We spoke to Ares Games Production and R&D Director Roberto Di Meglio about the impact of Kickstarter on retail sales, and how it decides when to use Kickstarter, and when not.

What are you seeing on the Kickstarter games in terms of interest from retailers?  Do you feel the Kickstarter helps or takes some of the sales that otherwise would have gone through stores?
There was a very good, positive reaction when the games were launched into the stores after the Kickstarter.  We made two Kicksarters: one for Sails of Glory and one for Galaxy Defenders.  In both cases, we immediately sold out the retailer level production, and both are being reprinted.  There seems to be very good demand.

Overall I would say that the balance between a limited number of copies taken out of the stores’ circulation for the Kickstarter against the fact that you actually get hundreds or thousands of real promoters for the game seems to be really positive, at least within the scope of the Kickstarters that we did.  Retailers want players who are enthusiastic about the game that will bring the game out to be known to more players.

When do you use Kickstarter?
We don’t want to use Kickstarters for all of our games.  Battle of Five Armies was not Kickstarted. We think if a game is already strong enough in terms of its selling points (Battle of Five Armies is part of an important and established line and is already based on an important IP, The Hobbit), Kickstarting it would not really help in marketing the game, so the Kickstarter would be just for the Kickstarter’s sake. 

For games that need a little bit of promotion, need a little bit of exposure, like Galaxy Defenders, a game that was new and very costly to create, it’s a kind of bet that the company, which is not a huge company, has trouble taking on an unknown game, unknown IP.  Spending tens of thousands of dollars on artwork, sculptures and molds is a very high risk proposition which Kickstarter allows us reduce the risk, get the game on the market and get the game on the market with an audience that has been already established which is ready to let the game be known.   

When you use it wisely, Kickstarter is a good thing for business.