Mitosis Post-Mortem

Is this how it feels to be cult?

I’m gonna start this post with a story that’s probably more of a rumor. David Lynch was at a party with Steven Spielberg and Lynch leaned over and said “Steven, you’re lucky, millions of people are into the things you’re into, only thousands of people are into what I’m into.”

It’s been an emotional ride to get here to where I can write about the Mitosis Kickstarter, relatively dispassionately, with a pink, sparkly grapefruit drink in my hand.

Mitosis did fund, but it required a benefactor at the end. Everyone’s getting paid, backers are getting their games, and RV Games will be able to move forward. We’re not making any money on it, and we’ll at least be made whole pretty quickly.

Wrong product, wrong time, wrong market?

First and foremost, I am absolutely proud of the game River made, the art by curiousfriend, and the pamphlet by Chris Airiau and Izzy B. I love the concept, but the concept was not what the market wanted at the price point. We had a good amount of project followers but our conversion rate is half of what we expected. We could have made the adventure a longer zine and expanded the gameplay for the board game, but the project would have lost the simplicity and punch, it would have lost its identity.

We also hit at what seems to anecdotally be a lull in Mothership projects and funding until 1e is completed by Tuesday Knight Games. Finally, KS board game people didn’t get what we were doing, it didn’t fit in their mental model of games.

What Went Well

This is the first campaign with a media campaign, we were on social media, had an interview with Sean McCoy that I’m very proud of, showed up on Io9, and appeared on a livestream.

Distribution and fulfillment will go very smoothly, I’ve put a lot of work into building out this infrastructure and getting things manufactured and fulfilled in a timely manner is something I feel very confident about. I have multiple manufacturing sources and a small wholesale and retail pipeline. Publishing and distributing for other people is what’s gonna let RV Games keep moving to take the big design swings that we want to take.

Core Audience

We didn’t hit the size of audience we wanted for this campaign, we won’t even be able to offer wholesale copies of the boxed game, only printed pamphlets, digital copies, and print-on-demand with the option for a crowd sale later. However, everyone who backed this project, backed our other projects and generally backed at the highest level. We may not have broad appeal, but we do have a core of people who appreciate our niche. Mitosis is destined to be an oddball, hard-to-find object. I love niche cult media, and it doesn’t necessarily feel good to have something land that way.

Moving forward, I’m looking for ways to make more work for this core audience at lower price and risk. I’ll be announcing our plans for this at the start of June.

Our next big project for KS is gonna take patience, we’re gonna self-fund as much as possible. Mitosis would have funded without assistance if we had waited to launch until we had paid contributors, waiting longer and building even more intentionally is the way for us to move forward.