Do any of you guys have experience of Kickstarter funding?
If you do have you any tips you can share with me and the best way to go about it?
Regards
I've run a few small Kickstarters. The key points for me are:
- Have a GOOD, SHORT pitch video. No one watches more than 1 minute of the video, so you are wasting time and money producing a 7 minute video. Get to the point quickly.
- Make the video, text & artwork as polished and professional as possible. Prove you can do something good on a small (or non-existent) budget.
- Do a proper budget with a contingency. Talk to an accountant, don't forget about fees and taxes.
- Rewards should cost no more than a fixed proportion of the pledge. Always over-estimate the costs of reward production, and don't forget to cost your time in producing rewards. Postage always costs more than you expect.
- Write regular updates. Be interesting. It's not marketing, these people have already given you money.
- When things go wrong, tell your backers. Radio silence is disrespectful.
Hi! I am not expert on the field, but one common mistake I have noticed on many kickstarter campaigns is that the developers refer more about the style of classic adventures from Lucasarts and Sierra and less about their own game. When I back a project, I would like to see a clear vision of the game.
Have a look at the Kickstarter campaign page for Chronicle Of Innsmouth: Mountains Of Madness here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/201868287/chronicle-of-innsmouth-mountains-of-madness/
It's an appeal for the sequel to a game that was already quite well received critically.
The campaign peaked right away with the Early-Bird packages... within 48 hours the main goal of 11,000 bucks was about a third of the way there.
So, yeah, make sure you have Early-Bird packages with bonus material if possible.
Donations slowed down a bit after those packs were all gone but eventually we made it to the all-or-nothing goal and got funded.
It's a nail-biting experience and a team-effort got us there which included many late-nights and lost sleep working to get the campaign as good as it could be.
The awesome layout of the kickstarter page and the preview video cost the developers a LOT of time that could have been spent on the development.
The demo game release to mach up with its announced release date was down to 6 minutes before deadline before everyone signed off on it to be the final candidate.
It's a massive amount of fun and a massive challenge to do a successful kickstarter campaign...
I would never want to try one on my own though... Getting everything done for this one almost killed me, and I was only one of the cogs in the machine...
Quote from: Jojo_the_monkey on Sat 12/01/2019 11:10:43
Hi! I am not expert on the field, but one common mistake I have noticed on many kickstarter campaigns is that the developers refer more about the style of classic adventures from Lucasarts and Sierra and less about their own game. When I back a project, I would like to see a clear vision of the game.
I think that's a problem with many game pitches in general, constantly referencing other famous games and relying too much on people's nostalgia rather than creating an own and distinct identity for their game.
And at least for me, it's also important to show something concrete that proves that there is an actual project started and not just an idea on paper, like concept art, screenshots or similar stuff.
Quote from: Ali on Thu 10/01/2019 16:33:05
- Do a proper budget with a contingency. Talk to an accountant, don't forget about fees and taxes.
This is important. I've seen way too many Kickstarters treat it as free money for making a game rather than money that is actually needed to finance fees, staff, and contractors. Budget wages, taxes, publishing fees. People that ask for $1000 arn't going to be able to get a thing done with that little other than pay for their Starbucks. You're asking for money in order to give people (including yourself) a job for several months, and it should be treated that seriously.
As a frequent Kickstarter user, I find it important to know if a game is DRM-free or not.
It's a mistake that a lot of campaigns miss this information out, and have to be asked.
I think that vagueness might be deliberate. I promised DRM-free when I didn't have a publisher. The publisher wanted to include a pre-DRM style copy protection. I didn't think that counted as DRM, but a few backers disagreed (and I understand why). It would have been better not to make the commitment at all, than seem to walk-back on it.
You don't need a publisher for itch.io, Humble Bundle, or Direct Download.
All of these options offer DRM-free.