I’m not going to talk about why we chose to do a Kickstarter – I spoke about that in a previous article (link). I want to share our experiences and tell you what, in my humble opinion went wrong and why the campaign failed to collect the required amount despite being Kickstarted for only the small figure of $ 100,000.

One-third of the target amount

It would seem, that for Divine Space, collecting only one-third of the target amount, success was far away, however this was not the case. In fact, the difference of only a small percentage of the conversion rate from visitors to backers. Our conversion was around 3.2%, a good conversion. 5-6% would have been sufficient to achieve the goal. Typical conversion rates for the top projects are 12-13%, according to the sponsors. It’s then logical to point out: “But then you would have collected only two-thirds of the required amount?” And the answer is: No. The Kickstarter audience is very sensitive to the general mood and when they see that the number of backers and amount pledged is growing slowly, and isn’t plateauing, the amount of backers and pledges tend to rise. (By the end, our conversion rate decreased to 2.6%, which was natural: when people realise the project won’t reach its goal, they’ll watch it, but won’t bother to pledge.). In the case of successful projects, the opposite happens; the conversion in the last few days soars to the heavens.

Every missing percentage conversion was lost for a reason, some of them obvious ones. I’m here to tell you about them. The most interesting thing here is that these factors were not related to the game itself. Not, the quality of the game, art, the setting, or even the embryonic gameplay which we showed – which was well received by the target audience. There were serious, critical disadvantages in the “parameters” of the project, which was unfortunately, not in my power to change.

Problem # 1: Video and Video editing

The video was supposed to be not only original, but also entertaining. Hooded figures were conceived as an allegory of the set of similar scenes in science fiction films with the villains portrayed as the publishers who in the opinion of many players create endless clones and farming games. In the original concept, we planned all sorts of funny moments – glowing eyes, smoke coming from the mouth, Darth Vader hands and so on. Unfortunately, there was simply not enough time and energy for the creators of this film. In addition, as I wrote in a previous article, we did not have time to rehearse, making us look pretty pathetic and ridiculous. The video wasn’t funny- we were. Unfortunately, not funny in a good way, like Charlie Chaplin or Tim Schafer in his video where he’s funny and charming. This didn’t promote much faith from our backers, but that was not the worst thing in the video.

Everyone noticed the discrepancy between speech in the video and the movement of people’s lips. I think that is what made the video not work. The audience did not believe in what was happening on screen, and so did not believe in us, and as a result, our project. Without exaggeration I can say that I have received no less than two hundred reviews that we have “the most awful editing in the world and the speaking did not match the lips.” (?)

Problem # 2: The target platform

The biggest problem in the campaign (and the project as a whole), was that it was developed at first for the iPad. I was initially against it, but I was convinced that “this is a little game to the test with.” My mistake, lesson learnt.

It was an absolute miss for the target audience, which is currently being formed on Kickstarter. It was a mistake for the audience of space game fans. It was also a slap in the face to all fans of role-playing games. Basically, it was targeting players who are mostly not interested in games for tablets. I’ve never received so much negativity from players, down to open insults and ridicule in forums. The main comment from the masses was, “This game cannot be good on tablets” and “Things are always cut-down for mobile, and for us as serious players and fans of space games, you can’t fool us”

I know what will be playing on tablets in a year or two, but our target audience is not game developers. These are ordinary people who cannot predict the future in this space. They live for today and in this context, they were absolutely right. Similar tablet games compared to what they like, are tiny, cut-down and uninteresting. Strong statements that Divine Space would be a AAA title for tablets generally made them even more furious. Divine Space created questions from players about the development process, as in their view “It is always done for PC first and then ported to mobile.” In some ways they were right. I believe that a version for the PC would have been successful.

Summarizing, we can say the following. Your target audience should love your project, and then everything will be fine. If there is anything that irritates them, it will necessarily come into play. If you suspect that a particular property of your project does not suit the target audience, do everything possible to get rid of it, because even if only 10% of people choose not to support your project, you can lose much more than 10% of the final pledged amount.

Problem # 3: Freemium (free-to-play)

Freemium (also called free-to-play) – this was the third nail in the coffin for our campaign, but right at the heart of the failure. With multiple games in which this (great in theory) using this model of pay-to-play or pay-to-win, many players truly hate it. For those who do not know what it is: it’s when you can download or install the game for free, but in which high-value items are sold for money. In particularly evil and cynical games, “energy” is sold, without which players caught up in the process cannot continue to play and have to pay. In the case of pay-to-win, games are designed to be an environment where players have almost no way to pass certain levels without paying. In severe cases, in multiplayer games, those who pay receive a huge advantage over non-paying players and turn them into mincemeat. It happens that the majority of players who particularly hate free-to-play were also our target audience. In other words, they were willing to pay for copies of games, they were willing to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in support of projects of interest to them, but they were not willing to pay for the game to be free-to-play. Of course, not all the players hate free-to-play, or we would not have collected a third of the amount required.

We realised that we had this problem, but even I did not realize its extent, especially after working with Russian players who are more or less comfortable with the freemium model. Freemium works for other types of games with a different target audience (Farm and city games for example)

Problem # 4: the inability to buy / pre-order the game

This problem was as a result of the previous one and I think this was the biggest drawback of this project. Freemium deprived us of being able to offer players a copy of the game as part of the Kickstarter campaign, say for half the price (or slightly higher / lower). Many backers pay mostly for the sake of a hugely discounted pre-order copy of their favourite games, and then choose higher tiers to get various other bonuses. Most tiers include at least a copy of the game. In our case the freemium model created a situation in which players would play for free, and a huge number of them asked the question: “Why should I pay now if I already get it for free? Bonuses are great, but the main bonus is a free game!”, or “I’ll let the other’s pay, and I’ll play (for free!) when the game comes out.” Writing posts saying “The game will not happen if you do not support it” doesn’t work.

