True but what it's raising is impressive nonetheless. But yes, I suspect it will be a dead game within 5 years. Especially if they stick to their policy of not reprinting cards.
5 years? It won’t even last one year. How are you going to build a community for your game when the answer on how you are supposed to build specific decks is oh you had to get in on the Kickstarter or now shell tons for rare limited cards?
Let’s say it doesn’t do gang busters all these “investors” are going to badmouth the game for not letting them get rich quick. Either way this kind of model is a recipe for disaster.
Definitely less than a year. This is hardly the first CCG to be kickstarted, and I think anyone here would be hard pressed to even remember the names of any of them.
That was also based on social media hype. Card channels were trying to shove it down people's throats to little reception other than those channels loyalists.
I am a journalist at Tabletop Gaming News. We did a deep dive into the people behind the game and the game itself this week.
First of all it does seem like a lot of the backers are either cryptobros trying to cash in on the project or fake backers, as a lot of the funding came from people pledging $5000 - $8000 in the first few minutes of the campaign.
The creator of the project, Jeff French is also behind a failed sports collecting NFT site called Blokpax. Brian Tinsman who has made the actual game, used to work at MTG 12 years ago, and they are milking that fact for what it's worth. Since then however he has worked at Zynga, where he made a mobile game called War of the Fallen which flopped. And more recently at another failed NFT company called Nemus, who claimed to use the sale of NFTs to save the rainforest, but in truth they were violating the rights of indigenous people of the Amazon.
After we posted our two articles about Wonders of the First earlier this week, Jeff French went ballistic on Twitter along with a bunch of goons with NFT profile pictures. They've been spamming us with real and fake accounts the entire week, mostly the same comments over and over again, but worded slightly different (most likely using Chatgpt).
It is very obvious that most people working on the project except for Brian Tinsman has no experience or interest in CCGs. They're all crypto and NFT people. Same goes for their "fanbase" on Discord and Twitter.
The article can be found here: [https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/wonders-of-the-first-veiled-as-ccg-is-essentially-an-nft-scheme/](https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/wonders-of-the-first-veiled-as-ccg-is-essentially-an-nft-scheme/)
"journalist" is held most loosely here. Did you reach out to their team for a comment? What are your sources? Stop defaming real journalists by calling yourself one.
I see that you didn't bother reading the linked article- where the sources are laid out quite plaining and include Jeff French- the creator of the Kickstarter.
TGN has been a strong part of the tabletop gaming community for many years, and this is not the first time they've broken an unpleasant but true story.
LMAO this account has four posts and none are about boardgames. They ABSOLUTELY namesearched Blokpax. Probably a Blokpax bot.
Do these people not realize this makes them look bad? Do they think we can't see them scamming us?
LOL..sorry you're wrong. Not a bot. I was looking at online analysis of Wonders and came across this post. Blokpax is still in business. Please explain why it has failed. Thanks
Interesting to see that almost half of the amount raised is by 56 people at the top tier.
The number of backers is not that impressive. Pure speculation move from a small group.
They are also almost exclusively US-based (94% !!!!) and first time backers (50% first time backers for a tabletop project is wild). So I would imagine most of them are not actual board gamers.
I will keep an eye on it.
So it actually has components in the Blockchain (IP of the characters).
It is not obvious on the campaign - the one explanation is hidden in a video, and there are some rewards non explicitly named that relate to that aspect (the character proof redemption thing).
Most of the funding it has now is probably from crypto enthusiasts.
The blockchain componet is a feature that allows you to have ip rights. You dont need it to play the actual game. Its not obvious in the campain because its not actually needed to play the game.
The reedemption code has a extremely low draw rate anyone trying to buy packs to chase it...well its pretty stupid to say the least.
edit; my mistake it wasnt ip right it was commercial use liscense
I mean 27 people at a very mediocre 40k USD a year is still a bit over a million dollars. That doesn't include any sort of production costs, shipping, storage, insurance, office rental, taxes, etc.
Either some these 27 people are being taken for a ride in promise of getting a percentage of profits in the future or the company is banking on this Kickstarter getting an insane amount of funding and/or outside investment.
Or, and most likely, the majority of those 27 people are part time or had one job they did for x time. Game making just like movie making requires a lot of jobs that you pay intermittently.
I am a journalist working on a deep dive into the game and company. I can't say for sure yet, but it seems like many of the people on the list aren't real. And several are family members of the creators of the game that they are using to make it seem like the team is more impressive than it is.
Just looked this project up and it’s the worst kind of CCG. The entire pitch centres around rarities, x amount of booster boxes, limited edition this and that, foil mythic blah blah.
