Comments on: A Question About Kickstarter.

By: aosher

aosher — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:47:57 +0000

Donations being cut by a third to a half sounds like bringing it in to a more sustainable average, to be honest.

By: innokenti

innokenti — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:19:12 +0000

I think it depends on how it was all framed. E.g. if you had a selection of low-level funding options with moderately attractive bonuses and the expectation that the game would come out at say £15… I don’t think I’d have too much of a problem kickstarting projects I would be keen on.

On the other hand if you were just asking of the funding and expecting the finished product to debut at £30… well… erm… go somewhere else please?

In this specific case I think they’ve made a relatively sensible decision because of how popularity and exposure works on the iOS/Android systems. Which is a bit of a shame because the system really is pretty terrible, if perhaps a little better than conventional sales charting. I think it would have been nice to see some entries at 10 and 15 dollars though.

By: hentzau

hentzau — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:54:42 +0000

It would get less traction. There’s plenty of people who are using Kickstarter the way it is intended — as a way to donate, not to preorder — but if we assume everyone paying the minimum amount is doing so in order to get a copy of the game, you’re looking at donations being cut by a third to a half.

By: aosher

aosher — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 08:23:35 +0000

So are you saying that a kickstarter that didn’t include a free copy of the game a an option wouldn’t get traction?

If you look outside of the games section of kickstarter, I would say that it is, at least, common for support to not necessitate a version of the product. While I accept that every market is different, isn’t it self-defeating to assume that the games market is resistant to that as a model?

By: hentzau

hentzau — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 08:09:26 +0000

That’s a different sales environment, though. There are just so many apps clamouring for attention that high sales are directly correlated with how much attention your game will recieve, and developers can’t afford to ignore that. By contrast you can still showcase your game on PC with a Steam Daily Deal, ensuring it gets both attention and sales after release.

By: aosher

aosher — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:05:00 +0000

Formatting balls. Only the first paragraph of that quote is the actual quote ¬_¬

By: aosher

aosher — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:04:04 +0000

I wonder whether this is significant. In short, it's a smartphone game which explicitly does not include a copy of the game itself at any backing level, on the grounds that:

The quickest, and basically only path to success, on the Android and iPhone market places is with sales. If we gave the game away, our #1 asset which is our fans, would be gone on day one.

Kickstarter backers get unique DLC and content, as well as other perks, like t-shirts and suchlike. It's a mobile game, so its target and donations were much lower - they were aiming for $20k, and got $36k, including two backers at the top level of $1k - but it may point to a more sustainable model. The fact that there is an assumption that you get a copy of the game at some level of backing runs a bit contrary to the "patron of the arts" ideal of Kickstarter, and it's nice to see some flexibility in that.

By: aosher

aosher — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:10:42 +0000

I think that assumes that Kickstarter isn’t going to be subject to massively diminishing returns as donation fatigue sets in.

By: hentzau

hentzau — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:47:50 +0000

You can’t rely on Kickstarter to fund your entire business though, surely. The question is, how can you turn this into a sustainable thing? Can you make enough money from one game to cover the costs of making that game and the majority of the next one?

By: g2-79d9f3f806c7b729d68eb34e6079a4d2

g2-79d9f3f806c7b729d68eb34e6079a4d2 — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:36:14 +0000

If people gave you money via Kickstarter enough to make your FIRST game and that was successful enough to get a SECOND game, then surely you’d get just as much, if not more (as you are now proven), via Kickstarter the second time around.

And if you don’t, then it’s probably because your first game sucked.