Citation :Stretch Goals : définition, contours et enjeux pour la dynamique d’une campagne de financement participatif
Par Sophie RENAULT
Université d’Orléans, Laboratoire Vallorem (EA 6296)

Citation :Basé sur l’étude approfondie de six campagnes de fiancement participatif dans l’univers de la bande dessinée, cet article met en perspective le rôle et les enjeux des stretch goals dans une campagne fondée sur le modèle du don moyennant contrepartie. Un stretch goal est un objectif fié par un porteur de projet au-delà du seuil qu’il souhaite initialement atteindre. Si le stretch goal est dépassé, les fonds supplémentaires collectés permettront, par exemple, de faire évoluer le projet et/ou d’offir des récompenses aux contributeurs. Dans une dynamique de gamifiation, les stretch goals ponctuent et animent une campagne. Même si les bénéfies semblent prégnants, les stretch goals peuvent être risqués : c’est en particulier le cas si le porteur de projet n’en mesure pas les incidences fiancières et logistiques. Leur gestion peut en outre se révéler tout aussi complexe que chronophage.

Citation :In sorrow, I must tell you that this project is not yet done and will not ship as planned on July 31, 2021. I know this is not good news. Let me explain.

In the recent months the distributor demand for CW O4 has continued to skyrocket. Even just over the past few weeks our distributors have increased their preorders for our print run. Of course, most distributors are not willing to pre-pay (particularly American distributors, who request the lion's share of orders). Petersen Games is a small company, which up to now has only been able to afford small overruns of our games following our Kickstarter campaigns (This is why our games are so often out of print!). The cash reserve we would normally use to fund our distributor copies did not replenish last year due to Covid.

Now, the distributors want even more copies — TONS more. In fact, our distributor demand is the biggest it’s ever been! This is a good thing - a great opportunity, but it also presents us with a conundrum. Namely to fulfill this, we need a huge amount of additional product, which must be paid up front. The money this will bring in would really help Petersen Games in the future (fund forthcoming projects, etc.) and would also enable us to become more independent of crowdfunding projects. Naturally, Cthulhu Wars is our flagship product, and has been the core of our business for nearly a decade, so the focus is there.

Simply put, the new retail demand for CW O4 exceeds our capacity to fund it at this time. We have two options: ONLY print the backer copies (we do have the monies to print this), or work to find a way to print all the copies we really need (note that producing a separate smaller batch would balloon our cost per unit). If we choose the first option, you the backers would get your games sooner, but this would cost us this opportunity to put our company in a position of safety for the foreseeable future. And of course the disasters of the last year have made us all consider positions of safety.

As of the beginning of this year, we thought we had secured a good investment which gave us the confidence to plan to ship by the end of this month. To our dismay, this fell through only recently.

So, there it is. Not the sort of situation that is fun to explain, since, frankly, some backers may not care if our company is put at risk, so long as the campaign gets fulfilled. But we hope you see how in our own view, we need to get those extra copies.

We are currently applying several means of getting the necessary capital for the retail copies, with success on all fronts. These methods do NOT involve using funds from other Kickstarter projects, nor “borrowing” from other projects. Instead, we are using creative loans (to us), creative investment opportunities (all of which keep me — Sandy — on as owner and chief creative officer), creative game creations (such as Cthulhu Wars: Duel, which was not crowdfunded), and cashing out part of my retirement plan. You may also have seen the Monday Madness Sales we’ve been holding; most of the profits from this are applied towards our goal of getting the games to you.

I will be back with more news as soon as I have it. Regardless of the specific details (of timing), you will get your games!