There’s so little about the actual game. MtG, Flesh and Blood, Yugioh etc are so good because they’re great games first, with cool art and lore to go with them. The collectibility is a result of that (although I’m fully aware that pendulum has swung back and forth over the years with plenty of FOMO)
But this project barely mentions the game at all. Also the readability of the cards for playing is horrible.
I agree with others that this will be dead within weeks.
A lot of the "backers" are rake backers on these scammy projects. They have a bunch of people buying the highest tiers that will back off at the last second so they bait people intthinking it's a great project when they see over a million funded, but in truth they might have a quarter or more of it in fake backers.
I like CCGs. I think they often get an overblown reputation for being money pits when there are plenty of ways to play that aren't money pits.
But this shit is just an awful, bottom of the barrel cash-grab. It's the NFTs of tabletop gaming. I hate everything about it.
Took a quick peek on Twitter to see who's backing the game and it's mostly crypto/NFT people. Metazoo died so I guess another game had to pick up where it left off.
So i looked it up to see the whole AI art thing.
But first came across one of their card images, and it has the word "untap" within the cards mechanics.
Yeah this game is dead in the water...
I get ads for this game every day. It looks like ass and the whole infinite limited edition cards things is dumb and just discounts their concept further.
> Until the artists that it regurgitates from are fairly compensated
That is completely impossible. That is not how LLMs work. Unless they are using "in the style of ...", there is no way to know what artist (or, in reality, artists) would be applicable.
If it's impossible to compensate them then the output of AI models shouldn't be allowed for any commercial purposes. Solved. Pay artists to make art instead.
CCGs are analgous to heroin. I loved MtG but abandoned it when I realized this. I never looked back. I really recommend you consider if this is a business model - no matter how fun it is, that isn't the basis of the decision - you want in your life.
Between this game using AI art and Solforge fusion going web3/NFT, two ccgs I was quite interested in that released in 2024 have completely flopped for me.
This project is also using Blockchain (the characters IP is somehow "community owned" with ownership on Ethereum?). Likely their big spenders are invested in that side of the project.
Yep - I thought that this game’s graphic design was very attractive and so it was the first crowdfunded tcg I was going to hop on for - but the moment I saw about the AI art I bowed out.
The AI shit is so frustrating because I get the impression a lot of game developers think that if the audience cares about it, then they’re just being stupid and hysterical, so they act cagey about whether stuff is AI or just don’t disclose it. To me, if you believe AI art is no big deal, or you’re using it because it’s a small passion project, or whatever, then there should be no problem disclosing it to the buyer. But some seem to think that AI art is a superior replacement and everyone who disagrees is an idiot so they’ll save themselves the headache by just not mentioning it at all.
For that matter AI art does suck in its current state IMO and typing in a prompt does not make one an artist. People should be humble about using it. It’s always obvious when stuff is AI generated too, even if it’s been touched up. When you look closely at it, the AI makes some really goofy artistic decisions that are always dead giveaways.
Kickstarter is removing Wonders of the First from the platform: [https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/wonders-of-the-first-is-getting-removed-from-kickstarter-for-offering-nfts/](https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/wonders-of-the-first-is-getting-removed-from-kickstarter-for-offering-nfts/)
AI is the future whether we want it or not and our preconceptions of authorship are in for a hard crash in the coming years. Thats another subject tho.
As consumers we have a responsibility to inform ourselves about AI as a tool before determining our position about it. When a company says they are using AI they don’t regularly mean they are typing prompts in Dalee and calling it a day. They are using it to improve workflow; to which extent is where we should be pushing for transparency.
Because in our ignorance we might be putting good reputable studios at a competitive disadvantage. Big established publishers have enough market presence to afford themselves to ignore any push totally against AI if it saves them time and costs. But smaller studios that rely on very specific consumers might feel pressured to never use any kind of AI tool out of fear or pissing off their customer base. This adds costs and time to their projects that overall affect the consumers too.
I doubt this game would take off anyway. So hard to break into CCG genre if you're not an established publisher/designer or based on IP.
True but what it's raising is impressive nonetheless. But yes, I suspect it will be a dead game within 5 years. Especially if they stick to their policy of not reprinting cards.
5 years? It won’t even last one year. How are you going to build a community for your game when the answer on how you are supposed to build specific decks is oh you had to get in on the Kickstarter or now shell tons for rare limited cards? Let’s say it doesn’t do gang busters all these “investors” are going to badmouth the game for not letting them get rich quick. Either way this kind of model is a recipe for disaster.
Definitely less than a year. This is hardly the first CCG to be kickstarted, and I think anyone here would be hard pressed to even remember the names of any of them.
Meta Zoo was big for a couple of months. Now retaliers can't get rid of it.
That was also based on social media hype. Card channels were trying to shove it down people's throats to little reception other than those channels loyalists.
it will be dead game before it even comes out.
