by wgerken
jonahmaul wrote:
However, Guillotine posted a preview of the new survivor for Toxic City Mall on FB and I cheekily asked whether the Kickstarter promo characters were going to be available somehow in the UK (they are not Kickstarter only, they have said that limited numbers would be sold at conventions too) and they said they would be making an announcement in 2013 so there is a chance that these will be more widely available if you have to have the 'proper' miniatures.
Thanks for sharing this. In my opinion, "Kickstarter exclusives" are bad long term business decisions and I'm glad to hear that Guillotine may be following the trend of being smart in these matters.
More to the point, an exclusive is smart business at the initial time it is offered. It is helping the business goals at present and raising money on Kickstarter. I'm 100% for them.
However, as time passes, if the game is a hit, these exclusives become high in demand selling for absurd prices on the secondary market. This is bad business. For example, like myself, I'm frustrated that I don't have the extra character miniatures. I'm being "punished" for simply finding out about a game after the Kickstarter campaign. Sure I could buy them at an absurd price on eBay but in the end it's all a negative experience for me (frustration followed by buyer's remorse of "I can't believe I spend $300 to buy some silly pieces of plastic").
In summary, bad long term business as my disappointment shifts to annoyance and disappointment with Guillotine games for "punishing me". This is why more and more game companies are getting smart about their exclusives. For example, may companies sell variations on their exclusives independently now or at cons. For a miniature, you can change the pose if you have the budget to do so, or if you don't, you can change the color. For cards, you can change the art or background.
This is happening more and more and it's smart business. The company holds true to their exclusive promise as the unique item remains unique. A near, but not exact, duplicate then becomes available to us punished folks and we sing the praise of the game company. In addition, the development that went into the exclusive can now be fully realized rather than lost and not a part of the greater whole.
Despite what has been said about exclusivity, I'm confident Guillotine will figure out how to maneuver these waters and maintain exclusivity, yet still offer these items in a slightly different way to give the people without what they want without fully breaking the exclusivity.