What I estimate the conversion loss to be

Returning to the conversion, we can now estimate and find what we have lost, running a campaign in this way. As I mentioned above, our conversion was at 3%, rising to 3.5%, falling to 2.8%. My estimate is based on personal experience and a view of how other projects fared, comparing hundreds of campaigns and dozens of different statistics. One can agree with me or disagree, but the score is:

In the video and the lack of synchronization, we lost quite a bit, about 0.25% -0.3%. Choice of the iPad platform cost at least 1.25%. Freemium then lost us another 0.75% and “no free copy of the game” at least 1%.

The higher the percentage of people who dropped out due to the shortcomings of the project, the higher your lost income. Most importantly, this is not a linear relationship, its exponential (or a similar order), for example, 10% of lost backers reduce your pledges by 10%, but 15% loss of backers could reduce the pledges by 20% or more thanks to crowd instinct. Of course, these figures are provisional and for different campaigns, they will be different, but this is the essence of it. Conversely, the higher your initial conversion, the higher the income of the campaign. That is why at the beginning I said that the difference is not in the $ 60,000 of actual money, but in that small percentage. That is why all those who have run successful Kickstarters, say: “Your first few days should show good results and strong growth, then your campaign will be successful” or “Do not start until you are sure that your first few days will be very successful.”

With this cumulative “anti-bonus”, we lost not just 3.3%, but the whole 4-4.5%. I’m sure with different campaign settings, our conversion would have been 7% or higher (and in the last days, we’d have expected it to rise to 10% or more). That would have been enough to reach our $100k goal.

Lack of a clear campaign launch date

Until the last few days I couldn’t get a clear answer as to when we would start the campaign. The answer came suddenly, “start now, or as soon as possible.” It deprived me of the opportunity to setup a so-called “warm-start”, sending out press releases with a clear launch date. It gives the media an opportunity to review the draft, prepare articles or reviews, and ask questions of the developers. Unfortunately, the press release, “we’re making a game and will run a Kickstarter … sometime, probably this month … maybe next …” does not work. There was virtually no heat, except for some preliminary agreements with small editions (Thanks to all who wrote about us!)

This affected the number of views / visits of the project: it was a record low for 44 days:

Lack of a warm-start had no effect on the conversion, it impact was on the number of views, which was low: only 19,943. That is very, very few hits. For example, “Legends of Eisenwald” generated 46,000 hits and collected $ 83,000. Moreover, the average payout at Legends was $ 30, while Divine Space was $ 53. Even with the same low number of hits and the “right” of conversion, we would (supposedly) have collected about $ 74 thousand. If we consider that this also affects the mass behaviour (i.e. the more backers, the more they write, and the more hits there are, the more hits we get, the more backers etc), the target amount could have been reached. It is a vicious circle, it can work for you or against you, depending on your project.

Ratio of backers, already active on the Kickstarter versus newcomers. In fact, it was nearly exactly 1 to 1, (this balance was shifted by a single backer who pledged $5,000):

One man, alone on a battlefield is not a soldier

I had to do absolutely everything from the marketing perspective, except for the artwork. This meant working with the media, chat with backers and the community, to work with the forums (three hundred), coordinate backers who helped us, monitor statistics, writing and translation updates, video editing and much, much more. This is hard to do as a single person and I just did not have enough time. We did not get published in the “big” media and I think that was the reason. Furthermore, when you’re interested in Kickstarter, but your entire team isn’t, and aren’t going to participate, I suggest you don’t waste your time and energy on such a campaign (and team!) unless you want to gather experience to see how far you would manage to get alone.

I would however like to thank two people for their continued support (both moral and technical, working with text and media) throughout the campaign. They are Rinat Bakiyev (whom I met in our group ” Russian on the Kick ‘on Facebook) and Thomas Watson. I do not even know how I became acquainted with Thomas, it happened sometime after the launch of the campaign and I think I was very lucky. If such people appear in your project – you are lucky, appreciate them.

At the same time, cut off the people who promise to help and support, but then don’t do anything. They will spend not only your time but also what you entrust to them will not be done in time. This unfortunately happened with Divine Space, when some people promised to help with spreading the word, but nobody did anything serious. Some 90% of Russian forums that I contacted who were interesting in writing about the project, in the end didn’t cover it at all.

And yet …

Despite the fact that the audience had almost no reason to support us (and they were good reasons not to support us), we collected quite a large amount. This means that the project was really good. Throughout the campaign, I received many great reviews from colleagues who for several decades in the industry have made much more than I have (so far). One of the letters went something like this: “I am surprised that you have collected so much. Game for the iPad, and even free-to-play – I thought you would collect much less, despite the fact that your game looks simply amazing. Why, why do not you do this for the PC? “. Just in case anyone thinks those are just empty compliments…

Fail? No, it was an incredible success!

I received three offers to purchase the project and / or the whole team. One went something like this: “We want to buy your game and team- name your price!”

The second was a more interesting offer which I received from one of the world leaders in the game industry (currently in first place for the mobile games). For obvious reasons, I can’t say which company. In addition to the full cost of the project, raising wages for all employees to the normal level, the leadership perfectly understood what Divine Space was and how much would be needed to stage a full release. The company would take over the marketing and promotion, and work to ensure that the Divine Space would appear in the top mobile apps on launch day (and, following their success, I’m not in much doubt). Omitting all the details, I estimated my personal benefit in two to three years (after certain events) at $ 1.2 – 1.5 million.

The third proposal was simply to buy all the rights and the team from my partner (and probably me too) and continue to develop.

