Kickstart My Game

[jpublic]

Apparently there's errors with KS not letting it be canceled.

As for the cards I like the white, Karak.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by MosBen

From what I've read they've thrown in the towel, but are having a hard time getting the actual campaign to shut down.

Oh thanks. It was so confusing to get that email and see it still running. I will have to go read their updates.

Thanks J for the vote.

[Spigot]

i like the white card too

[Hawkzombie]

I like them both, but my vote will have to go with the traditional. Maybe offer the black deck as a one-off incentive for a higher tier? If possible that is.

[muddi900]

Originally Posted by MosBen

1) anecdotal evidence is simply NEVER (no, not ever) data.

You mean it's not information. I can be used as data.

But I would like to know where you got the "Project Eternity brought in new people" information. All the signs point to the fact that there is a limited number of people who fund Kickstarters

[Superman's Dead]

I vote Blaaaaaaaaaaaack

[Ravenlock]

Originally Posted by J Arcane

Well, I'll be putting the "setting a lower target" hypothesis to the test soon. I've another much smaller project I may be putting up for funding soon, with a tenth the budget of the last one. We'll see how that goes.

And I hope it goes well, but either way, one individual experience with the system (which you didn't even use last time, did you? Thought you were on IndieGoGo) really won't be evidence either way. Your claim was that Kickstarter can no longer be used for its intended purpose because big companies with lots of money have swooped in and screwed everything up. I don't think the data says that's remotely true.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by Ravenlock

And I hope it goes well, but either way, one individual experience with the system (which you didn't even use last time, did you? Thought you were on IndieGoGo) really won't be evidence either way. Your claim was that Kickstarter can no longer be used for its intended purpose because big companies with lots of money have swooped in and screwed everything up. I don't think the data says that's remotely true.

I did use IGG, yes.

I may try again at KS this time, since I'll be operating under my own name instead of a company like I attempted to do with the original H&H Kickstarter.

Really, I'm not trying to "prove" anything, I'm just genuinely curious as to whether setting an especially low funding target does indeed increase one's chances of success, as I've heard suggested a number of times recently, and the project I'm working on right now is one with almost zero overhead so it's the perfect one to choose.

[DoctorFinger]

Is it me, or is the VG section of Kickstarter now completely dominated by "old school RPGs"? I get that it's a genre that should do well on KS; it's been abandoned by the major pubs and it doesn't need a huge budget to make. But while trying to put the recap together this week, it seemed at times like that's all there was.

[Ink Asylum]

Originally Posted by muddi900

But I would like to know where you got the "Project Eternity brought in new people" information. All the signs point to the fact that there is a limited number of people who fund Kickstarters

Unless Project Eternity is unique in some important way, it is probably very similar to other large Kickstarters (Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, etc).

The Kickstarter staff made a post in September describing the effects those large projects have had on the Games category. There's plenty of information in there about how the big projects have increased the amount of interest and money that Kickstarter game projects receive by more than tenfold.

[Ink Asylum]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

Is it me, or is the VG section of Kickstarter now completely dominated by "old school RPGs"? I get that it's a genre that should do well on KS; it's been abandoned by the major pubs and it doesn't need a huge budget to make. But while trying to put the recap together this week, it seemed at times like that's all there was.

Don't forget Space Sims.

[Rune_74]

Originally Posted by DoctorFinger

Is it me, or is the VG section of Kickstarter now completely dominated by "old school RPGs"? I get that it's a genre that should do well on KS; it's been abandoned by the major pubs and it doesn't need a huge budget to make. But while trying to put the recap together this week, it seemed at times like that's all there was.

The recap where you totally ignored Antharion . I will forgive you if you add it in

[Rune_74]

Originally Posted by Ink Asylum

Unless Project Eternity is unique in some important way, it is probably very similar to other large Kickstarters (Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, etc).

The Kickstarter staff made a post in September describing the effects those large projects have had on the Games category. There's plenty of information in there about how the big projects have increased the amount of interest and money that Kickstarter game projects receive by more than tenfold.

Yes, but don't you think the staff of kickstarter are not the people to trust when they make an article like that. They love these big companies coming in, their cut of the action on 4 mil is huge. The site and it's payment sites made 400k of PE. I'm not saying what they said is all wrong just that they have motive to put a positiv spin on it.

[Ink Asylum]

Originally Posted by Rune_74

Yes, but don't you think the staff of kickstarter are not the people to trust when they make an article like that. They love these big companies coming in, their cut of the action on 4 mil is huge. The site and it's payment sites made 400k of PE. I'm not saying what they said is all wrong just that they have motive to put a positiv spin on it.

Pretty much all of the numbers and charts in that post can be verified by anyone with a calculator and a few hours effort. If they were lying about any of those figures I'm sure they would have been called out on it by now.

