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Kickstarter for Game

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by iningomontoya, Apr 3, 2018.

  1. iningomontoya

    iningomontoya

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2017
    Posts:
    21
    Has anyone here ever used Kickstarter for raising funds for their game development?
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2018
  2. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2014
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    To my understanding most Kickstarters are most successful when you already have an audience.

    I've never heard of your game, which might be understandable if I'm not your audience, but has anyone? Is this something you've released or shown at all? You have a single image which tells me basically nothing about what you're working on, you have no links to other sites showing that you have any kind of foundation.

    How do I know this isn't a scam?

    Don't take that the wrong way. I don't think it is one. But how does the random person scanning Kickstarter projects (and that's another thing--where have you advertised this project? You can't expect to throw something on Kickstarter and not talk about it anywhere and be successful) looking at this see anything worth throwing money towards?
     
  3. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2013
    Posts:
    11,847
    Last time I looked at KickStarter it appeared that the vast majority of video games fail to reach their goal, and that you have much better luck using KickStarter to stir up interest in more physical games, such as board games.

    I suspect that the video game KickStarter campaigns that do succeed build up their following over a long period of time first. Then as the game is nearly to a beta stage they throw up the KickStarter campaign and direct their followers to it. I base this on the wide disparity I've seen between the successful video games that often blow away their campaign goals, and the majority unsuccessful campaigns that usually don't come anywhere close to reaching their goals. I haven't seen many campaigns that fail in the inbetween where they reach like 60%, instead either 10% or less, or well over 100%. So they have to be driving their own traffic to the campaign instead of depending on KickStarter users to discover the campaign on their own.

    I say near beta stage because all the successful campaigns generally have a few things in common. They generally all have well polished game trailers, gameplay videos,, and in game screen shots, that all appear as if the game is already in a completed state. They also go somewhat in depth as to what the game is and why people may want to play it, and generally offer some KickerStarter backer incentive, such as free copies of the game, game related swag such as shirts or other real life items related to the game, etc.

    That's just my opinion based on watching this on and off for the last couple of years.

    As for your campaign, it is a bit odd in that you don't talk about the game at all, and don't offer any incentive for backing the campaign other than some game you've barely mentioned will actually exist (and exist for free for anyone who didn't back the campaign as well) and sharing the same information with $20+ backers that you'd normally find on a game's dev blog.

    Most of your campaign pitch seems to be about how people can give you money so you can upgrade your work space. I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that unless their biggest problem is the large stacks of money laying around the house that are getting in the way of their hired help.
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2018
  4. iningomontoya

    iningomontoya

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2017
    Posts:
    21
    Thanks everyone for the replies. Actually the game has been released and I thought that would seem clear since I am offering to update the app to a free release. There is no need to update something that doesn't exist. If it didnt exist I could be discussing raising funds to create the game not update it. However I suppose more information would be helpful to the campaign and maybe I have not spelled things out as clearly as I thought I had.

    As for the part about discussing repairs, I just wanted to be honest about how the funds would be used in addition to what would go toward upgrading the game itself.

    Thanks again everyone for your replies and helping me to take a more critical look at the layout of my campaign.
     
  5. mgear

    mgear

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2010
    Posts:
    9,350
    some random small things,

    needs videos of current game, some details and plans of what will be updated and when,
    links to store where to get current game, picture of your broken floor, how the money is split between game and repairs,
    and add some lower tiers also.. like 1, 5, 10usd ("reward" can be just thanks, name in credits, beta version or something..)
     
  6. zoran404

    zoran404

    Joined:
    Jan 11, 2015
    Posts:
    520
    Your gameplay video looks like a 2 second gif replayed until it was 46 seconds long and then you get the game over screen for 1 second.
    How can you actually expect people to pay for this?
    And most importantly why do you need $1100 for developing such a game?
     
    theANMATOR2b and Martin_H like this.
  7. iningomontoya

    iningomontoya

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2017
    Posts:
    21
    Hi Zoran,

    Perhaps a longer video would be helpful. The video is actual gameplay which is obvious since you can see the score increasing as the video plays. We are not asking for 1100 dollars for the game but have acknowledged repair work that the funding would be used for in our work area and of course nobody has to individually donate 1100.

    The idea in this project was to give something back instead of just requesting assistance. There are plenty of sites that are geared toward just asking for help through a fundraiser with nothing offered in return but I chose this route and quickly learned that the idea simply does not work. Maybe it would be better to offer nothing at all instead of offering the first game I have ever built. Maybe kickstarter was a poor choice of venue for this project. But it seemed like a nice idea to offer something in return for assistance if it is provided and you don't know unless you try.

    Thanks again to everyone who has given helpful feedback.
     
  8. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2013
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    It wasn't clear because the description of the kickstarter campaign appears to have been rewritten to include that information after I posted my previous comment. Kickstarter campaigns are usually used for funding an in development project, not something already completed, so my suggestion would be for a future project to run a proper campaign for the project itself. Build up a following, and focus your campaign on the support for the project.

    It is completely reasonable to then use some of the funds for that project to upgrade your work area you will be using to develop it. You can call that out as where some of the funds are going still if you wish, but I wouldn't make that the core of your kickstarter pitch.
     
    iningomontoya and theANMATOR2b like this.
  9. theANMATOR2b

    theANMATOR2b

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    7,790
    WIP thread is littered with kickstarter attempts.
     
  10. iningomontoya

    iningomontoya

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2017
    Posts:
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    If I ever get the crazy idea to try something like this again I will reference everyones suggestions. In the meantime I have nearly managed to work out how I will pay for my repairs and cancelled the practically guaranteed to fail kickstarter.
     
    EternalAmbiguity likes this.