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What's the Kickstarter Formula for Success?
Cramit845
Member UncommonPosts: 395
As most of us have noticed, Kickstarter has become a route for developers, especially indie developers, to gain funding for their projects. Some get funding some don't. A lot of the games I see funding always seem to have a big name to go along with it, someone who has proven themselves as a dev in the industry before hand. Games like Camelot Unchained and Star Citizen come to mind.
However we do have those instances where the "Big Name" is a decrement to the project or just doesn't have the pull with the community. Patheon:ROTF comes to mind in this aspect. Then you also have the absolute no name devs that end up getting their game funded without any form of "Big name", Elite:Dangerous comes to my mind in this aspect, but then again I may just not be familiar enough with the IP to say that.
What I'm trying to get at, as the title states, what is the formula for kickstarter success?
Is it like an 80's rock band, do you need to have a big name "front man"?
Is it how the Kickstarter is run? (ie amount of updates/interviews/screenshots)
Is it the rewards offered per donation tier? (ie alpha access, beta access, in-game items)
Is it the systems in the game or type of game? (MMOFPS, RPG, MMORPG, RTS, MOBA, Sandbox MMO, Themepark MMO)
(OW PVP, Instanced Raids, Full Loot PVP, Action Combat, Tab Targetting)
Is it a perfect storm of all of these and/or other reasons?
We're the community (gamers) that the devs target, how do you as a person target what you want to donate too and what you don't want to donate too? How do companies that do kickstarter get your money and how do you decide how much to give?
(Not including whether you can afford it or not)
Comments
In the simplest description, you need either a) previous releases that have a cult following or b) a wishlist and bunch of idiots who spend money based on hope instead of reason. The former can break the million mark. The latter usually lands enough to keep them in hot pockets until the next time they sucker the starry-eyed hopefuls into shelling out cash for their pipedream.
There are, of course, exceptions. The Repopulation is an excellent example. They had a small following for years, and then expanded that by hitting up trade shows, putting out content videos and regularly updating their site. They showed they knew what they were doing and, more importantly, that they can actually do it.
There's a lot more to it than that, but that's it at its core. I think a great way to examine this is to take a collection of indie title and examine how they fared. For example, The Repopulation and Project: Gordon - comparing and contrasting those two campaigns would be a great asset to this discussion.
On the 'Elite: Dangerous' thing, the original game has had a rather large following for about three decades now. Several games, including some MMOs, had Elite as inspiration behind their development.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
I am actually asking this question in some what of a reference to Project:Gorgon, as it is close to the end of it's second kickstarter which will most likely fail. Same as you, I am also playing it currently and I have read the recent post on their forums about possibly not doing another kickstarter. (also playing Smite when needing some insta-gratification)
The repopulation I'm not extremely familiar with so I can't speak much to that game. Maybe something I will have to research a little to see how they have done, I do get their weekly e-mails though so checked it out at one point.
I disagree. You need to promise a lot of things and leave the impression that you can do it. Promise heaven and earth, slap on a name of a dev who had one or several successes a decade ago, then start selling virtual stuff for your unreleased game. Bank up, keep milking that cow till it's dry, then release some shit to cover your ass legally.
Like they say, you can never be disappointed or hung up on dreams or hopes until reality catches up. So keep delaying that reality until you can't stall it anymore.
The trick is to get into the game early before the backers wise up.
It is probably too late for most now.
http://tagn.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/the-return-of-project-gorgon/
That blog post sums up why Eric and Sondra needed to go the extra mile to kickstart their Kickstarter. Unfortunately, they went the opposite direction, making it a relatively low priority compared to the development of the game.
OTOH, Joshua Halls (The Repopulation) was flying out to expos, meeting with press and making the Kickstarter a focus. He was posting on forums, replying to threads, and updating news regularly. I don't know if he hired a marketing guy or if he's just damn good in that field, too, but he hit all the targets necessary to get the word out about his game.