You can ignore the spin they put on the numbers, but it is a verifiable fact that the month before Double Fine Adventure the Games category was pulling in less than $1mil a month. 7 months later it's pulling in nearly $10mil. You can subtract the money that the big name projects have taken for themselves, which I've done previously, and that still leaves millions more that is going into other projects that wasn't there before Double Fine and its ilk.

[muddi900]

Originally Posted by Ink Asylum

Unless Project Eternity is unique in some important way, it is probably very similar to other large Kickstarters (Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, etc).

The Kickstarter staff made a post in September describing the effects those large projects have had on the Games category. There's plenty of information in there about how the big projects have increased the amount of interest and money that Kickstarter game projects receive by more than tenfold.

The ouya had 63000 backers, Project Eternity had 74000, wasteland 2 had 61000. You would see similar numbers for every big name gaming release. There is enough data to say that there are set number of people spending money on these things, however much. Like someone earlier in the thread, I dont know why do a lot of them seem to be "all or nothing" type of people.

It is a similar deal to F2P games, where around 5% of the base, or whales, are the only ones who spend money, but it seems the pool has very few actual whales to support the whole market.

But bringing it back to my original point, that blog post does not mention actual growth to the user base after the DFA explosion. Do we really know, like MosBen, if Planetary Annohilation or Project Eternity are bringing in new users or finishing for the same whales? Where is the data to support that claim?

Another thing though, that blog posts shows that Kickstarter wasn't ever really about the little guy anyway. See games before DFA.

[Ink Asylum]

Originally Posted by muddi900

The ouya had 63000 backers, Project Eternity had 74000, wasteland 2 had 61000. You would see similar numbers for every big name gaming release. There is enough data to say that there are set number of people spending money on these things, however much. Like someone earlier in the thread, I dont know why do a lot of them seem to be "all or nothing" type of people.

While they don't post backer numbers, you can subtract the money earned by OUYA, PE, etc from the money made in the games section since Double Fine and you're still left with millions of dollars going to other games that wasn't coming into Kickstarter before. The likeliest source of that money are people who joined Kickstarter specifically for a big project, or because the big projects led to more media discussion of Kickstarter, then stayed and spent money on others.

It is a similar deal to F2P games, where around 5% of the base, or whales, are the only ones who spend money, but it seems the pool has very few actual whales to support the whole market.

While there are people who spend thousands of dollars on Kickstarters, I've not seen any evidence to indicate that those are the ones keeping projects afloat.

Some quick math shows that more than half of Project Eternity's funding came from people backing with $100 or less. So I'm highly doubtful that it's at all like F2P games.

But bringing it back to my original point, that blog post does not mention actual growth to the user base after the DFA explosion. Do we really know, like MosBen, if Planetary Annohilation or Project Eternity are bringing in new users or finishing for the same whales? Where is the data to support that claim?

I crunched the numbers for one project, and I'd bet good money that doing the same for any other Kickstarter project will produce similar results, with a majority of funding for any project coming from small backers.

I'll do another one really quick, one of the smaller games. Timber & Stone, which looked like it was on track to fail before getting a rush of funding this past week. Actually, it looks like every dollar of their funding comes from people kicking in $100 or less.

Or are you suggesting that a Kickstarter "whale" is someone who donates to lots and lots of projects? I don't think that's the case, but I would be interested in knowing how many people are backing projects these days. Maybe I'll shoot an email to Kickstarter to see if they've ever discussed those figures.

My impression of Kickstarter is that you have a group of people who back a single project but no others, a group of people like a lot of us in this thread who back 1-2 projects a month, and a very small group of whales that throw tons of money at projects. I'm not certain which of the first two groups is bigger, though.

It is possible, though, to get some of that information. You can go into any project and click the Backers tab, which shows every person that backed the project and the number of other projects they've backed. The only thing you can't see is what their contribution level was. A quick glance at the first page (of many) of backers for Project Eternity shows a wide range, and most of them are multiple-project backers.

Another thing though, that blog posts shows that Kickstarter wasn't ever really about the little guy anyway. See games before DFA.

I don't quite get what you're saying here.

[Karak]

Thanks for the helps peeps. Between here and 3 other forums we have a break in the tie. Close but a break appreciate it. I was losing my mind trying to get everyone to agree.

[Pale Ale]

Dude, I wanna play the King of Diamonds!!!

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Pale Ale

Dude, I wanna play the King of Diamonds!!!

I think you need to be even crazier.

Is that possible?

I found an amazing KickStarter

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...n?ref=category

[MagGnome]

Dozens of developers both small and large have found a way to kick publishers to the curb, and some people are trying to paint this as a bad thing? Why am I not surprised?

I guess I'd be annoyed if big developers like Obsidian were sucking all the energy away from smaller developers on Kickstarter, but I haven't seen that happening at all. I've backed several projects from smaller outfits that have done really well. Heck the only one of the "big boys" I helped out was DFA, unless you count Planetary Annihilation.