Don't know about Hasbro, but I have contacts in the (German) RPG scene.
Normally a product is priced 20-50€ (adventure, source book, rule book, ...) and you can expect a 40-50% store discount (so the publisher only gets 10-25€).
Now enter crowdfunding. Suddenly that store discount no longer applies, since you deliver directly to the customer.
Also people are suddenly willing to pay way more for the same product, because you unlock "stretch goals" and similar things. Oh you get a book mark! And a thank you letter! And we throw in a small 8page adventure.
The people would never pay 30-40€ for that. But crowdfunded? No problem!
And you don't even lose the customers who only want the initial product.
As an example "Das Schwarze Auge" (German RPG) kickstarted "Wege der Vereinigungen" (source book about sex & similar things in RPGs, where you could roll for penis length, ...).
~1800 people crowdfunded it for a sum of ~224k€ and it has 242 pages. Retail price is 40€ (which is quite high for a 242p product). The average crowdfunder paid 124€! 3 times as much!
If they had sold this book only for the retail price they would've made 72k€, so 150k€ less.
Don't know about Hasbro, but I have contacts in the (German) RPG scene.
Normally a product is priced 20-50€ (adventure, source book, rule book, ...) and you can expect a 40-50% store discount (so the publisher only gets 10-25€).
Now enter crowdfunding. Suddenly that store discount no longer applies, since you deliver directly to the customer.
Also people are suddenly willing to pay way more for the same product, because you unlock "stretch goals" and similar things. Oh you get a book mark! And a thank you letter! And we throw in a small 8page adventure.
The people would never pay 30-40€ for that. But crowdfunded? No problem!
And you don't even lose the customers who only want the initial product.
As an example "Das Schwarze Auge" (German RPG) kickstarted "Wege der Vereinigungen" (source book about sex & similar things in RPGs, where you could roll for penis length, ...).
~1800 people crowdfunded it for a sum of ~224k€ and it has 242 pages. Retail price is 40€ (which is quite high for a 242p product). The average crowdfunder paid 124€! 3 times as much! If they had sold this book only for the retail price they would've made 72k€, so 150k€ less.
Do you now know why companies do crowdfunding?
Because consoomers are idiots