Desperate times call for desperate measures, and as the economy slides messily round the u-bend, small (and sometimes large) companies have leapt enthusiastically on the crowd-funding bandwagon. Crowd funding is now becoming ubiquitous as a way to raise funding for all kinds of projects: from open source tractors to fanciful kitchenware to RPGs. So what are the secrets to running a successful Kickstarter for games?
Where to start
The two best-known crowd-funding platforms are Kickstarter, which launched in the UK in October 2012, and Indiegogo. Kickstarter is the more well-known platform, and uses the all-or-nothing funding model – if your project doesn’t achieve its minimum goal, you get nothing, and your backers don’t pay a penny. If your project gets funded (and around 50% do), Kickstarter takes 5% of your profits. Indiegogo applies a different model – if you don’t reach your minimum goal, you can still keep what was pledged, minus 9%. If you reach your goal, you pay Indiegogo 4%. Of the six people I interviewed for this article, five were strong proponents of Kickstarter, due to its ubiquity and funding model. James Wallis, who recently ran the very successful Alas Vegas Kickstarter cautions against thinking that Kickstarter is a charity – its very much a for-profit – and warns that you should factor in the costs of making and shipping your rewards to backers very carefully. If you have a large number of backers pledging small amounts in exchange for a T-shirt or mug, and if a significant proportion of those live overseas, you could soon see your profits eaten up by your rewards. James suggests making your rewards digital if at all possible (easy if you are offering an iOS app, for example). After the success of Alas Vegas he found himself having to sign 800 books and ship at lot of them to the US – not cheap! Byron Atkinson Jones of Xiotex Studios cautions about Kickstarter and currencies: “The biggest hurdle is the currency the KS makes you have your projects in. At one stage during my campaign I had somebody in the US tell me on Skype that they wanted to back my project but they didn’t understand what £ was in US dollars, which meant he didn’t know how to convert – so he didn’t.”
Put the work in
Although it can be pretty easy to set up and run a crowd-funding project, in order for it to succeed, you need to put a lot of work in. Mark Sorrell, Development Director at Hide & Seek (who recently successfully funded their Tiny Games project on Kickstarter) told me that the amount of effort they put in to running their campaign was ‘stupendous’, partly in terms of man hours but also in terms of the emotional investment the team put into their Kickstarter. ‘We couldn’t stop ourselves’ he told me, echoing James Wallis and Simon Rogers of Pelgrane Press (responsible for three successful Kickstarters so far), who told me that it’s a full time job to plan and monitor your campaign. That said, Simon in particular was highly enthusiastic about Kickstarter, telling me that it’s now a viable long-term funding model for a publisher like Pelgrane and that “it’s cheaper to fail on Kickstarter than it is in real life”.
So, with all that in mind, we’ve distilled the advice from our six interviewees into (drum roll) … the edugameshub guide to getting the most from your crowd-funding campaign:
1. Don’t ask for too much money. Work out the absolute minimum you need in order to carry out the project and don’t ask for a penny more for your basic funding goal. If you want to ask for more, you can easily set stretch goals, but your minimum funding goal should be an honest reflection of how much money you really need, otherwise you look greedy. It might be tempting to go for a nice round number, but this may make your audience think you haven’t done your sums very carefully. How many projects come in at exactly $50,000? Would $48,500 look more likely? If you are asking for a lot, and are convinced its justified, make the justification crystal clear in your video and text description. It’s a sad fact that most people think good games cost little or nothing to make (heck, they cost nothing in the app store, right?) If you want lots of strangers to fund your game, you’re going to have to work hard to explain why it costs as much to make as it does.
2. Communicate the aims of your campaign clearly. People have limited time and patience. Make your video entertaining and informative, and don’t waffle. Explain clearly what the project is. We’ve seen a number of crowd-funding campaigns where the goal of the project, and the benefits to backers, were less than clear. If people can’t see quickly what the point is, they won’t pledge.
3. Time it right. Don’t run your campaign when everyone is away on holiday, and don’t run your campaign for too long – it will take over your life and bore your audience. Simon Rogers suggests that 30 days is the optimum length for a campaign.
