Editing The Pen Addict 398/transcript (section)

== Transition to Ask TPA Questions ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. Let's round out the episode with a handful of Ask TPA questions. First one today comes from Myron. This is coming from an email, so it's a longer one. Not so much of a question for you guys, but more of a pen-adjacent question. With the advent of Kickstarter and other crowdsourced funding platforms, have you ever thought about or had any experience backing non-pen campaigns that relate to cottage industries that seem to have developed as a result of these platforms? I'm sure there are plenty, but the ones that I keep coming back to relate to everyday carry items and gaming stuff. Just curious if there are other things other than pens that you guys seem to come back to regularly and how those arenas have grown in recent years. So I would say that one that Myron mentions is the one that I see the most is gaming. And this can either be video games or board games, card games. Those two things have blown through the roof because of Kickstarter, especially physical games, right? So like card and board games. That industry has seen an absolute resurgence because of Kickstarter.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And that seems to be the core place for that type of creation, right? Because it's a very expensive upfront cost for the design and production of that platform. And you just don't see websites popping up with all this new game stuff, right? It's on Kickstarter because of the marketing that's built into that, the history of the similar products on there. I always look at bags and backpacks on there and almost never buy them because they're not unique enough. And I don't think they're interesting enough. So those fall a little bit short. For me, I do like the other adjacent items like the dice market on there seem to be pretty good. You know, which is just a random thing that goes along with the games. It just goes along with your thought on the gaming popularity on there. So I've backed some playing card ones. I'm trying to think. I haven't backed too many non-stationary ones though now that I think about it. A couple bags, a couple of games. The one thing I've never backed, which I've never considered backing, is the digital games. Those tend to be really long drawn out. And some of them end up really, really good. But that seems to be more of a black hole of support.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Talk about delay campaigns, video game Kickstarter campaigns. They get serious delays. Yeah. I've backed, I think, two video games that just ended up cancelled after multiple years of development. Because it's just too expensive to make a video game.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Have you backed any of the hyped products that didn't deliver? Like any of the, you know, the big products that make the news. Like whatever that cooler was, you know, that did all the things and had like the blender and the stereo.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I don't think I've ever backed any of those. Like the big ones that didn't go anywhere.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, me neither. Me neither. So I am looking at CW&T's new watch campaign. Saw that yesterday. I mean, you know I love them. And that's just, I mean, that looks like a Brad watch, doesn't it?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I like it a lot. It's actually one of their campaigns that I'm the most interested in, like design-wise. I actually really love the design. It's called Solid State Watch. They've taken this like super rock solid like movement. It's like a digital movement. The Casio, so Casio movement, I think. Yes. And they have just encased it in resin. But what that means is you can't change the time once the time is set. Yeah, you set it to your time zone. I think it is set to your time zone. Okay. Because you can't set it. Right. It's set before they put it in the resin. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? And that this, you know, that they went with this because it's like rock solid and lost for a lot of time. Yeah, so 10 years.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think they plan on, they have like, it has like a 10 year life cycle.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And it will die then. Yeah. And I think you can replace the battery on it. But the thing that gets me is the daylight savings time. Yeah. And I love that on their website, they're kind of just like, well, there's nothing you can do about it. Maybe buy two.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And they do a two pack, you know, you can get a discount on a two pack.