a far greater variety of components.  Unfortunately this also meant unit boxes with 40+ components, on average.  Even leveraging a reasonably priced material like Siocast, the sheer complexity of these boxes and the number of molds required to produce each established a hefty production cost.

Additionally, modular sets like these impose limitations on how the models can be posed that are not faced by single piece models (or multi-part models that can only be built one way).  The very positive reception for the Mortificator we showed for Unlock #4 suggests that the dynamism offered by single piece models is far more compelling to this community than the utility offered by variable build kits. To shift in this direction takes more effort than can be accomplished by a simple pivot of the current campaign.

You should have had fully painted miniatures/full render images/ . . .

You're right, we should have.  There were a litany of false starts, production partnerships that never materialised as promised, and other trials and errors that put our project behind schedule - as many folks vocally reminded us.  So I was adamant that we stick with our plans for a Spring Kickstarter and planned that the outstanding components of our Kickstarter page would arrive just in time, or would work as good update material as the campaign progressed.

These were bad decisions on my part.  The former didn't happen because life is complicated and things rarely happen as smoothly as desired.  And the latter plan backfired as backers aren't interested in seeing updates that introduce information that should have been on the campaign page from the start. There’s no question that a campaign needs to be immediately compelling to interested backers in the first 48 hours of its launch, and any amount of scrambling to address deficiencies after the fact are unlikely to ever re-engage lost supporters.

It's also abundantly clear that a line of stretch goals is an expected feature for Kickstarter backers. Choosing to launch without them, regardless of how clearly I wanted to communicate that we were focused on a tight campaign intended to deliver as quickly as possible, was a regrettable and naive decision.

So what does this mean for Warzone Eternal?

It means we take down the current campaign and look to retool it, as well as certain aspects of the miniatures line, so that it hits what we think backers want.  Many of you have commented or messaged us with suggestions, things you wanted to see, or things that were lacking in our offering.  We appreciate that feedback and want more of it!  Please take the time to fill out this survey so that we can learn from the mistakes we made and hopefully remedy them in our future endeavours.

I still firmly believe in this project. Bryan has succeeded in creating a game that's a blast to play (you all should go pick up a copy of any of his other works - the man does good stuff) and we have a really good team passionate about getting that game into your hands. This was not a flippant decision, but one that I think is in the best interest of the property and Warzone Eternal.  Once again, I truly appreciate the support you've offered to this point.  Your pledges have been a vote of confidence in the approach we've taken and I look forward to the chance to deliver on that.

Regards,

Alex / Res Nova Games

While I am saddened to see the campaign being paused, I am absolutely convinced that Alex is the right person for the Warzone license and his passion as well as sense has stood out clearly in every stage of the process and each time I've spoken to him I always find myself reassured that Warzone is not only in the right hands but will make a comeback and be a successful game!

This may take a bit longer than I'd hoped but I've waited over twenty years since first edition, I'm sure I can wait a bit longer to get the game that we've seen starting to form over on the Facebook page and Bryan's Youtube channel.

What does it mean for this blog? I could pause it too but I think I'm going to start updating it regularly with guides to the factions, units and personalities in the Mutant Chronicles universe as well as delving into 1st edition as it was such a large part of my youth and still holds together remarkably well. Also as Alex is basing Warzone Eternal around this, I hope it will give folks something to peruse that may interest them into trying out Warzone once it releases in the future.

I also plan on putting together some modelling articles to chart my attempts at making some Warzone centric battlegrounds, be it the Dough Pits of Mars, the steaming jungles of Venus or the subterranean warrens of Mercury, I want to really dig into terrain making to allow me to play some really characterful games once Warzone Eternal eventually launches!

I'll post my first article in the next day or two but until then, All the best!