{"id":4898,"date":"2025-08-04T15:09:32","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/?p=4898"},"modified":"2025-08-07T09:56:50","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T08:56:50","slug":"we-felt-like-wed-made-a-profit-but-we-hadnt-not-really-chroma-arcana-creator-mo-shawwa-on-the-financial-wrinkles-behind-even-a-target-smashing-crowdfund-and-what-tariffs-mean-for-his-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/04\/we-felt-like-wed-made-a-profit-but-we-hadnt-not-really-chroma-arcana-creator-mo-shawwa-on-the-financial-wrinkles-behind-even-a-target-smashing-crowdfund-and-what-tariffs-mean-for-his-next\/","title":{"rendered":"“We felt like we’d made a profit. But we hadn’t. Not really”: Chroma Arcana creator Mo Shawwa on the financial wrinkles behind even a target-smashing crowdfund, and what tariffs mean for his next project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Soaring past the crowdfunding goal for your debut game might seem like a dream scenario for a first-time designer, but the financial realities of even a successful campaign can be far more complex than at first meets the eye. Roc Nest Games<\/a> founder Mo Shawwa explains the lessons he learned from the Kickstarter success of his first game, Chroma Arcana, last year – and how US tariffs are throwing a further spanner into the financial calculations for creators looking to crowdfund new games.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m Mo, a British-Arab board game designer and the founder of Roc Nest Games. Our debut game, Chroma Arcana<\/a>, is a duelling card game with TCG-style gameplay. It was successfully funded on Kickstarter last year and has just started fulfilling. As we gear up to release our second game, Smallfolk<\/a> (which launches on Kickstarter this September!), I’ve been reflecting on the lessons learned from our first one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started writing this article a while ago, with the intention of talking about the challenges and successes of crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Life got in the way – getting Chroma Arcana through the door took more of my time than I\u2019d anticipated, my business partner (AKA my wife) took some leave of absence, and I welcomed my first child into the world. Now that I\u2019m finally sitting down to write it, there have been some major shake-ups in the industry, leading to a great big tariff-shaped elephant in the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But before we dive into that, let\u2019s look at what the Kickstarter actually cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign went live February 2024, with a funding goal of \u00a38,000. This was roughly the cost to cover the manufacturing of one print run, but we knew we’d be taking a loss at that number as it didn\u2019t account for art, marketing, or our own time. But being a new creator, we just wanted to get the game made and into people\u2019s hands. To actually break even, we estimated we\u2019d need around \u00a352,000. When we ended at \u00a366,000, we were thrilled. We felt like we\u2019d made a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we hadn\u2019t. Not really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chroma Arcana || Photo Credit: Rising Dice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the board game industry, manufacturing cost (the price of actually paying for a factory to make the games) tends to be about 12-20% of the retail cost of the game. Many backers expect games on Kickstarter to be priced cheaper than retail, even though the manufacturing costs the same. Kickstarter, BackerKit (the pledge manager we used) and Stripe (the payment provider that most platforms use) all want a percentage of each sale, which comes to about 15-20% in total (this differs depending on which country you\u2019re in). The marketing agency we used during the live campaign took 15% commission on each sale they made on top of the actual ad spend (which was already quite high). Our fulfilment partner also wanted a decent chunk, though they would theoretically be saving us a bit money by optimising our shipping plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all these percentages were taken off, we were making very little money for each copy sold. Factor in the artwork costs (if you\u2019ve played Chroma Arcana, you can probably tell that we spent a lot of money on artwork) and we\u2019d barely broken even. That said, breaking even on a first-time campaign is a huge success. Many creators lose money on their first two or three projects. We\u2019re proud we delivered a great product and didn\u2019t end in the red.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few things which went well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n