I got these from a Kickstarter project a few weeks back. Yesterday, I got another package quite unexpected. The delivery times from Kickstarter project vary greatly.

The good thing about Kickstarter is that it's quite easy to follow what you've been doing there, at least up to a point. One thing Kickstarter does not really follow is project fulfillment.

So I printed out my project page and did some quick statistics:

I've backed 42 projects so far.

Four of these are still in funding, so the jury is still out on them.

Two projects failed or were cancelled, so they're not very interesting in this regard either.

Out of the remaining ones, I pledged $1 to seven projects. Partly as a symbolic gesture of support, partly to get the project updates, partly because I couldn't spare the cash to really commit. But again, the important thing is that I'm not really expecting anything from them. And yes, I could have weaseled out and cancelled my pledges right before the projects ended, but that's just not the kind of guy I am.

That leaves 29 projects.

Twelve of these have delivered everything I paid for. Some faster, some slower, but I've never had anything bad to say about the final delivery.

That leaves 17 projects I'm still waiting for. Some are fairly fresh, so it's not fair to expect deliveries from them yet. A couple are in the shipping process, so my stuff could already be in the mail. A few have already communicated about production problems -- I do appreciate them being forthright about it.

None of the projects I'm waiting for are over nine months old, so no spectacular delays so far. A few exhibit a slightly disturbing lack of communication, though I do understand it's not much fun to send out "nothing new on the western front" updates either.

But there are some things I have noted:

- Smaller projects seem to deliver faster. Big megaprojects end up being victims of their own success.

- Projects delivering just one thing deliver faster. Worst offenders seem to be complete boardgames with miniatures. I guess there are just too many moving parts and sub-projects to finish before shipping can begin.

In the future I would like to see more reasonably sized projects from smaller miniature makers. While they tend not to be the no-brainer megadeals some bigger projects can be, they are very interesting and they deliver before I forget I the whole thing...

And they are really the thing Kickstarter was built for, in my opinion.