Is GoFundMe a viable substitute for Kickstarter?

How did I 'attack' anyone? I just disagreed with their position, just as they disagreed with mine. Not once did I use a derogatory term for anyone in this discussion. As for using other platforms like GoFundMe: yeah, that's exactly what I suggested in my first post, and was told it wasn't a suitable platform for raising funds for video games or other commercial products. I was told something similar for IGG (not viable because not enough donors use it, donors distrust the more lenient funding option, etc). Patreon is mainly used by people who already have an established service (e.g. Youtube channels) and the monthly revenue is usually only a few hundred at most, not nearly enough to finance the making of a game.

I was told Kickstarter is the most viable option, which led to the discussion over its all-or-nothing rule. Have you actually used it, since you think it has reasonable rules? I asked that question earlier but no one has answered, and I think the reason is because no one here has actually used it. So I maintain my position that its rules may seem reasonable if you aren't actually faced with the prospect of spending months preparing for a real campaign and the likelihood of all that going down the tubes due to the all-or-nothing rule.

 

Even if the funding falls far short of the estimate, it can still serve as seed money. If I donated $5 to a project that I support and trust, I'm not going to be angry if the devs keep my $5 despite falling short of their stated goal, because falling short isn't their fault and has no impact on whether they're trustworthy or not. And I think the previous discussion indicates that any game budget is such a rough guestimate (multiplying by two or three times is hardly precise) that it doesn't make much sense to talk about "falling short of the minimum" because there isn't any way to estimate the minimum in any reasonable sense. Why not just let donors decide whether they want to donate if there's no all-or-nothing limit? I would point out that the average crowdfunding donation per donor is probably $5 - $10, about the cost of a cup of coffee in many cities, so it's not like we're talking about a huge investment for 99% of donors. The bigger donors presumably have carefully considered whether they can trust the devs or not. I don't see how trust depends on an all-or-nothing goal.

 

Because Dwarf Fortress has long term ongoing development and has been doing this for over a decade.

 

@HonoraryBob your tone seemed very combative but I guess tone can be misinterpreted pretty easily in a forum post.

I've had several thousand dollars owed to me for work done not paid because a kickstarter just fell through. I've also been involved in several capital raises for companies where people have put their houses, savings, etc on the line.

Thats the thing, if it's your idea, your dream, you are the one that should be taking most of the risk. If you dont its going to be hard to find investment... why should an investor invest in you if you dont believe in you own idea? Presumably you want the potential reward on the other side?

Even if you intend to finish the project no matter what, the reality is that many projects don't go down that way. Even with funding there are many well intentioned projects that still fall short.

Kickstarter significantly reduces your risk, a kickstarter campaign is a minimal risk compared to self funding the whole project for example (particularly as much of the material will be reusable in promos or other funding campaigns).

Its up to you if you consider the risk untenable, but why does it matter if five or six people in a forum have or have not used Kickstarter. Go browse the games section there: obviously thousands of people do consider it worth it.

(Written on a phone, excuse the typos)

 

You missed the most important part. When people crowdfund Dwarf Fortress they do so with the understanding that the game will never be completed. The reasons for why they understand are irrelevant to this discussion. What's important is that they know there will never be a point that the game is finished.

Thus they're crowdfunding a service. A service that, while it does include development of the game, includes activities like lengthy discussions with the community, art (he draws with pencils, crayons, etc and sends them to the donators), talks at conventions, etc.

By comparison most other crowdfunded projects come with the expectation that there will be an end to development and with that end will come a finished product. When I crowdfunded Obduction I had the expectation that I would receive the game on discs through the mail.

 

If your audience thinks like that, then go for it.

Most kickstarter audiences don't consider their contribution to be a donation. They consider their contribution to be paying for the product. So they expect the product to be delivered eventually. Without hitting the funding target, there is no guarantee the product will ever be shipped.

 

It's the tone you've set in this thread. You created the thread with the intention of getting people to answer your questions. One of them was literally "What am I missing?". But when people told you what you were missing you told them they were wrong. While I wouldn't call that an "attack", I would say it's contrary to the original tone and purpose of the thread.

Plus it's not like this opinion is coming from just one or two posters and everyone else has a different opinion. The opinion is being repeated by practically everyone who has posted in this thread. When the vast majority are saying an opinion odds are high it's an accurate opinion.

 

Sure, but that's not what most people are putting money down for, is it? If you ask for project funding but only get enough for seed funding and take peoples' money anyway, I think that is a valid scenario for asking "is that fair?"

And lets not forget that you're probably still obliged to deliver on your backer rewards, so you get the liability without the budget to fulfill it. Surely no experienced project manager wants to find themselves in that situation?

Nobody's stopping you from doing that. It's an option with some (many?) crowd funding services. However, while I haven't specifically done any research into this, I suspect that there are good reasons for the all-or-nothing route's popularity, both from a project management and a customer perspective.

My speculation is worthless, though. If you're going into crowd funding then research successful and failed projects and campaigns similar to your own and make decisions based on what you find.

This is all basic budgeting stuff. Sure, the figure isn't exact, but it is definitely still useful. I agree that budget estimates can't be ultimately relied upon. The thing is that, in my practical experience, budget estimates are far more likely to be low than they are to be high, so I see their unreliability as a point more in favor of all-or-nothing than against it.

Also, as teams become established you can narrow down your buffer significantly. One of my old teams used to use a 20% contingency buffer, and that worked pretty well for us. A 200% or 300% buffer would represent risks from a new team, inexperienced team members, a new type of project, technical R&D... stuff like that. If I'm working in those situations I sure as heck don't want to go in already thinking the budget will be tight.

This is commonly an option. If it's not commonly used I can only assume there are good reasons for that, from both project management and customer perspectives. If you think it's right for your project and audience then definitely take that route!

