Best Practices: 1. It's not about likes, it's about love 2. Momentum: if you don't have good momentum at the begining it's hard. You need 20% in the first 24hrs. 3. Game needs gameplay and demos 4. Do not announce stretch goals 5. Launch at the beginning of the month 6. Best launch day: From Mon to Thur 7. Idea campaign length: 35d to 30d 8. Use discord 9. Use stream service to show your content, and how you make the content 10. Learn the ecosystem: know how Kickstarter works, the lingo, and the tools 11. It's good to spend money to get ads, and don't spend too much money 12. Don't be afriad of asking for help 13. Embrace failure. Try to understand why you failed.
Excellent talk. I see KS in todays market as more of a pre-order platform. I'm currently in an early KS planning stage for my Viking adventure called Blood And Mead. The talk has really helped fine tune my perception of the whole situation. I see clearly now that such a game really needs to be in its final polished state before going up. Sharing the genre with the likes of Mighty No.9 has made things no less easy.
I think it was always more suited to feeling out the audience/market than as any sort of alternative to say, venture capital or investment. In the beginning, KS users were very naive about the whole thing, but now you can clearly see the usual market dynamics in play - the most successful campaigns are run by seasoned publishers, treating it like a component of a larger pre-launch marketing push. Critical Role may be "indie" as compared to the likes of EA, but they have a massive media reach, and seriously dedicated followers (with apparently deep pockets / high credit limits).
Great talk, great tips! The statistics, in particular, were very interesting. I also agree that, if your game is already in a playable state, early access might be the better option, since it will both strengthen the community and aid testing.
If I had to guess, it's not so much that mobile is "unfundable", it's that the KS community leans very heavily towards PC gamers. That doesn't mean your game has no market, but that market may not overlap much with crowdfunding sites, and they will likely need a different marketing approach. Also, PC gamers seem more likely to have a lot of ready cash to invest up-front, game mostly untested, while mobile gamers are very much in the "hands-on" camp, and inclined to pay after-the-fact. Besides marketing, you may also need different revenue models for different platforms - Different strokes for different folks, and all.
Crowdfunding was always viewed as a risky investment and were dismissed by those, who got burned by scams etc. , but those epic deals are the last straw that break the camel's back. I don't have any real statistics than my own experience online and my circle of friends and acquaintances, but I think, crowdfunding has one foot in the grave. There might be some, who can still get through with it, but I think for most upcoming studios/games, it's an uphill battle.
I think its harder to justify video game kickstarters when the only thing you're paying for is time and when development is now so accessible to so many people, so much so that 100 games hit Steam every week. While in boardgames, which are doing amazing in crowdfunding, you can justify the cost because the developers actually need to make physical components and if you don't back it, it often wont get made. Not only that but there are just so many games to buy, and so many that people already own- that do you need to put down money for something that may or may not get made? I mean I could've backed Pathfinder Kingmaker but I still didn't play BG2, NWN1&2, RoEE and a ton of other similar old-style RPG games. Or I could back Homeworld 3 but I still haven't played HW2 and Desert of Karak- I could though be the exception because I play games from a bunch of genres and maybe someone who specializes will be drooling for the next whatsit.
@@koalabrownie I kinda disagree with you're view point of what you're paying for in video games. Yes almost anyone who can code "Hello World" can do a crappy game, but if you try to code at least decently, much less coding very good, for stability, performance, flexibility etc. you must have real programming skills through either experience or some kind of higher graduation. So I pay for time for someone with real skills. I mean on the other hand, what's really stopping me from doing the same with boardgames? I could just go to the boardgames site, post some video with "work in progress prototypes", get me a box, carve there some figures and a board, paint them sloppy, make some random-ass rules for more "depth" and throw in a dice. I don't know why this doesn't happen to crowdfunded boardgames, but that would be the equivalent to those bad/scam projects. I guess those scummy ppl just aren't into boardgames or don't see it as an option. I think the best way to fix it is showing some credibility before you can post something. It's like getting a credit from your bank for you to start a credibility. They also look at your credibility before you get money. Ofc that doesn't mean it will never happen, looking at you Mighty No. 9, but it will be less frequent. Making a product isn't something you just make for fun. It always has risk you have to take and I don't understand why most devs think it's different with video games. If I open a store and fuck up pretty bad, I have to take the responsibility.