Project: Gorgon has an incredible duo at the helm, but even their sheer awesomeness is not enough when it comes to marketing or crowdsourcing in a massively flooded market. They need a PR guy. Luckily, if the posters aren't exaggerating their CV, there are a couple of people in the PG community that could fill that role and probably would do a good bit of it for free.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
With so much entertainment out there, it is hard to make a compelling case of why people should care for project gorgon. In fact, their demo may hurt them because it looks amateurish.
I think, if there were a formula, more people would be following one set script and succeeding more often. In reality, it takes different things to convince different people to "buy in".
I've only contributed to one Kickstarter project which was Camelot Unchained. I was pretty skeptical of the project when I heard about it pre-Kickstarter and it wasn't so much the names attached to it that swayed me. For me it was the devs participation in the community, their 'founding principals', and their willingness to have a thoughtful discussion of their ideas. During the kickstarter, they put out some technical info and videos which didn't hurt either. The reward teirs were not a contributing factor in getting me to donate. I could see where a reward teir might have enticed me to donate a few dollars more then I would have initially intended though (within reason of course). For me, they "did it right". For plenty of other people, CSE's approach wasn't good enough.
For what it's worth, this isn't meant to start an argument of whether CU will be great, bad, or indifferent. In the end, the KS was a success and this is just meant to be anecdotal data about what worked to get me to open my wallet. Hope it contributes to the conversation.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Elite was certainly a big thing in the 80's, especially this side of the pond. I paid £100 with very little hesitation, wouldn't do that for any other game. I also backed Dreamfall: Chapters because of Ragnar's writing.
Perhaps success comes via the license to the 'proprietary fundraising service' that Roberts (of Star Citizen) wants to sell you?
Of the limited media they put out, the demo was one of the best, as it showed that they already had a functional game with working features. This is a concern for many who fund these projects because it instills greater confidence in the team's ability to deliver the game.The type of person expecting high quality graphics from a game like this probably wouldn't be donating anyway.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Well a formula could be used in different ways is what I was trying to get as. As like, if you have a front man, than you need X, Y, Z or if you don't then you need A, B, C. The info you provided on why you backed CU does help, so Thanks!I am annoyed with some of the kickstarters these days cause it just seems like unless there is someone we all know or one of the devs feeds and keeps fed the hype train then that's the only way they succeed. It's not necessarily based on merit of the idea or anything like that but how well they market.
I would have to agree that in the case of Project:Gorgon some better PR is desperately needed and I actually posted as much on their site:
I think this game really needs to have a successful kickstarter first before they go the donation route. However, I think more "umph" needs to be done on the side of the kickstarter as well. They really need to have more updates on the kickstarter, at least 1 per week. They need to setup some interviews with journalists/youtube personalities to get the game out there. They are already way ahead of most kickstarters with a free alpha that folks can play but they need to build on top of that. Some things I think would help:
Weekly updates to kickstarter
Updates of content patches - (Worthwhile to schedule some during kickstarter)
Updates of bug fixes - (Literally post patch notes to KS to show work is being done)
Community Events - (In-game community events with the devs. Something akin to the naked Halfling run in EQ or something like that)
Streamers - (Contact youtube streamers with some name recognition to do a episode or part of a episode on the game)
Dev Interviews - (Typed interviews as well as some video interviews where devs talk with a streamer as they play or play together)
If the devs can add things like this to the kickstarter page from the beginning to the end of the kickstarter I think they could easily hit their goal. A ton of work to be sure, but the pay off could be funding. A community/media manager wouldn't be a bad idea either, however that's more money too. Either way, the more help they can get and more content they get out in peoples faces, the easier to get and more money they will get.
In everyones opinion, would this be a good formula for a struggling MMO? P:G or any other indie is my point, just taking a excerpt of what I wrote
It's not really a formula as much as it is a checklist
- Show constant activity - The more updates there are, the more people have to look forward to. A campaign with few updates appears "dead" and doesn't really give visitors confidence in the ongoing status of the project.