Why did it happen? During the campaign, I was able to show the Kickstarter project, its strengths, its vision for the future of mobile gaming, and what it will be in a few years. This is not meant to be ostentatious self-PR. If your campaign is an active Kickstarter, update every 2-3 days. If you are moving mountains to reach the goal, you will get known. If your project is really good, even if your campaign fails, your project will survive. Or not..?

Success..! No, this is the maximum possible epic fail

The partners, with whom I worked, refused all offers; offers to buy were not even considered. The reasons seem to me ridiculous, unfounded and not professional, but for ethical reasons I won’t voice them here. Let me just say that this proposal was a dream perhaps for all small developers … quite unbelievable. This was a great opportunity to work with professionals with probably hundreds of successful games; an opportunity to learn and to gain experience. Yes, we would have to bury our pride, but the experience was worth much more. From a financial point of view, the proposal was one that for start-ups, happen once in a lifetime. For me, probably the most important thing was not lost wealth, but the opportunity to learn from doing business with those who do the best in our industry.

What was the alternative? Divine Space is no more. Will it be revived? I do not know, and it is unlikely I will produce it in any case. What will it be without me? It may be good, but it won’t be the Divine Space that I worked so hard to produce.

So, in the end, an epic fail?

No. Despite the epic quality of the latter fail, for me, the whole campaign is more than successful. It provided an incredible experience and a lot of contacts that started work, just at the end of the campaign. I met with journalists and PR companies, stars the gaming industry, to collect several million dollars on the Kickstarter and talented teams, who successfully raised $200-500 thousand. I learnt about first impressions in the video, and how to make it the more effective and popular. I learnt what not to spend time and effort on, it’s not worth the effort that I spent on them. I became familiar with backers and understand better the they want and what is interesting, and what will not work. Meanwhile as crowdfunding grows and develops and as it remains popular, I’ll continue to move in that direction.

I am currently working on three projects that are likely to appear on Kickstarter (or a similar site). Two of these are games (the team of one of which I’m just forming). The third is directly related to crowd-funding and aims to address the problems that I encountered in my own campaign. It’s too early to disclose details, but I hope that small project teams (including domestic ones) that start with good projects can significantly increase their chances of success and media coverage.

I wish you all the success in the bustling sea of crowd-funding and I hope that this post will be useful, even if you do not ever get to play Divine Space.

In this article, I will discuss in general terms concerning some of the psychological types of people involved in crowdfunding (co-financing of projects of interest to them on special sites). Just recall that the term “backer” means a person who invests his money in a not yet existing project in order to support him or her and / or therefore obtain a bonus. This bonus could be a copy of the product for free or at a substantial discount, a copy of the product + prize, exclusive materials available for backer or something eschew. Backer does not mean co-founder, they merely receive shares in the company or stock. Due to the large number of backers, even with their small contribution (an average of $1 to $100, with the most popular payment is $20-25), companies collect funds for the development and / or manufacturing of the product. Products can be different, it can a game, book, movie, toothpicks, a screwdriver, a sound card, the installation of the monument in a place, or even to open a restaurant.

In general, the purpose of this article is to help new developers to understand with whom they have to deal with in their campaign to crowdfunding site. But even if you are just interested in what crowdfunding and what to pay people, why they are motivated to give their money to total strangers – then this material will be of interest to you.

So backers are different. They differ in their goals, interests, financial status, country, gender and so on. But all of them can be roughly divided into certain psychological types. However, I do not share these types of taste preferences. They can include a variety of different backers: games or interest in music, movies, gadgets or anything else.

 

1. Random (casual) backers

A backer might stumble across the project while surfing the Internet. They liked the video or the product itself, and they supported the project. These backers almost never write in comments on the draft, discuss, do not give any feedback. But it’s wrong to think that they have invested money and forgot about the project – they watch it, read the news and newsletters. They are in any case not ignored, because if something goes wrong – they are the first to cut their rates or completely remove them all and take away the money. In addition, they also may well be involved in the final cut (see below, paragraph 7), if the motivation for this is quite high. Later, random backers (if your news is interesting) can become active backer or evangelists.

2. Active backers

These backers actively are involved in supporting projects on your favorite site. They do not just happen to be in a particular project – they are looking for interesting projects and for ones that support them. For some projects, support backers become passionate and something of a competitor with other active backers. Sometimes in different forums, complaining can be done by an active backer, when they spend twice as much as expected this month. This is true – for some people ‘backing’ turns into a real obsession. This is a little-known, unusual and very interesting phenomenon. Active backers sometimes help to disseminate information about the project, and then give feedback intensively interact in the comments of the project, helping the developer to show all its advantages (and sometimes revealing the weaknesses of the project at this stage is to help improve the final product.) Later, the backer often becomes an active, core member of the community on the project (if the project provides for a community).

3. Evangelists

If a backer could rank as a saint, then surely it is this type of backer should give a halo. This is not just an active backer, who financially supported the project. Their monetary contribution may be small, but it does not matter. A backer is one helps disseminate information about the project, call up their friends and acquaintances, write e-mails to unfamiliar people in their contacts, asks Marcus Presson to tweet something nice about the project or write on neogaf.com, where the authors of game projects are likely to not account. They can help with translations into other languages, check spelling and grammar, or find contacts with large specialized portals. You will want to classify them as a saint because it is through such projects, that backers collect the necessary funds, because very often the indie team behind the campaign does not get the press coverage or does not have money even for small advertising fees or a PR agency. Without this project, if it claims to be more or less significant amount (at least more than $20,000), does not collect: the organic traffic to crowdfunding portals are very low and if the project is not something absolutely brilliant, without evangelical backer our advertising odds tend to drop to zero. Therefore, if you are the author of the project – like evangelists, reward them, even if their financial contribution is just $1 because they are the vital energy of your project.