Well, @icotom Thomas Bidaux - challenge accepted, Monsieur! :D I'm gonna do a Crowdfunding Campaign about my F2P mobile game in development, and I dare thee to support our Project if we succeed in getting 10.000$ worth of backing! Not sure yet, if i like to produce it for kids, but raising 2/3 of your red flags will still be something! I'd like to make a point in case of framing and upcycling and would fancy to get acknowledged by thee as exceptional project in your talks to come. Expect my email! >:)
Best Practices:
1. It's not about likes, it's about love
2. Momentum: if you don't have good momentum at the begining it's hard. You need 20% in the first 24hrs.
3. Game needs gameplay and demos
4. Do not announce stretch goals
5. Launch at the beginning of the month
6. Best launch day: From Mon to Thur
7. Idea campaign length: 35d to 30d
8. Use discord
9. Use stream service to show your content, and how you make the content
10. Learn the ecosystem: know how Kickstarter works, the lingo, and the tools
11. It's good to spend money to get ads, and don't spend too much money
12. Don't be afriad of asking for help
13. Embrace failure. Try to understand why you failed.
Excellent talk. I see KS in todays market as more of a pre-order platform. I'm currently in an early KS planning stage for my Viking adventure called Blood And Mead. The talk has really helped fine tune my perception of the whole situation. I see clearly now that such a game really needs to be in its final polished state before going up. Sharing the genre with the likes of Mighty No.9 has made things no less easy.
I think it was always more suited to feeling out the audience/market than as any sort of alternative to say, venture capital or investment. In the beginning, KS users were very naive about the whole thing, but now you can clearly see the usual market dynamics in play - the most successful campaigns are run by seasoned publishers, treating it like a component of a larger pre-launch marketing push. Critical Role may be "indie" as compared to the likes of EA, but they have a massive media reach, and seriously dedicated followers (with apparently deep pockets / high credit limits).
Perfect release timing. We are just about to sit down and discuss our campaign options.
Good luck!
Great talk, great tips! The statistics, in particular, were very interesting. I also agree that, if your game is already in a playable state, early access might be the better option, since it will both strengthen the community and aid testing.
Finally.. Got something to enlight me again. Thank you!
Makes me sad but happy at the same time...
a mobile game, but also available for pc console vr. Is it in red flag zone?
If I had to guess, it's not so much that mobile is "unfundable", it's that the KS community leans very heavily towards PC gamers. That doesn't mean your game has no market, but that market may not overlap much with crowdfunding sites, and they will likely need a different marketing approach. Also, PC gamers seem more likely to have a lot of ready cash to invest up-front, game mostly untested, while mobile gamers are very much in the "hands-on" camp, and inclined to pay after-the-fact. Besides marketing, you may also need different revenue models for different platforms - Different strokes for different folks, and all.
Crowdfunding was always viewed as a risky investment and were dismissed by those, who got burned by scams etc. , but those epic deals are the last straw that break the camel's back. I don't have any real statistics than my own experience online and my circle of friends and acquaintances, but I think, crowdfunding has one foot in the grave. There might be some, who can still get through with it, but I think for most upcoming studios/games, it's an uphill battle.
I think its harder to justify video game kickstarters when the only thing you're paying for is time and when development is now so accessible to so many people, so much so that 100 games hit Steam every week. While in boardgames, which are doing amazing in crowdfunding, you can justify the cost because the developers actually need to make physical components and if you don't back it, it often wont get made.
Not only that but there are just so many games to buy, and so many that people already own- that do you need to put down money for something that may or may not get made? I mean I could've backed Pathfinder Kingmaker but I still didn't play BG2, NWN1&2, RoEE and a ton of other similar old-style RPG games. Or I could back Homeworld 3 but I still haven't played HW2 and Desert of Karak- I could though be the exception because I play games from a bunch of genres and maybe someone who specializes will be drooling for the next whatsit.
@@koalabrownie I kinda disagree with you're view point of what you're paying for in video games. Yes almost anyone who can code "Hello World" can do a crappy game, but if you try to code at least decently, much less coding very good, for stability, performance, flexibility etc. you must have real programming skills through either experience or some kind of higher graduation. So I pay for time for someone with real skills.
I mean on the other hand, what's really stopping me from doing the same with boardgames? I could just go to the boardgames site, post some video with "work in progress prototypes", get me a box, carve there some figures and a board, paint them sloppy, make some random-ass rules for more "depth" and throw in a dice. I don't know why this doesn't happen to crowdfunded boardgames, but that would be the equivalent to those bad/scam projects. I guess those scummy ppl just aren't into boardgames or don't see it as an option.
I think the best way to fix it is showing some credibility before you can post something. It's like getting a credit from your bank for you to start a credibility. They also look at your credibility before you get money. Ofc that doesn't mean it will never happen, looking at you Mighty No. 9, but it will be less frequent. Making a product isn't something you just make for fun. It always has risk you have to take and I don't understand why most devs think it's different with video games. If I open a store and fuck up pretty bad, I have to take the responsibility.
Well, @icotom Thomas Bidaux - challenge accepted, Monsieur! :D I'm gonna do a Crowdfunding Campaign about my F2P mobile game in development, and I dare thee to support our Project if we succeed in getting 10.000$ worth of backing! Not sure yet, if i like to produce it for kids, but raising 2/3 of your red flags will still be something! I'd like to make a point in case of framing and upcycling and would fancy to get acknowledged by thee as exceptional project in your talks to come. Expect my email! >:)