He's also one of the founders of Games Workshop, and I'd say its pretty clear what kind of money-hungry bastards that company is (seriously I'm trying to get my friends and family to get Blood Bowl LE on steam but they refuse because it still costs £30 after about a year and a half and they're not paying that much for a game thats as buggy as it is. Their business sense with TT/board games is bad enough, now they're spreading their stupidity to the games industry a little too much).

Another one I like was: back when SJ and Ian Livingstone were doing the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, Joe Dever was done writing up his first of the Lone Wolf gamebooks and was looking for a publisher. With the FF books doing well and being the same kind of thing he was working on, Dever decided to try SJ+IL.
From what I remember Dever said that the usual, "normal" percentage of money the writer gets from his books was around 20-30%, bigger more famous writers can negotiate for more, and first-time writers (like he was at the time) would usually earn around about 15%. SJ+IL offered Dever just 1% on any books he would have written, Devers response was a polite version of "Go take a fucking hike" and got himself a better deal elsewhere.

I've jumped in to board gaming pretty heavily the past 2 years, in large part because board war games are showing innovation and new ideas while computer war games are stuck in 80's UI design and NATO counters for everything. So much good stuff, so many fresh ideas.

And yeah...2-3 games a year...that's the ticket...if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to go close the board game closet. So that nobody can see my...small number of games... lol

I think you got your Steve Jacksons mixed up, we are talking about the US one, not the UK one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson

>.< DOH!!

Wiki article :

"He is often mistaken for a different Steve Jackson, a British gamebook and video game writer who co-founded Games Workshop. The confusion is exacerbated by the fact that while the UK Jackson was co-creator of the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series, the US Jackson also wrote three books in this series (Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep, and Robot Commando), and the books did not acknowledge that this was a different Steve Jackson.[1]"

I think we have a live example people :D

Anyway, too many Kickstarter projects kill the kickstarter projects... I believe people whom must have fortunes must lay out a little from kickstarter and let people with great ideas but no money have their way instead of stealing the show.
Known People are starting to abuse kickstarter, and stealing the show for young people with potential, it's all I'm saying. It's just my opinion, and this is why i'll never support someone who can just auto-fund his own project, instead of relying on others money...

lol, its not my fault... I've been awake for 2 days straight :(
Whats worse is I've already done it before...

That sounds good but I don't totally agree. I'd rather see a quality product where it is easier for people to vote with their wallet for what they want. Maybe the young people should advertise as for hire to the known people for a few years to get some experience and competence in their field before they try to create their magnum opus. That's what I would do anyway. There's a lot of work to do in those bigger projects and one person isn't going to be able to do it all.

You might want to edit that post, though, I'd hate people to think the SJ of SJG is that other asshole or has done any of that. Steve Jackson and SJG are probably nowhere perfect, but Games Workshop is a level of douchebaggery not often seen in companies that have been around that long...
I can't speak for everyone but I don't fund unknown people. Unknown people don't get funded at a very good rate on KS, they weren't funded before and I bet they're funded no worse or better now. The only difference is some of them have started asking for massive amounts of backing as well.

Steve Jackson Games was already going to print OGRE. This was a good use of KS, the buyers got to vote with our wallets in a much more efficient and effective manner exactly what we wanted and we got it.

Let me make this clear: I was buying OGRE regardless, that 100 USD wasn't ever going anywhere else, certainly not to some no-name, probably doesn't have any business sense or any other skills needed to complete a project (because they're just people, and normal people tend to not have these skills).

KS isn't some exclusive domain for "new talent", it's not a talent agency anymore than anything else has been. I've funded well over 500 USD this year on KS, but none of it has gone to the kinds of people you seem to think are getting eclipsed here. Actually, I don't think I've ever backed any of those people and if I have the total cash I've pledged was well under 30 USD (and I'm sure at least one didn't fund).

This KS only had 5000 people back it and they pledged over 900,000 USD, that's an average of 180 per pledge. Those people pledged that because they wanted OGRE, those pledges weren't going to a no-name with a good idea. I seriously doubt anyone who didn't already know what OGRE was pledged 100+ USD to get a copy.

Plus Games Workshop could not design a good tabletop game to save their lives. I mean that quite literally. Settings? Sure Warhammer/Blood Bowl are wonderful! Not terribly original but well done. Game mechanics? *Urgh* Their games seem designed by teenagers who just jot down every idea leaving someone's mouth. Broken as all Hell, as if no one has ever playtested any of their games! Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Blood Bowl being the worst offenders in this regard.

SJG were almost always pretty good at game design(some major quibbles with GURPS but they seem to have caught on and fixed some of those issues, such as the 'Health = HP' nonsense) and packaging(especially the Car Wars line).

I really wish they would give us a REAL Car Wars PC game though. Turn-based and all that...

I don't think I need to, I'd say with all the following comments, I clearly made a simple sleepy-headed mistake.

Can't agree more, I grew up on GW games since Hero Quest (out side Dungeons and Dragons - played in our own nooby style back then - and a few other boardgames) it was all my friends played. So I've never played any SJG's games. All the time, every GW game I played seemed to have rules that didn't make sense to me. The single thing I hate most though: The Tau suit designs, they look god-awful, like they came right out of a 50's B-Movie or designed by piling together a group of squares and drawing a circle where the eyes should be. I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure I drew them back when I was 5 :D

Over $100 to get the game? Yuck, since it'll be printed in China.

Even as high end board games go, this one has extremely nice stuff inside. It might be "printed" in China but tons of work goes into those pieces, and not work for Chinese factory laborers. I understand why some people would boggle at 100 USD board game since they're used to seeing Monopoly on sale at Target for 10-15 USD, but these are a whole different scale (and the volume makes a huge difference in cases like this); nice board games always cost a lot, this one isn't really out of whack on price.

Wow, this looks fucking awesome :D

I know a thing or two about BG'ing, and a RRG published German made euro has twice the quality of any chinese product, for half the cost, and the workers are.making 10x more pay at least.