4. Crowd Angels

Very rare people who can best be described as a “mini-business angels.” But this name is too long, so I call this type as described. Crowd Angels – is to ensure people who cannot support even a particularly interesting project to them personally (rarely) and which powerfully support their favorite projects (the most common case). Their work is of two types: support and insurance. Clear support from a backer is putting $1,000 to $10,000 per project and left there. Basically, they are not particularly interesting reward – they support the idea for the project, the benefit can. In rare cases, their motivation chat with the author of the project, but mostly it works only if the author – a celebrity. Insurance – this is when such backer at the start of the project are investing like $ 10,000 and then, as the project is gaining momentum and the necessary amount, gradually reduces your bet (may the way to zero.) This does not, in any way, relate to the fact that the project may lose one’s attention. They simply have to have a certain amount of this kind of charity. And it’s a huge help, because other people see that the project has already collected a good amount and it motivates them further.

5. Microinvestors

I would like to call this type of backer a ‘Speculator’, but in our country the word conotates a negative meaning, so I call them microinvestor (hereinafter – the MI). These types of backers mainly pursue selfish goals when they support the project. Most of those supported projects are ones in which backers will receive a copy of the product after completion at a significant discount (up to 75% of the value) . MIs support the project, receive a copy of the goods and resell it in the future either as 100%, or even higher. With such a backer, work is very simple: to make their reward something such as $1,000, which they will receive copies of the product such as the X10. Professional IP, knowledge of the market and the price, it can contribute $1,000 to later earn $ 10,000. But here it is necessary to understand that the higher the risks of the project, the lower the chance that the MIs will want to risk a lot of money. Thus, the higher the risk – the lower the price should be, and the less reward copies will be given to him. If the developer is confident in their product, they can make different rewards like $ 500 X 4 gives up, gives $1000 X10 copies, $ 2,000 gives X 25 copies (the higher the risk, the greater the benefit MI). In fact, for the developer it is a model wholesale pre-sales / pre-order.

6. Collectors

It’s a backer, who collects physical rewards. They are somewhat similar to those of blood donors who donate and collect badges and ribbons. The reasons are certainly quite noble and unselfish, easy for many to obtain material evidence of the good works that are even more pleasant. Thus, backers-collectors collect souvenirs, which are almost always granted for certain rewards. Someone can only collect jerseys and some do not care what it is, just to have certain objects is enough (e.g., space or environment). So someone can buy toys for their children and the children are happy, the project benefits and he was satisfied with the great outcome. The moral is: material rewards are necessary and useful. Even if there are only a few percent of these types of backers in the total number of your project, then it is a plus to a few percent of the collected amount. By the way, the percentage cannot be accurate yet because of the lack of data – it may well be that for some projects, the proportion of collectors may be ten, twenty percent (or more, it depends on the product.

7. Last Days Backers

I especially like the name – it sounds sublime and mysterious, an analogy with the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Order of the Solar Temple. But in fact, these backers have nothing to do with sectarianism. The bottom line is, that this is the most impatient backer, the one who wants it all at once, and preferably right now. Therefore, they do not support projects in the early stages, not to exhaust themselves during the long waiting process, sometimes for a month or even two. Instead, they use the search functionality “soon ending” projects. This section contains all the projects before the end of which is 48-72 hours (depending on the platform). Thus, this category of backers are looking for interesting projects, which will soon be over, and where they can get something valuable or pleasant: a surprise reward, a copy of the game, a book, and so on. It is largely because of these backers, in the final days of projects, interest spikes sharply as opposed to funding in the early days. But there are also ideological backers in this style. They are specifically looking for projects, little did not quite live up to the required amount, and it is their support that gets these project their final push. Unfortunately, these people are few and far between, but they are helpful and for that we thank them.

8. Doubters

It’s a backer, who, in general, is in favor of supporting the project, but still not completely sure. On the one hand they are interested reward or the project itself, the other is something to hold them. There are two types of obstacles: lack of confidence in crowdfunding as such and something disturbing them in the project. The first type of uncertainty is difficult to overcome, as the developer can only answer for your project, but not for the whole concept crowdfunding. The author can describe how crowdfunding works as a project or in its text description. The second barrier – it’s something in the project. Very rarely doubters write messages to sponsors, more often they talk on the forum of the project, if any. Therefore, the forum is a must-have for any project. Very often it is the external forum doubters converted into random backer or even active, the conversion can occur without any action on the part of authors community, which gathers around the project, often the very people dispel doubts or answers to their questions. Besides feedback and conversion forum is useful and what unites and creates community from crowdfunding site. This is very useful in the future, after the fundraising campaign will end.

In addition, for the doubters, you should premeditate planned updates and news, which shows the development of the project and the work being done on it. Backers in doubt are often converted to casual or even active if they see that the project is “live” and grows in front of their eyes. Speaking of the renovation plan, I note in passing that it is very important and helps keep backers in the project, especially if the duration of the project is more than 30 days. I will discuss more on this point in a different article.

9. Claimants

These people are not likely to become your backer; there is really a very little chance. However, they write letters in an ultimatum tone, which is to promise to support the project if … Each backer promises to support your idea “if” certain things happen such as, if the main character is gay, if the statue is made of iron and matches, and if you dance in your next video on one leg and a helmet! Very rarely are these requirements done. However, if others suggest the same – and only if many suggest the same – then maybe it’s a sign and you should do it so that you can improve your project. Otherwise, if you try to fit your project’s individual requirements to each backer, most likely in the end, you will have made a product of too many pieces – like Frankenstein. The exception is the category linuxoids (for software products, mainly – games). It’s pretty strong and active type (at least for Kickstarter), which can well support your project if you do support Linux. If not, and you make a game, you have to put up with regular requirements to support Linux and disturbances as to why you do not do. Summarizing this type of backer – do not succumb to persuasion of individuals to change your project, but make sure that they do not express the general view audience.

