The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Bob Zager on August 22, 2019, 04:24:31 PM
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Here is a link to kickstarter.com, which is helping raise money to get game, called "Half Truth," on market:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/halftruthgame/half-truth
Seeing that there is a multiple number of right/wrong answers on the question card (three right & three wrong--hence half truth), it kinda reminds of Greed.
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I'm surprised one of the stretch goals isn't to add additional levels of overcomplication to the scoring.
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So, if a Kickstarter was needed, does that mean Ken Jennings has blown through all the J! money?
JakeT
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So, if a Kickstarter was needed, does that mean Ken Jennings has blown through all the J! money?
Blown? $2.5M after taxes isn't a ton of money to go through when you live in Seattle and have a family, and it has been 15 years. Ken talks a bit about this on the "Lottery Winners" installment of his Omnibus podcast, posted a few days ago.
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So, if a Kickstarter was needed, does that mean Ken Jennings has blown through all the J! money?
Blown? $2.5M after taxes isn't a ton of money to go through when you live in Seattle and have a family, and it has been 15 years. Ken talks a bit about this on the "Lottery Winners" installment of his Omnibus podcast, posted a few days ago.
So, would you be more comfortable with the word "spent"? And does your comment mean that, yes, the J! is no more?
Btw, actually, $2.5 million after taxes IS a HUGE sum of money to most, regardless of location, family situation, etc...spent and invested wisely, it should last longer than 15 years...
And one would think he would have at least enough left over not to need a Kickstarter to launch a board game...
JakeT
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So, would you be more comfortable with the word "spent"? And does your comment mean that, yes, the J! is no more?
I'd be a lot more comfortable with you not making assumptions based solely on the use of an incredibly common method of funding board game production in 2019.
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Kickstarter doesn't have to be about his financial need, rather it can be used to justify demand for a product instead of sinking in a bunch of personal money for something that is not a success. Testing the waters if you will.
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So, would you be more comfortable with the word "spent"? And does your comment mean that, yes, the J! is no more?
I'd be a lot more comfortable with you not making assumptions based solely on the use of an incredibly common method of funding board game production in 2019.
I made no assumptions...I asked a question...
JakeT
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Is Ken's going to Kickstarter any different than someone seeking out investors for a business venture? I don't think Ken's campaign means he blew through his winnings, considering plenty of other projects with popular names attached got off the ground because of crowdfunding. The MST3K and Veronica Mars revivals come to mind. Fans funding these things is nothing new.
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So, if a Kickstarter was needed, does that mean Ken Jennings has blown through all the J! money?
Blown? $2.5M after taxes isn't a ton of money to go through when you live in Seattle and have a family, and it has been 15 years. Ken talks a bit about this on the "Lottery Winners" installment of his Omnibus podcast, posted a few days ago.
So, would you be more comfortable with the word "spent"? And does your comment mean that, yes, the J! is no more?
Btw, actually, $2.5 million after taxes IS a HUGE sum of money to most, regardless of location, family situation, etc...spent and invested wisely, it should last longer than 15 years...
$2.5M minus taxes is around $1.25M. Factor in a tithing of ~$250K and you're at about an even million. Divide that over 15 years and you're at $66K and change per year. Given the cost of living in Pugetopia (tm Travis Eberle), raising a family, and putting aside at least a portion in a retirement fund or two, I can definitely see how just through daily life that the Jeopardy money has been spent, especially since Ken said he’s technically still an employee at the company he was at in 2004 though he hasn't been in his cubicle in 15 years. It's all in the podcast mentioned earlier.
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Not for nothing but Richard Garfield ain’t hay. Between a Magic:TG, King of Tokyo and Keyforge he is a known quantity in the board game community. His reputation is worth just as much as KJ.
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The Kickstarter funding is a huge success since they hit their $10,000 goal in three hours. About a dozen years ago, Ken was the subject of University Games' Can You Beat Ken. You had to try to beat him around the board to reach the goal of $2.5 million. Ken was asked all the questions in the game. He did miss a few. One question was to complete the Volkswagen slogan "Think ____." The answer was BIG. Ken's answer was Hitler.
