Deadzone and Kickstarter progress

Mantic Games have another Kickstarter up and running, this time for Sci-Fi skirmish game Deadzone. I think you could say it has been quite popular, in the sense that press coverage of Margaret Thatcher following her death was quite generous. The campaign hit it's initial (admittedly quite modest) target within thirty minutes and raised more money in a day than the Dreadball Kickstarter managed in a week. At the time of writing, its at $242,000 and climbing. If things continue at this pace, Mantic are on course to raise potentially millions.

I have thrown money at both the previous Mantic Kickstarters, but in both cases I left it quite late, waiting until the freebies built up until the bundle got too big to ignore. This time, though I got in early chucking in $150 and nabbing the Strike Team reward level.

I did this because I know how Mantic handles a Kickstarter. On the face of it, the initial rewards aren't particularly impressive. The basic level gets you a single starter set of 6 models, including one big one for $40 or about £25. The level I pledged gets me all four starter sets, plus scenery, board, rules, counters etc. All pretty reasonable, but hardly spectacular when you consider how much Games Workshop puts in its starter sets these days.

But as fund have grown, stretch goals have been achieved and with each stretch goal achieved more models get added to the rewards. My reward has gained 17 models and a scenery sprue. It's quite nice having pledged to sit back and accumulate more stuff because other people are pledging.

I wonder how many contributors are in the same place as me. Having watched passed Kickstarters unfold, they aren't wasting any time with this one and getting in early. It would explain the surge of activity. The question is whether this Kickstarter will generate significantly more money than the last two, or whether the funding will be biased towards the start of the campaign. The steady flow of stretch goals should help to attract attention, but there is a theoretical limit to the number of people interested in the game and with the money to spare pledging.

I will watch this one with interest, and not only because I stand to get a lot of models out of it.