10. Dog in the Manger

This is not a backer, however, they are actively involved in the life crowdfunding outside these areas – in forums, groups and blogs. These people are doing a very important job in their opinion; they preach the idea that – is evil and a scam. They not only do not support the project, but also do everything possible to maximum number of people to withdraw their funding. It is sad. These people have always been, and will continue to, willing to destroy entrepreneur’s spirit and funding. Clashing with them is expected and you should be prepared. If these people are in your groups or on your forums, I recommend that in advance, you have enough information, facts and arguments to justify their claims and have clear answers ready (and not allow to convert the doubters in dogs). If your argument falls on deaf ears – safely get spam blockers and if properly used, you can block these pests. The main thing, not matter what, do no lower yourself to their level! Stay polite and correct, even if you block that person for life

13. Anti-backers

This is the most unpleasant type of backers – pests. Which is why the number is not 12, as should have been, but immediately 13. They make a minimum investment amount (usually $1) for one purpose: to troll in the comments of the draft. There are people who move in such a way on different projects with the sole aim to cause maximum damage to them, to instill in backer uncertainty and doubt. If you have this type of parasite on your project, then in any case, do not lower yourself to their level, but try to explain something to him, or to convince, as disputes with trolls and / or spammers can lead to blocking of your account and the cancellation of the project, as it happened like here. Instead, write a letter to the platform with a request to cancel the payment of the troll and block his access to your project. And in any case, do not give in to provocation, as soon as you suspect it – a troll, give one warning, and if that does not work, immediately ask for help from the administration. Fortunately, there are very few people who behave this way and I sincerely hope you will not meet them on your way

Epilogue

This article is the result of research of different areas of crowdfunding mainly Kickstarter.com , during the preparation of our project “Divine Space” toward the deployment of (I will not give the link to avoid confusion). I have described only those types of backers I have encountered and interacted with personally. It is likely that, in addition to these types, there are others, who managed to escape my attention. Your observations are welcome (can be anonymous, if for some reason you do not want to comment here).

Resources

Website Statistics projects Kickstarter – Kicktraq.com. Before creating the project on Kickstarter, I highly recommend you study similar projects, the daily influx backer, average payment, and more.

Kickstarter – a portal for crowd funding. In short, ordinary people are thrown off by the projects they like, whether it’s heavy support for the iPhone from metal, dance project or game. The latest sensational news was the achievement of Brian Fargo, began its game Wasteland 2 ($ 2,933,252) and Tim Schafer, gathered at the Double Fine Adventure ($3,336,371).

But this is Star game industry, which everyone knows and their community formed decades ago. Can a young and unknown find the means to develop their game with Kickstarter?

According to statistics provided by the team of Kickstarter, only 25% of game projects are able to collect the necessary funds. These statistics include projects about the game development industry stars, so the chance of young and unknown game developers is even lower – probably somewhere around 20%. A lot or a little – it’s up to you.

First of all, the success of the project depends on four things:

1. Video of you and/or your team. This video should be interesting, fun and preferably with a sense of humor. At the same time, as shown by a study of various video projects, the audience does not like ridiculous behavior and acting like buffoon, silly jokes or arrogance. The motto of your video should be keep it simple, be yourself and be sincere.
2. Video showing your game, or simulating it. For example, you do not have the game completed but you need to have at least drawn characters on a map of sorts. You can show how the characters will move around the map to interact. Tell us about the combat system, if there is one, and so on. Often, game companies already have a prototype game that they show the audience.
3. Rewards. This is one of the most powerful motivators of why people invest. For example, very often for $15 you can get a box of Seagram, which after the edition of the game will cost like $50, and for a reward of $50 you can get a deluxe edition + shirt + for example, a USB flash drive with logo game. Awards may be a lot different, from $ 1 up to $ 10,000. For example, Tim Schafer “sold” four dinners with him to four different people at $ 10,000 each.
4. So now you want to build your game. If you ask for too little an investment amount, such as when a developer asks for $10,000 and collects only $700, you won’t have enough. If you ask too much, you will not be believable and people will not invest in you. Again, stars such as Brian Fargo may ask for and a couple of million with no problem. However,, we must soberly assess the strength and complexity of the project and the potential audience interest to your game, your chosen genre, setting and other things.

Obstacles For Foreign Teams

The biggest challenge for foreign teams is that Kickstarter works with the payment system Amazon. Amazon does not work with anyone other than residents of the United States. In other words, if you are not a resident of the United States then getting on Kickstarter as a developer will be hard. Although the payments are accepted all over the world, you can become a backer and support your favorite project, if you have a bankcard.

However, there are always solutions. If a developer has a foreign partner in the U.S., or reliable friends or relatives, they can negotiate with them. Having signed a contract with each other, the resident representative of the United States can be a foreign company and create his or her own project on Kickstarter. However, this is the simplest of all the things that a foreign developer to do.

The next challenge for foreign companies is a distrust that shows U.S. residents to foreigners. Since Kickstarter is like a portal American, the audience is made up of almost all Americans. At the same time, foreigners trust such portals much less than the Americans (probably due to less legal protection than in the U.S.). It turns a vicious circle of mistrust: U.S. residents do not believe in foreign projects and do not really want to support them. And foreigners – do not trust portals like Kickstarter and do not support even their own countrymen. Of course, it’s largely due to the fact that in other countries is almost a completely absent culture and / or charity, they have to survive themselves. But the situation is gradually improving.