4. Identify the benefits to backers, and make them good. You might be surprised that this doesn’t come higher up the list, but to a surprising number of crowd funders, the project itself is more important than the rewards. That said, if you’re making a game or an app, giving a ‘free’ or reduced-price version of the completed game to your crowd funders seems like a reasonable deal. Mark Sorrell points out that giving away a free-to-play iOS game to backers comes with some significant technical hurdles. Remember to investigate these in advance and plan your campaign accordingly. James Wallis points out the importance of starting with a very low reward, e.g. $5. No one wants to feel like they’re pledging the smallest amount so the existence of the $5 reward encourages backers to go to the next tier. Simon Rogers suggests making your rewards intriguing and unusual to get people talking about them and to get press interest. Even if no one takes you up on the offer of a personalised game level for $3,000, it generates interest in your campaign. Stretch goals that benefit your existing backers (another level to your game, content written by a star games writer) will bring in more income.
5. Promote the hell out of your campaign. Plan your marketing with military-like precision because your campaign will stand or fall by it. Use the heck out of your networks and your friends’ and supporters’ networks. Do you already have a mailing list you can utilise? Have you built up your Twitter presence? Would a Facebook page for the campaign help? If you aren’t naturally suited to pestering people or sending out marketing emails, find someone who is and – if necessary – pay them to help you. Some investment in marketing could pay big dividends if your campaign succeeds. Byron Atkinson Jones puts it like this: “for the 30 days of your campaign you are a salesperson and have to drive traffic to the page. If you are a lone developer that’s actually quite hard to do while also working on the project you are trying to get backed.” Don’t underestimate the amount of work involved in running a successful campaign! Ask influential people for help. As part of your marketing campaign identify influential people to tweet and blog about your campaign. Most people (not all) will happily tweet or retweet a link to your campaign, especially if you make it easy for them. Thank them profusely for their help and promote their work in return.
6. Introduce new ideas throughout the campaign to keep people interested. Mark Sorrell advises having a story running throughout your campaign to grip backers and keep people coming back for more. This can involve introducing new and interesting content, or announcing special reward categories – its up to you to be creative, but you shouldn’t focus all your creative energies on just the first day of the launch. James Wallis recommends tweaking your stretch goals in response to backer feedback and bringing in big names from the industry you’re working in as part of some rewards to generate interest. Simon Rogers says ‘have something new to say each day.’
7. Have a set of friends, family and supporters to guarantee support. People give more money to popular projects (what’s the point of investing in something that looks certain to fail?). With this in mind, identify and secure promises from friends, family and supporters to fund your campaign as soon as it launches. When the general public sees the support you’re getting, they’ll be more likely to contribute. Funders can stay anonymous if they wish, or you can namecheck them on your campaign page or on social media if they like the limelight.
8. Keep people informed about your campaign. This doesn’t mean bombarding them with emails, but give your backers regular updates on new content or rewards, or news about achieving significant milestones. If your campaign fails and you plan to relaunch it, make sure you keep your original backers in the loop. Once your campaign is funded, don’t go quiet. Let your backers know when your game is coming out and when their rewards will be shipped. If you miss a deadline, explain it – your name can turn to mud quickly if people think you’re abusing their goodwill, as Amanda Palmer found out to her cost.
9. Thank people. A bit of a no-brainer, but it can be easy to forget. Saying thanks really does generate a lot of goodwill. Another good tip from Simon Rogers: you can also say thanks before you even start your campaign by backing other projects on your chosen platform. Prospective backers will often check to see if you’ve backed other projects – if you haven’t, you run the risk of looking opportunistic.
10. Use metrics to help you. Sites like KickTraq help you analyse how your campaign is doing, what’s driving traffic to where and who your key influencers are. Use this knowledge to tweak your campaign and improve your results.
We could go on – this is a huge subject with an increasing body of knowledge building up around it. We hope this is a good starting point, and are open to more information from those who’ve run successul (and unsuccessful) campaigns. If you’re running a Kickstarter for your educational games project, let us know!
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