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His reputation is worth just as much as KJ.
If not more, since this is a board game and Richard Garfield is really successful at making board games, where Ken is successful at answering trivia questions.
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Also pointing out that Ken Jennings hasn't sat around on his ass since Nancy Zerg took him down. He appeared on J! *four* additional times, if my count is correct; each one netting him some nice consolation money, even though he wasn't ultimately victorious in any of them. He's also written books and made numerous appearances in public and on TV that I'm sure got him some appearance fees. And he's currently apart of a daily show on the air (though he doesn't appear daily).
I'd say he's probably properly invested his money and his brand for the most part over the last 15 years and ain't hurting for any cash.
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Also pointing out that Ken Jennings hasn't sat around on his ass since Nancy Zerg took him down. He appeared on J! *four* additional times, if my count is correct; each one netting him some nice consolation money, even though he wasn't ultimately victorious in any of them.
Plus $500k from Fifth Grader and $100k for each of Grand Slam and Millionaire.
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Also, who says Ken hasn't invested money into this to begin with?
I'm not on Kickstarter often enough to truly measure, but $10,000 seems like a low bar to clear, though part of that may be the sticker price.
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I'm not on Kickstarter often enough to truly measure, but $10,000 seems like a low bar to clear, though part of that may be the sticker price.
I'm guessing the phrases "Richard Garfield" and "party game" raised a couple of intrigued eyebrows, since that party game the Through The Ages guy did has done alright....
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The Kickstarter funding is a huge success since they hit their $10,000 goal in three hours. About a dozen years ago, Ken was the subject of University Games' Can You Beat Ken. You had to try to beat him around the board to reach the goal of $2.5 million. Ken was asked all the questions in the game. He did miss a few. One question was to complete the Volkswagen slogan "Think ____." The answer was BIG. Ken's answer was Hitler.
Wasn’t the VW slogan “Think SMALL”?
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Indeed, the VW motto was "Think Small." Mea culpa.
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Another possibility is if not enough pledges were made to help, it would've been a hint that not enough enthusiastic people would be out there, wanting to buy a copy of the game.
Somewhere in my belongings I have an old episode of 20/20, with the three makers of Trivial Pursuit. Chris Haney, one of the men, who has since passed away, answered the question of how they got investors with, "...We told them, if you're willing to lose money, we're going to lose it for you!"
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Tabletop games account for something crazy like 30% of *all* of Kickstarter's revenue, so it's almost expected for games to go through Kickstarter at this point. Even actual board game publishers would rather go through Kickstarter and put all the risk on the customers than sell things the "old" way.
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So, if a Kickstarter was needed, does that mean Ken Jennings has blown through all the J! money?
JakeT
Past the kickstarter explanation earlier, let's try to stay out of people's pocketbooks unless it's coming straight from the source.
I would also argue on top of Kickstarter being a common means to get people to buy board games, I would imagine that trivia games haven't exactly flown off the shelves since Trivia Pursuit in '82. Kickstarter allows for them to set a low bar and create "small batch" board games if there's low demand. That being said, they're over $100K, so for those of you that ordered, let's get these stretch goals hammered out.
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Tabletop games account for something crazy like 30% of *all* of Kickstarter's revenue, so it's almost expected for games to go through Kickstarter at this point.
Wow, that's amazing. It would've been cool if Ken offered more than one example of the questions, but then, I guess a ton of people like the one he had.
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Why give out more free content than necessary?
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Why give out more free content than necessary?
On one hand, it's no different than the sample question often seen on the back of any trivia box game. On the other, when you only have 30 days to maxamize your revenue stream, a few more questions wouldn't hurt to help hook people.
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Was lucky enough to win a signed copy on Instagram last night.
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Sorry to bump this old thread but these are finally shipping. Mine are due next Wednesday.