Another challenge is the low and limited organic traffic. On Kickstarter, because of a rather poorly organized search for projects to provide for the audience, there is no single community – so no articles in top niche sites and wider dissemination of information about your project in the media itself making the project unlikely to gather the necessary sum. If you want to succeed, search for contacts, negotiate the articles and have reviews beforehand. In addition, you really need help your backer. Without their support, your chances are minimal. You can distribute your information on hundreds of small sites, all appropriate for your project – but one major article on the site will be more useful than hundreds of small ones. Of course, this does not mean that small portals have been neglected and if there is the possibility of placing the information necessary to do it, they will.

And that’s not all. Many projects do not take into account the cost of rewards production for their backers. For example, one project was announced that the rewards would be sweaters with their product symbol imprinted on them, the making of which, together with sending mail, cost more than the amount backer paid you. Coupled with unreported taxes, not calculating the cost of sound and music, the cost of the office, the team left for the development of only $4000. It is unlikely that such a project will ever see the light of day without additional resources … and the promises have already been given.

Foreign Projects on Kickickstarter

For example, the Belarus game “Legends of Eisenwald” successfully received funding. It was small, only $ 50,000, but it was a success for all those difficulties faced by foreign teams. Now developers of “Legends of Eisenwald ” think that could very well build twice, maybe three times as much, if asked for a larger sum. However, practically no Russians (and former residents of the CIS) supported the project.

A second Ukrainian project, “al-Skyjacker” set the bar at $200,000. For a project of this setting, it is quite a bit, despite the fact that the project has already had a playable demo. However, it seems the space simulator genre (hardcore and niche enough in itself), the origin of the team and this amount has apparently frightened the typical American backer.

But even if the project does not collect the required amount, a foreign developer who has submitted his project on Kickstarter, provided that he survives without the necessary funds, the project gets its fame. For projects in Kickstarter, watch as standard users and blogs, thematic portals, discussions in the forums and in person. This allows you to build a community, and if the project will still do this, start with some already established players. In addition, while on Kickstarter, there is no ban on relaunching a project. Gain experience and feedback from the audience, the developer will be able to improve your project, consider the comments and make changes, then apply again. The only thing he might not be able to change is the country and “national identity” of the project.

Another project is a foreign game called, “Divine Space”, a game being developed by the author of this blog. The difficulties and challenges that we faced in Kickstarter – in the next article.

The Benefits of Foreign Projects on Kickstarter

Whether or not to support foreign projects is a decision you must make. But certainly it is good that every foreign project attracts a backer from their countries. For example, Russian projects mostly attract a Russian audience or audience of the former CIS. Even if the project did not receive funding, then some of these people will remain and will support other projects – mainly, of course, Americans.

Thus, foreign projects in the interest of all Kickstarter need to receive funding to develop their product and expand their audience to continue funding their project and earn a profit.
To date, the share of foreign backers on Kickstarter is negligible. This means that, when Kickstarter wins credibility abroad (and it will happen when foreign projects have been successfully funded and published), the audience has multiplied Kickstarter. Looking to the future, we can assume that the fees will increase significantly for teams. For example, the magnificent “Pebble” would collect not $10 million and maybe $ 30 million – who knows?

A game that recently collected millions could collect several times more – in fact a lot of overseas players who are fans of the same “Fallout”, “Shadowrun” and other games, but never even heard of Kickstarter.

Birth of an idea

The idea arose not in itself but from circumstances. Initially, Divine Space was to have been a small, test version of a game for iPad.

First vision of the game, end of 2011 – top-down, flight in 2D…

However we underestimated the complexity of the project. That is, a small game for a PC, it turns out, can be a huge game for iPad. That’s connected first of all with the technical limitations of the devices, which we knew about—but which we had not previously run into (before this project, we had no experience in programming for iPad). However, we were very interested in trying out the new platform.

But we either had to cut the game down very seriously and shorten it into something intermediate between a game and a business, or agree that we were making a complex, large game and follow that path. We decided to go with the game and took risks.

…and what we got in a few months later, 3D with free camera + altitude.

 Our budget was limited. In the remaining (totally unrealistic) available time we just couldn’t fit it in, and we had to think of something. Either agree with publishers’ offers and obtain additional financing, but lose control over development, or find some other way. Very incidentally, I happened across some brief little review of Kickstarter. Already by the end of 2011 I was interested in them, and here was a sign. (We’re talking, of course, of the successes of Double Fine Adventure and Wasteland 2.) The success of those projects inspired us to see what we could do ourselves with Kickstarter.

The beginning of preparations: research

We figured that preparation would take around a month, and we planned to go to KS in July, or August at the latest. It didn’t turn out that way. Reading articles, blogs, success stories, recommendations, talking with authors of successful projects and checking out their advice, supervision of the projects that we were putting together—just one of those took a month. It turned out that KS was not at all a freebie, but was just as serious work as the development itself.

During that process the following key factors appeared:

• One needs to be a resident of the US to launch a project on KS;
• One needs to have an excellent video where the team is presented. If you don’t have such a video, the chances of success for the campaign (according to KS statistics) drops by 20%;
• In the case of game projects, if it isn’t a world name, a game video is essential;
• One must have sufficient funds earmarked, enough for completion of the project on the one hand, and that will not scare off backers on the other;
• For Russian developers, 30 days for the campaign is not enough;
• One must have developed connections with journalists in the top thematic portals, so that one post there is roughly equal to a hundred posts on small blogs and on forums;
• One must have an active community that supports the work and takes part in its life;
• One must have at least a primitive game site; one little page and a forum are not enough;
• One must not count on organic traffic; there simply may not be any. It’s necessary to create your traffic yourself or do so with the help of a PR agency.