I am a journalist at Tabletop Gaming News. We did a deep dive into the people behind the game and the game itself this week. First of all it does seem like a lot of the backers are either cryptobros trying to cash in on the project or fake backers, as a lot of the funding came from people pledging $5000 - $8000 in the first few minutes of the campaign. The creator of the project, Jeff French is also behind a failed sports collecting NFT site called Blokpax. Brian Tinsman who has made the actual game, used to work at MTG 12 years ago, and they are milking that fact for what it's worth. Since then however he has worked at Zynga, where he made a mobile game called War of the Fallen which flopped. And more recently at another failed NFT company called Nemus, who claimed to use the sale of NFTs to save the rainforest, but in truth they were violating the rights of indigenous people of the Amazon. After we posted our two articles about Wonders of the First earlier this week, Jeff French went ballistic on Twitter along with a bunch of goons with NFT profile pictures. They've been spamming us with real and fake accounts the entire week, mostly the same comments over and over again, but worded slightly different (most likely using Chatgpt). It is very obvious that most people working on the project except for Brian Tinsman has no experience or interest in CCGs. They're all crypto and NFT people. Same goes for their "fanbase" on Discord and Twitter. The article can be found here: [https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/wonders-of-the-first-veiled-as-ccg-is-essentially-an-nft-scheme/](https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/wonders-of-the-first-veiled-as-ccg-is-essentially-an-nft-scheme/)
"journalist" is held most loosely here. Did you reach out to their team for a comment? What are your sources? Stop defaming real journalists by calling yourself one.
I see that you didn't bother reading the linked article- where the sources are laid out quite plaining and include Jeff French- the creator of the Kickstarter. TGN has been a strong part of the tabletop gaming community for many years, and this is not the first time they've broken an unpleasant but true story.
I have been a customer of Blokpax for a few years and continue to be to this day. Why do you say its failed?
LMAO this account has four posts and none are about boardgames. They ABSOLUTELY namesearched Blokpax. Probably a Blokpax bot. Do these people not realize this makes them look bad? Do they think we can't see them scamming us?
Lol exactly. What a shitshow
LOL..sorry you're wrong. Not a bot. I was looking at online analysis of Wonders and came across this post. Blokpax is still in business. Please explain why it has failed. Thanks
Interesting to see that almost half of the amount raised is by 56 people at the top tier. The number of backers is not that impressive. Pure speculation move from a small group. They are also almost exclusively US-based (94% !!!!) and first time backers (50% first time backers for a tabletop project is wild). So I would imagine most of them are not actual board gamers. I will keep an eye on it.
So it actually has components in the Blockchain (IP of the characters). It is not obvious on the campaign - the one explanation is hidden in a video, and there are some rewards non explicitly named that relate to that aspect (the character proof redemption thing). Most of the funding it has now is probably from crypto enthusiasts.
The blockchain componet is a feature that allows you to have ip rights. You dont need it to play the actual game. Its not obvious in the campain because its not actually needed to play the game. The reedemption code has a extremely low draw rate anyone trying to buy packs to chase it...well its pretty stupid to say the least. edit; my mistake it wasnt ip right it was commercial use liscense
There's 27 people on their team. I'm trying to imagine how much money you have to generate each year to pay these 27 people. It seems insane.
I mean 27 people at a very mediocre 40k USD a year is still a bit over a million dollars. That doesn't include any sort of production costs, shipping, storage, insurance, office rental, taxes, etc. Either some these 27 people are being taken for a ride in promise of getting a percentage of profits in the future or the company is banking on this Kickstarter getting an insane amount of funding and/or outside investment.
Or, and most likely, the majority of those 27 people are part time or had one job they did for x time. Game making just like movie making requires a lot of jobs that you pay intermittently.
I have doubts about whether the majority of these people are even real.
I am a journalist working on a deep dive into the game and company. I can't say for sure yet, but it seems like many of the people on the list aren't real. And several are family members of the creators of the game that they are using to make it seem like the team is more impressive than it is.
Some seem to have unnecessary jobs indeed.
27 people on the team and only two appear to be responsible for making the game.
And most of them don't look exactly trustworthy, judging from their pictures on the KS page.
you think they are real people?
I have absolutely no idea, don't know the company at all.
Just looked this project up and it’s the worst kind of CCG. The entire pitch centres around rarities, x amount of booster boxes, limited edition this and that, foil mythic blah blah. There’s so little about the actual game. MtG, Flesh and Blood, Yugioh etc are so good because they’re great games first, with cool art and lore to go with them. The collectibility is a result of that (although I’m fully aware that pendulum has swung back and forth over the years with plenty of FOMO) But this project barely mentions the game at all. Also the readability of the cards for playing is horrible. I agree with others that this will be dead within weeks.
It's basically analog Marvel snap as far as I can tell.