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I think there's a really important piece of perspective that's potentially being overlooked here. Until it has gained traction with an audience, no individual project is that important. Any particular project getting delayed or even cancelled early on isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, in the perspective of a career. There are other projects. You may well even get the chance to come back to ones that previously didn't get traction. And there will be more projects to do than time to do them in, so one not working out is an opportunity to try another. From the "Fail Fast" perspective, failures at the start of a project are considered to be a positive thing! It means you can move onto trying the next thing more quickly.

As a somewhat experienced project manager, I'd much rather move on to a new project than get chained to one where I know things will be tight from the start. I'd far rather have a project delayed, or even cancelled, than end up in the situation described above where I'm obliged to finish something but haven't got the resources I think are required to do it. I've been along for the ride on projects like that before and I can't put into words just how much it sucks.

 

Jeez it's a debate guys, just because someone says they don't know something doesn't mean they have to accept your answer.

@HonoraryBob look at it from a Kickstarter customer's (because they are customers) perspective. Imagine if you put your money down for Star Citizen and all the devs get funded for is something at the level of Star Conflict. Shouldn't you be able to get your money back?

Kickstarter is not begging or social security, where you can spend the money on whatever you want. It's saying "I want to do X, do you want to see X? Give me your money!". Sorry but if you aren't going to do X, you don't get the money. And part of getting to X is getting ALL the money you need for it. Because how else are you going to do X? Kickstarter contributors shouldn't have to rely on your lemonade stand being successful as well.

And if you didn't need all that money, you shouldn't have asked for it in the first place. That's what stretch goals are for. The initial money is supposed to be what you need to get the thing done.

 

Yes, it's a debate now, but that wasn't the original purpose of the thread. Go back and read the original post. The OP asked questions in a way that suggested they didn't have any knowledge on the subject and yet when we gave our opinions they were suddenly very knowledgeable on the subject.

I'm fine with a debate if you want to have a debate, but you shouldn't fake that you're looking for answers when you aren't.

 

Every thread is a potential debate. It all looks fine to me. Besides, the thread, like any other, isn't on exactly the same path it started on, and that's also fine.

It's clear the OP considers that devs shouldn't eat the cost of production during a failed kickstarter campaign. That's a perfectly reasonable (although in my opinion wrong from a funding customer's perspective) point of view. It's all a question of how different people see doing business - should it be safe and easy (in which case everyone and their dog would run a campaign) or should it mean that you have to put you sweat and tears on the line and commit to your ability to market yourself? I think the latter is more healthy for devs and game development in general.

It's also worth noting that a successful kickstarter campaign often involves some substantial demonstration of the product to show its potential. Arguably if someone doesn't have even enough gumption and self-belief to find the funds themselves to put together a demo they probably shouldn't be getting any funding at all. People like to bet on winning horses, not hungry ponies with great ideas.

 

For what it's worth, I'm not seeing any issues with the discussion here, either?

I missed this before.

No, I haven't used it. I have considered it and, for reasons covered above, I think that the all-or-nothing rule is entirely reasonable and it is almost certainly the route I would take if I did go for crowd funding. I've run many projects, I've experienced good ones and bad ones, I'm confident of my budgeting and risk mitigation skills, I do not want to take people's money unless I am highly confident of delivering a product or service to them, and between all of that the all-or-nothing approach just seems like the way to go.

If my project doesn't succeed at funding then that'll be disappointing, but I'll move on and do other great things or I'll figure out how to make it more appealing. To me those are both far better outcomes than getting chained to an under-funded project.

 

The original tone was "Hey guys I don't know much about this topic, can you inform me why X is so" and within a few posts had turned to "I have a really strong opinion about this and I'm going to defend it to the end".

I liken it to someone posting on the script forum with some basic question like "How can I create an data driven inventory", and then in response to someone posting a working solution responding with "that code uses OO paradigm, don't you know Unity's future is ECS"

Regardless of the validity of the points, it doesn't sit well.

I also acknowledge that my interpretation of the original post could be off, or alternatively that @HonoraryBob developed (quite reasonably) a strong opinion over the few days that this thread has existed.

In any case it wasn't like this thread was a fire storm, just a few slightly abrasive posts, and even better people kept focused on the message through the abrasiveness... bravo to us

 

Yeah no worries, I just thought the OP was doing a good job of keeping things constructive and focused on the merits of the topic at hand. Crowdfunding is never going to be a topic where people see eye to eye, and it's not the first thread to deal with the question of a developers struggle vs the expectations of a customer.

Thinking about this topic - and this is something I've said before - it seems to me that the playable demo is the real anchor point for marketing of all kinds, whether it's kickstarter, community-building, collaborator scouting or whatever. It represents something that, in my opinion, a developer must create before anything else, to prove to themselves and everyone else that it's a good idea AND that they can do it, that they are capable of building the essence of what they are asking people to hand over money or time for.

@HonoraryBob in that sense, perhaps it would be a good idea to run the kickstarter marketing on the demo alone (which should be nevertheless quite substantial as a proof of concept) and therefore be able to draw a clear line in the sand as to what amount of time, money and effort you are going to invest before you have all the funds you need to complete your game.

There is no way to avoid some amount of investment of your own (usually a very very lot) before people will invest in you, and the good thing about a demo is that it materializes your game in a way that's useful far beyond simply your kickstarter campaign - it's essentially a fully testable and demonstrable product in itself.

I should say I have no experience on Kickstarter or crowdfunding in general, but I think that if the problem is 'wasting' resources without guarantee of funding - which is unavoidable in any circumstances - then the next step would be to define what you're willing to put in, and how to use that investment to create continued value for yourself even if you don't get funded.