Generally speaking, we didn’t have any of this.  That is, not one of the above-listed items.  The game was in the stage of being assembled; we weren’t stars; not residents of the US; we had no connections.  But the main thing was the understanding that this is what was needed before launching.

Forming a community

My starting point was that I started to choose forums, portals, blogs, and contacts with journalists in the gaming area. When the total volume reached 1500, I stopped, figuring that if only 10% of those wrote about us, that would be enough for our minimal goal—$100,000. That sum would also be enough (though just squeaking by) for completing and launching the first version of the game.

Simultaneously with that, a game page was created on Facebook, where people who were interested in the game and its development should gather, and also where future backers or potential backers could come.

In addition, I invited the most active gamers (from my previous space game) and created a general Skype chatroom, enlisting a promise to help us spread information when we launch the campaign on KS, and also created a forum for gathering the future heart of the community.

I must honestly acknowledge that activity has not been high: first, it’s summer; second, gamers don’t yet have the opportunity to evaluate the game and the future gameplay. Nevertheless, things are moving forward, and for that, guys, thanks a million! We’ve already gotten some feedback and good wishes, many of which will be actualized in the game. We have not managed to attract an English-speaking audience for the forum—not enough time and materials.

Beyond that, we’ve begun to put together a small promo site, where it will be possible to see some materials, read a bit about the game, discuss all that, give a like on Facebook or contact lists, tweet, share, and so forth. How that will work—I don’t know yet, but I will certainly share my experience in a post-mortem to the campaign.

I can’t say that I’m satisfied with the preparatory work in forming the community. There isn’t enough time to do that in the normal and correct manner, and not enough time for it to be successfully formed. Indeed, I have no experience with such a thing. I think an experienced community manager would deal with it several times better. It would be best, besides the special person for building the community, to have at least several months and at least some budget. I consider the existence of an active community to be a very important component of success for any crowdfunding endeavor, significantly increasing the odds of success. If there is no community, then 30 days for a campaign for an ordinary project, not a super-brilliant one, will usually not be enough.

Scenario for the video

After the first steps had been taken, the time had come to start the scenario for the video. I studied around fifty videos of successful projects and about twenty that were rejected. In the majority of successful cases the video was professionally shot (although in many cases professional shooting was masked as amateur) and the scenarios were very correctly, competently, and professionally described. In nearly all of them the rule of thumb was humorous moments, up-to-date jokes, and light fun. The failed ones, on the other hand, abounded in stupid jokes or there were none at all; the developers were absent in the video or the actors were excessively arrogant, which also does not engender trust and emotional bonding with the person who is asking people to support his development materially.

Having made my decision, I wrote the scenario. In the video, as in most videos, I had to tell about myself, about the team and our mission, and, of course, about the game. To open USP, the strong sides, and so forth. On фри-ланс.ру I found a good operator whose functioning I liked a lot; we came to a preliminary agreement. Shooting would be at night, on the roof of some Moscow skyscraper. A roof was found on one of the skyscrapers of the City of Moscow. The lights of the nighttime city had to harmonize with the stars and the skybox in game installations.

Then, returning to the point of forming a community, I got in touch with one of the most active gamers on one of the projects where I’d worked earlier and where, as a developer, the gamers loved and respected me. I’d planned to ask him about informational support, since he continues to be deeply involved with many gamers and his portal has high visitation and activity; indeed earlier we’d been connected. The nickname of that gamer was Rezhissyor (“director”); we talked; we found common interests in Kickstarter; and suddenly everything immediately changed. Rezhissyor turned out to be a real movie director and offered to help me with shooting the film. The next day I went to the city where I was born, St. Petersburg, to discuss everything during a meeting.

Scenario for the video 2

I prefer to go to St. Pete by train: I can get some sleep, rest, and in the morning have all my wits about me. Besides, there’s time to think—and I needed to think about a lot, including about the new scenario, since the proposal was surprising: a film studio, a green background, normal lighting and cameras, props. All I needed was a new scenario—indeed, not to shoot an ordinary documentary with such resources that had fallen out of the sky. Two scenarios came up, both of them fairly complex. One of them I threw out myself for reasons of too much complexity; the second one—I described the idea and formed a vision of it in my head.

In the morning I was already in the office of Mikhail (the director) and we discussed the idea of the scenario. We decided that for a game, a game video is needed. I liked the idea and we agreed on what we’re working on. Along the way we figured out all the remaining features and put a work plan together for creating a video; and I was back in Moscow.

When I returned, we discussed a new scenario in the company and, although everything seemed unrealistically complicated and maybe even unrealizable, we decided to work on it. A week later we had a scenario ready—dialogs, storyboard, list of essential materials, costumes, and everything else.

Preparation for shooting

The list turned out to be large and terrifying; the most complex part of it turned out to be the costumes. Since Divine Space is a space game, both the video and the costumes must be appropriate. On the one hand, it would be good to find some sort of costumes of space pilots; on the other, all the similar costumes that we found turned out to be pathetic and more suited for a student party or Halloween in a cheap club. To make them ourselves would be too expensive and would take too long. Plus, with the genre of the game—hard science fiction—fairy-tale costumes would be out of place… and suddenly that cleared everything up. We understood what sorts of costumes would do for us more than anything. After a week of searching we found the appropriate store and bought there the costumes that we’d need for ourselves, “pilots” of a space ship. For our opponents the costumes were simpler and we sewed them up ourselves. It remained only to print chevrons onto our costumes—Mikhail arranged that in St. Petersburg and right in the studio, with the help of special fabric glue, he glued them accurately onto our costumes.

