Backed Oklahoma Boomers

I backed a German crowd-funding project to get a sense of what international backers and first-time Kickstarter users feel.

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Countdown: 91 Days. I backed the game Oklahoma Boomers on a German crowd-funding site to give me a sense of what international Kickstarter backers feel. (I saw a banner ad on BoardGameGeek for it, and I graduated from a university in Oklahoma whose fight song is “Boomer Sooner.” I was intrigued.) It’s been a couple of days, and it has been interesting so far. In addition to feeling what international backers feels, I think I’m feeling a bit what first-time Kickstarter users feel when they sign up for a Kickstarter account to back a specific project. Here are two observations so far:

• I didn’t know what I was agreeing to pay. The price was 25 Euros, but I didn’t know how much that was. The shipping wasn’t clear to me. I ended up paying $35 through PayPal, and I paid that immediately. (That’s different than Kickstarter, so I was surprised.) I looked around after backing to discover that shipping was $15 (or was it 15 Euros?) and will be billed separately after the campaign funds.

• I don’t know what this site is about. The site is called “Spiele Offensive.” I recognize the German word “spiele” as “game,” but I’m not sure what “offensive” means. I got an email in German shortly after I backed that seemed like an update on the campaign. Then two days later I got another email with artwork for what must be another game. It was really jarring, and I’m a little concerned I backed the wrong game or did something else entirely. I suspect this is how a new Kickstarter user who joins to back a specific project feels when they get general emails from Kickstarter unrelated to that project.

As a project creator, it’s easy to take for granted that your backers all understand how Kickstarter works. That is simply not the case, and it is really important to remember that during a project. Oklahoma Boomers is really close to funding, so hopefully I’ll get to keep following the process and sharing my observations as the project moves into production and fulfillment.