Matagot on Kickstarter

This text was posted on Facebook in May 5, 2021, at the time we were starting to use Kickstarter for our first project, Kemet. Thoses statements remains true to our hearts.

Hello everyone,

As some of you might already know, Matagot is launching in 2020 its very first Kickstarter campaign with Kemet: Blood and Sand.

We are a small and independent publisher that has been bringing games to life and to retail for the past 15 years, we would like to give you more info about us going onto Kickstarter for the first time for this Kemet project. So… it’ time to get a glimpse into the Matagot team’s mind.

If you are willing to read it, you will find below all the reasons that led us to Kickstarter!

But long story short, we are willing on starting a new adventure, for a game we love.

Mainly because Kickstarter has 3 main advantages: less risk for Matagot, more bang for our gamer’s bucks, and a direct link with our community!

Why going on Kickstarter?

1. To connect better with our community

First step to the story of Kemet Blood and Sand was the co-design of version 1.5 with the gamers community that started on Board Game Geek. Kemet fans reacted beyond our expectations, and it was such a pleasure to truly and directly reconnect with Matagot’ games fans.

We considered various options to go even further with this direct relationship.Kickstarter is a great way to achieve this goal. The way projects are built, the updates and the capacity to get attention is in our opinion unrivaled. For example, we will prepare stretch goals, and when it makes sense alter through the campaign.Whenever possible, we'll provide feedback on why we did or did not change something during the campaign.

We need you to help give a soul to our games and to support new projects like the new version of Kemet.

2. To offer true perks to our backers who support us and the project

Kickstarter projects provide large and important advantages for our backers:

- Improved game components and content thanks to stretch goals. This will allow us to be offer more and higher quality components, or even sometimes full expansions!

- Worldwide accessibility will be insured. We cannot guarantee that we’ll have Retail partners, but we can ship to gamers everywhere on earth.

- Discounted prices compared to the recommended retail price. The savings will be depending on the market and success of each game, but backers will for sure have a head start.

3. To remain independent and still be able to finance the projects we love

Of course, KickStarter is a “direct” way to measure the interest in our projects and finance the game development costs. This is actually helpful for several cases:

- Epic and large games: Creating, developing, selling, and manufacturing represents an important investment. It takes time, people, and money to work on something new: having ideas, playtesting the game again and again, adjusting the rules, trying and manufacturing quality prototypes… The larger the Game the higher the risk for us. Some of our project are very large, that is the case of Kemet Blood and Sand our first Kickstarter.

- Boutique games: Over time, the retail market has evolved and now revolves more towards “Sure Hits” and “Novelty”. Some other projects have a much smaller audience. Yet those can be jewels of game design that we consider brilliant, that we love and think worthy of publishing even if financially it is not sound. In the past, that has been the case for games and some of them even did well, but most were produced at a loss.

- Out of print classic games: Some of our games are out of stock but there is not enough retail demand for a reprint in current or revamped version and we cannot estimate demand.

- Localized versions of games & expansions: Some of our games, even global hits could not find local distribution support everywhere. Sometimes the game support was discontinued and expansions were not translated. This is the case for Seasons of Inis (Inis expansion) in German for example. While we get regular messages from gamers, we simply cannot properly estimate demand.

Those are cases where we will choose to use Kickstarter. To develop this first project, and if things go well, many others in the near future, on KickStarter. It allows us to bring a game we care about and worked hard on to life. It allows us to offer games to gamers even though they would not fit well in the shops. It allows us to keep on working with passion on projects that have an important spot in our hearts!

This also means that some projects will fail to fund and that is good! If there is not much demand, we should not produce those games.

Why this Kickstarter NOW?

1. To enter a new adventure with a passionate team

Here, at Matagot, we are always willing to take up a new challenge! Kickstarter will be a new adventure for all of our team, and to be true, we are really exciting to get started!

We are launching our first Kickstarter campaign with Kemet, a game we love.

2. Because even though it’s new, we feel ready for this challenge

It being our first experience on Kickstarter for us, we want to do this the right way by being as transparent as possible. It's simply the continuity of what we have been doing so far, listening and sharing with the community to bring you the best games possible. With your feedback and also through our development work, we might change a few things along the way. It may be components, gameplay, packaging or even artwork. We will show you our progress before launching the campaign and may even consider new products development as some point.

Of course, because we cannot please everybody we will get the final decision and make some unhappy. We will do our best to take in consideration every positive feedback we will get from you. So, join us into this new adventure because we won’t do this on our own!

Why going on Kickstarter now for Kemet?

1. An epic XL game that symbolizes and represents perfectly the Matagot touch

Since it was released in 2012, Kemet has been one of the board gaming community’s favorite. While working on the 1.5 version with the community, we felt so happy! We had been already working on the new revised edition and version 1.5 was a test to see if you were still interested in this amazing game! Let’s now move on to Kemet 2.0 with Blood and Sand!

2. Make a big game affordable and largely accessible to gamers around the world

Kemet: Blood and Sand, just like Kemet, has a lot of components but will remain affordable. The Kickstarter edition of Kemet Blood and Sand price wise is expected to be a bit higher than the first version of the game but not massively different. This also means that while bigger the new miniatures won’t be humongous.

The Kickstarter campaign allow all Kemet fans to be part of the final game design. This will also mean that Matagot’ games lovers, will be able to get their hands on the game, not depending on any distribution partners.

3. Offer an upgrade kit

When the Kemet V1.5 adventure started, we got many requests for the revised rulebooks printed in a professional manner. Thanks to Kickstarter we’ll be able to measure demand for this upgrade Kit.

The Kit will contain revised tiles and Divine Intervention cards to adapt your copy to the new V2.0 gameplay. This way, your copy of Kemet, and most of its components remain fully valid and provide the best gameplay. While a few features will not be possible to replicate, we estimate that over 90% of the 2.0 gameplay will be offered by this upgrade kit while maintaining the previous art style.

What are we not going to do on KickStarter?

1. No Kickstarter exclusive

We won’t do any Kickstarter exclusive components. Supporting the Kickstarter campaign is the way to be sure to get the game, with all the stretch goals unlocked. But while stocks last, those who don’t want to support the project on Kickstarter will be able to get the game with all its components later.

2. No endless flow of stretch goals

We want our games to remain an accessible game for everyone to enjoy. It means mainly a limited quantity of components and an approachable price. This is why we do not want to offer an “infinite” quantity of stretch goals. We’ll definitely adapt those during the campaign, but we will stop creating content at some point.

3. No fairy tales stretch goals

We will also not promise to create content that we have no clue how to make during the campaign. If we take on a new challenge during the campaign it will be because we are very confident that we can deliver it.

4. No guarantee that backers will have the game before anyone else

Our goal is to have backers get the game first before it hits retails shelves in their Region. But, we do not want to promise and not deliver. There will be such exceptions such as important game shows that we’ll use to promote the game if we can. Also international dispatching is expensive and complex and some regions and languages will available at different times. All of those reasons can create distortion of several months, and we want to be transparent right from the start.

Here are all the reasons why Matagot will soon be launching its Kickstarter campaign with Kemet: Blood and Sand. It’s our first, but we will do our best to meet your expectations and work together with you to come up with the best version of Kemet!

We really hope you will follow this grand adventure by our side, as we will keep you posted on what’s going on into the Matagot team.

For Kemet, it’s all moving forward, as we have already started to work on a lot of different things. And we can’t wait to show them to you!

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