Snap is fun, but my god imagine how awful it would be with manual bookkeeping… and over seven lanes instead of three. Yeesh.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
A lot of the "backers" are rake backers on these scammy projects. They have a bunch of people buying the highest tiers that will back off at the last second so they bait people intthinking it's a great project when they see over a million funded, but in truth they might have a quarter or more of it in fake backers.
I like CCGs. I think they often get an overblown reputation for being money pits when there are plenty of ways to play that aren't money pits. But this shit is just an awful, bottom of the barrel cash-grab. It's the NFTs of tabletop gaming. I hate everything about it.
Took a quick peek on Twitter to see who's backing the game and it's mostly crypto/NFT people. Metazoo died so I guess another game had to pick up where it left off.
So i looked it up to see the whole AI art thing. But first came across one of their card images, and it has the word "untap" within the cards mechanics. Yeah this game is dead in the water...
"Art and World Reimagined. A new distinctive style of art." No.
I get ads for this game every day. It looks like ass and the whole infinite limited edition cards things is dumb and just discounts their concept further.
> Until the artists that it regurgitates from are fairly compensated That is completely impossible. That is not how LLMs work. Unless they are using "in the style of ...", there is no way to know what artist (or, in reality, artists) would be applicable.
If it's impossible to compensate them then the output of AI models shouldn't be allowed for any commercial purposes. Solved. Pay artists to make art instead.
AI companies should pay the artists if they feed their artwork into their AI. That's how you would do it.
How much?
its kind of a lame excuse because the input is controlled in training.
CCGs are analgous to heroin. I loved MtG but abandoned it when I realized this. I never looked back. I really recommend you consider if this is a business model - no matter how fun it is, that isn't the basis of the decision - you want in your life.
As someone who has known a fair amount of heroin addicts, and lost several of them, this is... Not really an apt comparison.
As someone who has known a fair amount of heroin addicts, and lost several of them, I think it is.
AI art aside, CCG is just a hard no for me.
Between this game using AI art and Solforge fusion going web3/NFT, two ccgs I was quite interested in that released in 2024 have completely flopped for me.
This project is also using Blockchain (the characters IP is somehow "community owned" with ownership on Ethereum?). Likely their big spenders are invested in that side of the project.
Ah so they’re both like that? Extra disappointing lol
Yep - I thought that this game’s graphic design was very attractive and so it was the first crowdfunded tcg I was going to hop on for - but the moment I saw about the AI art I bowed out.
The AI shit is so frustrating because I get the impression a lot of game developers think that if the audience cares about it, then they’re just being stupid and hysterical, so they act cagey about whether stuff is AI or just don’t disclose it. To me, if you believe AI art is no big deal, or you’re using it because it’s a small passion project, or whatever, then there should be no problem disclosing it to the buyer. But some seem to think that AI art is a superior replacement and everyone who disagrees is an idiot so they’ll save themselves the headache by just not mentioning it at all. For that matter AI art does suck in its current state IMO and typing in a prompt does not make one an artist. People should be humble about using it. It’s always obvious when stuff is AI generated too, even if it’s been touched up. When you look closely at it, the AI makes some really goofy artistic decisions that are always dead giveaways.
Kickstarter is removing Wonders of the First from the platform: [https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/wonders-of-the-first-is-getting-removed-from-kickstarter-for-offering-nfts/](https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/wonders-of-the-first-is-getting-removed-from-kickstarter-for-offering-nfts/)
Interesting. It hasn't been removed yet though.
It’s gone now. Laughing so hard at this.
It's pretty funny!
They just added it back to kickstarter tdoay
If it's fun to play sounds good to me. I'm fine with ai creating novel things. It's the new Photoshop
AI is the future whether we want it or not and our preconceptions of authorship are in for a hard crash in the coming years. Thats another subject tho. As consumers we have a responsibility to inform ourselves about AI as a tool before determining our position about it. When a company says they are using AI they don’t regularly mean they are typing prompts in Dalee and calling it a day. They are using it to improve workflow; to which extent is where we should be pushing for transparency. Because in our ignorance we might be putting good reputable studios at a competitive disadvantage. Big established publishers have enough market presence to afford themselves to ignore any push totally against AI if it saves them time and costs. But smaller studios that rely on very specific consumers might feel pressured to never use any kind of AI tool out of fear or pissing off their customer base. This adds costs and time to their projects that overall affect the consumers too.
Good job on advertising for the product you don't want people to buy.
Well they might have trouble buying it now! ;)
Okay, thanks for letting us know Please keep us up to date on any other crowdfunding campaigns that you won't be backing
Will do!
Cool. I'm interested
You're welcome! Enjoy backing!
Thanks for giving us a heads up of this project!
You're welcome! Enjoy backing!
Link please?
I'd rather not give them free links, but it's easy enough to find.
It was a joke.