Transparency is good, but we're also talking that a cart-only would cost around $80 to get to my doorstep. I'm all for supporting homebrew development, but not enough to pay that much of a premium just because it's a homebrew game.

I agree, fully. Which is why I think, when profit-margin-per-unit allows for it, a developer/publisher should eat a portion of the shipping cost and simply chalk it up to the cost of not being large enough to arrange a stronger int'l distribution model.

However, I think the problem with this situation isn't necessarily the shipping fee (as I linked before, they might already be eating some of the cost). The problem here is the high cost of the cart-only copy to begin with (50EUR, nearly 60USD, which is already 15~20USD higher than most homebrew are cart-only.)

One thing I do like about this campaign though is that the digital copy is a ROM, meaning it can be played on flash cart via hardware of choice. (Although I don't much care for the manner in which this campaign chooses to insult its customers for the digital copy, I can only assume that the particular voice resonates with the vibe of retroplayer.NL's community, with which I'm unfamiliar -but seems to be in poor taste for a Christmas-themed platformer at least.) Tower Defense 1990 approached it in a far classier way by calling their digital tier "The Tree Hugger."

Yeah! I can only pretend to be a market strategist, but i think it's sound advice to "absorb" some of the shipping to level rates between countries, in case the logistics can't be worked out any other way (by decentralizing distribution). It seems to me the Oliver twins did either precisely either that, or happened to have a company plan (probably for other purposes) with Royal Mail.

More regarding fulfillment companies, i read traditional ones typically expect of a partner to sell 100+ products per month, which is way out of scope for NES homebrew, and so the general tip is to DIY "until you've reached those numbers".
But at the same time, there seems to be a group of fulfillment companies who've specialized in kickstarter campaigns (especially the indie board game trend), which might be interested. Especially as NES games take less floor space. Ok, so some fulfillment companies make their money off renting storage and want products to take up space, but others charge the handling alone, and some charge a mix of fees of varying importance.

On the topic of this specific KS campaign, i got the impression that this game is for the benefit of the retroplayer.nl community (either spiritually or also economically)? Which if so i think is nice. It might be a hard sell for anyone outside that particular community though. As with M-tee, i'm not trying to defend or be negative about it either, but thought it was a good opportunity to discuss homebrew hardcopy logistics in general. 

EDIT:
Another important cost factor is naturally which mapper and pcb you're using. NROM, UNROM, CNROM and cheapocabra/GTROM are all relatively low-cost*, but if you go beyond that (for example a MMC3 type of board), you really need to be offering something "extra" for what it costs and make use of it to the fullest. 
Moreon, both INL and memblers are US-based so it might make a lot more sense to proxy the distro to someone in the US rather than have boards sent to the EU just to send them back to the main market. The alternative would be PCB:s ordered directly from china. 

We're not really there yet to think about hardcopy distribution, but for our "project blue" i'm figuring i'd handle the bulk for EU (common duty laws, + probably a bit cheaper shipping) and ship the rest from USA. We'll see when we get to that river

Curiosity: A US-based acquintance contracted a UK distro center for shipping their product to canada as it proved cheaper than shipping directly across the border. The world is crazy. 

*this is the real reason cd-rom phased out carts


 

Boo funding failed. Finish it anyways!

 

Might've been tough competing for the "christmas spot" this year with the big launch from retro-usb, and then the enormous attention in and outside the scene that NESmaker got.

Hope you don't take this setback too hard. If nothing else, you could perhaps relaunch it in good time for next Christmas which it was/is supposed to be released for?

I liked the idea for the game, but I'm thinking that it might have been just a little bit generic. If they want another chance at this, maybe re-boot it with a drunk Santa or a Santa holding a machine gun and a bazooka or something. Make it have a little "edge" and differentiate it from the crowd.

Christmas is kind of a bad time to do a Kickstarter. My first Kickstarter happened around then and it failed hard. Unless you have something completely earth shattering, people will be too busy and they'll miss it.

Sad that this didn't get finished.