- Create awareness of previous completed titles - A person/team that has brought a title to release is more likely to do so in the future. Some of these KS projects try to 'fudge' that creatively. For example, if someone is trying to make an MMO and the only thing they did in the past was create concept art for an unknown game, they will often have "Has worked on titles for several major gaming developers including [developer], [publisher]..." and never post the names of the games they worked on or the positions they held. I don't think anyone falls for that, though.
- Give the fans content to share - Videos, screenshots, articles, even sig images help to increase reach. The community is always willing to help with that. We've all seen The Repopulation and Pathfinder Online backer sigs on various gaming forums. Each one helps to create more awareness and helps to drive more traffic to the campaign. For Project: Gorgon, I'm willing to bet HiveLeader's video drove a significant amount of traffic to that campaign. Seek it out and make sure your fans are out there sharing it.
- Create a wide spread of tiers - Having the big jump to that "bottle of Dom in the VIP lounge" donation is fine, but everything leading up to it should be spread over a wide range so that a person at one tier is always considering how just a little bit more will put them in the next tier. Shroud of the Avatar nailed this one. The $40 backer is always going to consider the $60 pledge. The $60 looking at the $80, the $80 backer thinking for $20 more they can do the $100 tier... That campaign made it easy for someone to make the decision to increase their pledge. It also made the decision to pledge easier for people whose personal price limit would otherwise be between two broad spread tiers. Basically, if you have $50 and your next jump is $100, you just lost either money or backers by not having tiers in between
There's plenty more, but you get the picture. Instill confidence, show activity, generate excitement and make it easy for people to back or raise a pledge.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
+1
For me to back it you either need a lot of previous experience or you need a good demo and a detailed plan of the kind of game you want to make. There are also things I've observed help KS projects successful even if I don't really care about them. A lot of stretch goals and some extra feature like a "super dungeon" you add more levels to as you get more backers, a good professionally produced video and blanket coverage on games media sites (which doing a lot of small updates helps a lot with). Many people will not back something as soon as they hear about it for whatever reason and need constant reminders about it.
Unfortunately being a good game dev does not necessarily make you good at marketing and I've seen a few projects which I still believe had a lot of potential fail because of lack of exposure which is always very sad to me. PG already is on that list with their first KS and seems like the second one is heading there barring a last minute miracle.
I get your point. What are the variables that most likely lead to a successful kickstarter? I still think that what excites one person can just as easily be a turn off for another and that manifests itself in just about every thread that occurs. In the case of CU, the involvement of Mark Jacobs was a selling point for some and a 'buyer beware' sign for others.
I also get what you're saying about the annoyance, but it seems any kind of fund raising gets annoying. I don't think it is limited to KS projects (or similar sites), but is a fact of life in general with fund raising. KS is basically an update to the "pledge drive". With your pledge of $10 you get an NPR coffee mug! It's just an iteration of an old theme....
I generally like the idea of KS and what it could be used to accomplish so, for me, it's a matter of taking the bad with the good. That and I think being fairly cynical helps.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
If the question is how to get funded on Kickstarter, then there are two basic components:
1) You have to convince people that the game you're promising would be really cool if you made it.
2) You have to convince people that you really can make the game you're promising and that all that you're lacking is funding.
The "big name" who has done it before helps a lot with #2.
You're leaving out a third component, just as big as those. It's the one requiring the majority of the work during the campaign - exposure/advertising. "Build it and they will come" only happens in movies.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You need something that makes your kickstarter special. You can build it on:
Advertising is a method; my two points above are the goals, at least when the objective is getting funded on Kickstarter. Advertising can go a long way toward convincing people that the game you promise would be cool, and can help some in showing people what you've done to convince them that you can do more. But the means and the ends are intrinsically not comparable.
The right answer? Transparency.
The actual answer? Bullshit.