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The only exception on that list is a gimmick card game illustrated by a popular webcomic author that for whatever reason went viral.

It went viral because said webcomic's creator is a professional SEO marketer.

The Oatmeal is basically the Buzzfeed of webcomics.

Personal opinion of course, but even if you don't like The Oatmeal, a comparison to Buzzfeed isn't really appropriate, they're very different animals. One's a comic written, drawn and published by a guy, the other is a couple of lists interspersed with gifs, then lazily rehashed weeks later.

Read some of the stuff he and others have written in the past about his process. Even the subject matter is selected based on virality more than anything. You really think it's coincidence that all his comics seem to be about whatever is an instant meme on reddit this week?

Nobody ever went broke on the internet by running cats and bacon into the ground.

Now I don't read the oatmeal so am not really qualified to comment on its content, but what you just described (content based on timely matters) seems like the very definition of the editorial cartoons I grew up reading. I imagine there are a large variety of non-contemporaneous comics one could also read on the web if it's not to one's liking.

Can you link to some of that stuff?

And even the bacon phenomenon was marketing-driven: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-10-06/bacon-why-am...

Actually, buzzfeed has some good long form content

I've noticed that, and been surprised every time. It's like finding a diamond at the bottom of a dive bar urinal.

It's not all that surprising once you know about their efforts:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathonan/come-fly-with-us#.pqdmg3WRE

http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/page/1109-buzzfeed-news-c...

I'm going to have to disagree with your points:

> First, as the top 10 chart in the article shows, the gaming money in Kickstarter is mainly in miniatures not in board or card games.

That non-mini board games don't dominate gaming money on kickstarter is irrelevant to whether kickstarter is pushing the current market in board games. About board game dominance on kickstarter, though: it seems to me that kickstarter funds more card and board games than any other class of things.

> Second, a large proportion of the games that get funded are traditional publishers using Kickstarter as an alternate preorder and marketing system, usually with absolutely tiny goals.

Those traditional publishers seem to be publishing 2-3x as many games as they were publishing pre-kickstarter, and/or have moved to an entirely kickstarted model, basically becoming kickstarter companies (Queen, Eagle/Gryphon, etc.) It's not the preorders that are so important, but the free, instant crowdfunded credit.

> A third decent sized chunk are reprints for old games, which while nice to have are hardly a sign of a renaissance.

When many of the classics of gaming were only available from 20-year-old German 2000 game print runs for so long, this can seem like the definition of renaissance. Virtually all of the bgg.com top 100 are in print. 5 years ago, a lot of those games (the ones that existed) would have cost a small fortune. With every passing day my collection becomes less valuable, but more people fall in love with the board games I like.

> What's left tends to not have much impact, or even be any good.

Agreed, but within class that are buried amazing designers like Martin Wallace and Phil Eklund, who have used kickstarter to become largely independent of the big publishers.

> Agreed, but within class that are buried amazing designers like Martin Wallace and Phil Eklund, who have used kickstarter to become largely independent of the big publishers.

Martin Wallace has been self-publishing games for two decades through Warfrog/Treefrog, and that accounts for all of his most important designs. Things he did for other publishers tended to be either inferior and quickly forgotten, or straight reprints. He was also pre-selling straight to consumers (and getting pre-paid on) a substantial chunk of the games Treefrog published long before Kickstarter existed.

Phil Eklund has been self publishing his games for at least two decades through Sierra Madre Games. I can't think of a game he designed for another publisher. And I don't think he's run a kickstarter other than the High Frontier reprint, either. It's really hard to argue that the main problem for Eklund has been lack of independence, he's pretty much the defining example of auteurism in board games.

Sorry, don't think these examples work at all for making the case for the Kickstarter effect :-)

Also, even though I also think it is irrelevant distinction between miniatures and board games - I'd like to add that Zombicide is not a typical miniatures game. Also, the recent successful Ghostbusters game, which plays very similarly, is not a typical miniatures game. If you look how games like Warhammer are played vs. games like Zombicide, there is a clear distinction in complexity and duration of the game.

In any case, there are more than a few publishers outside of CMON doing well using KS as a vehicle for promotion and pre-orders. Eagle & Gryphon Games and Tasty Minstrel Games are my favorites to watch. A friend of mine actually had a game published by E&G through a Kickstarter, it would likely have never been finished without Kickstarter.

The renaissance is in the fact that we can have great games made by people who like to play great games - and not just rehashed stuff from Milton and Bradley. These are all definitely not games that would have been picked up by large publishers and sold at your local Target. With that said, many of them have been picked up by games stores, B&N, and others. Which I think is fantastic.

The distinction isn't irrelevant. Zombicide is a game whereas reaper bones is not a game at all there is no collection of a system of rules to apply using them. It is just miniatures that can be used in other games.

I would consider parts that can be used in board games part of the board games ecosystem and market though. Even people making those dice sets, dice rollers, and such are supporting the board game market. So the distinction is irrelevant.

In any case, even if you left those out, I see many pure board game kickstarters being successful. I would love to see a comparison of the board game kickstarters compared to all of the video game kickstarters.

"The number of major games that only or even mainly exist thanks to Kickstarter must be tiny."

Yes, the article is silly to spend much time talking about games which made millions. But the overall effect of crowdfunding making more small games available looks pretty real to me. I've backed a dozen or so table-top games and RPGs now. None of them made anywhere near a million dollars. Most of them raised 1x to 10x the amount they were asking for. I'd guess maybe half of them had a chance of being published without crowdfunding.