The second complicated aspect was text in English. It turns out that everybody on the team writes and speaks English, so they translated the dialogs, written first in Russian, into English. Mikhail mostly wrote the dialogs, and then in a few more days of joint work we corrected them and firmed them up. On the train we should have been studying our cues in English, and, during the shooting, their pronunciations. Then professional actors, knowing the language, should have overdubbed us, so that the film wouldn’t grate on the ears of an English-speaking audience (i.e., approximately 90% of the backers). On the train, however, hardly anyone started to study anything, certain that it would be enough to draw big prompts and read from them, or that maybe it would be possible to learn everything directly in the studio. That’s how I looked at it, learning mostly from the prompts… but that did not help.

Shooting

Shooting also took place in St. Pete, so the team went there. The studio, the actors, the operators, the make-up artists, and all the other necessary people—Mikhail had arranged all that. When we got to the studio, work was already in full swing: the lights, the cameras, the green background was being set up. Gradually the actors pulled themselves together and somewhere around one or two in the afternoon the shooting began. I have to give Mikhail his due—everything proceeded on a very high level; I never expected such a thing. The actors acted; it was amazing to watch how my scenario was turned into something more, as the actors brought our idea to life. To listen to what had earlier been written and to see the emotions, the life—that was all tremendous. Then it was our turn to bring out our acting talent. Dressing, make-up, lights, setting out the prompts—and we were on!

Preparing. More backstage materials are in Artbook and exclusive for backers.

Well, it didn’t work that way. In the spotlights the text completely slipped my mind. It turned out that I could study it or not study it—it made no difference. Reading from a prompt is also not an alternative, since it’s obvious that a person is reading. Another complication—it was in English, when we didn’t even remember the Russian. In general, that was a complete failure. At some point I thought that we weren’t going to shoot this trailer. But Mikhail knows his stuff. The English text was tossed into the trash and we switched to Russian. In Russian it wasn’t easy—sentences, even the shortest ones, generally didn’t stick in the head. Here I appreciated the work of the actors and from that moment on my respect for that profession grew many times greater. We shot until late into the evening, relying on the editing for the sentences. Shooting our parts took more than a hundred takes. Only toward the end did we relax somewhat and we were able to speak more or less normally—but we had to give up the studio, because we’d rented it just for one day, and we’d bought our return tickets.

Looking back over that time, I advise everyone who’ll be shooting a movie for KS or the like: set aside two days minimum—maybe a day without cameras, for rehearsal. Text learned by heart will also help a great deal. Without rehearsals, unless you have an innate acting talent, or experience with shooting, most likely you’ll run into these sorts of problems.

Even so, we did it. Without Mikhail we wouldn’t have managed at all; a separate public thank-you to him for unbelievable patience—through all those hours of our disgrace, not once did he speak a single crude or sharp word, which certainly helped us a lot. I probably couldn’t have done that.

Editing and effects

The editing was also done in St. Petersburg, and that turned out to be one of the most important aspects of creating the film. Unfortunately we couldn’t turn up a specialist in composition, and we had to do it all ourselves. Therefore I consider the effects the weakest side of the film—with more resources, it would have looked a lot better. Nevertheless, for a “home” video—the result, it seems to me, is worthy.

Then came the soundtrack. Before it was recorded and our voices were replaced, the video was a pathetic sight. However, after adding the soundtrack, everything changed. Whether it had to do with the psychological perception of one’s own recorded voice, or because we were so clutched up during the shooting that we could not speak normally, the dubbing changed everything for the better. On the minus side, here and there it isn’t in sync with our lips, but mostly everyone got used to that. We tried for the best synchronization that we could, and I hope it won’t be too eye-catching.

We are not doing special showings of the game video, so as not to break the perception of opposition between us and our opponents. Instead, we made some thematic holograms, serving the goal of adding diversity to what was happening on the screen and to maintain interest. Another hook was the background beyond the window of the station, which slowly changes and generates a subconscious desire to see what will happen next, what’s floating outside the frame of the window? Besides, this video is a part of the game itself, and so on the second level it demonstrates the game.

We spent a month on editing and effects, in its general complexity, mainly because we didn’t have such functionality in the game yet and we had to write it. In this way we caught two birds with one stone: we added cutscenes to the game, and we made special effects for the video.

For completing the editing we had a site, a (small) core of a community, art, some videos (including an experimental gaming one shot with an iPod), a fairly lively forum, all texts in English for Kickstarter, some press-releases that we wrote ourselves, and a good many contacts with the press.

What we didn’t have, and also about the risks

We did not have a PR agency or our own PR agent. It was a rather unpleasant story: for a month we prepared a campaign with some Australian PR agents, and a week before the campaign was to be launched they suddenly backed off from our project. The reason for their quitting was that they felt that our goal ($100,000) was too high, and we refused to lower it (since any less would not make sense). In the event of failure they would not receive bonuses for their work, and therefore, instead, in order to increase the likelihood of our success (as a good PR company should do), they tried to minimize their risks and squeeze us into lowering our goal. I can understand that, but they took up a month of our time, during which we could have been working with someone more professional and reliable.

All the others were charging high rates with 100% prepayment and weren’t guaranteeing anything, which made their proposals senseless. At the time of writing this article, we still don’t have a PR agent, which increases our risks.

A second substantial risk is the ideology of our company to make all the games accessible, playable even by children, who have no opportunity to pay for them. That means the fremium or free-to-play purchase model. But we also know that a basic motivator for support of a project is “buying” a copy of the game at half price (or even cheaper). That is, the game will cost $50, but backers can get it for, let’s say, $20, if they support the project on KS. Therefore we’ve prepared more incentives and extras than for a fremium project. How they work, time will tell—on the whole, for gamers these prizes should be highly alluring.

The next risk is that we are not Americans, nor even Europeans. We’re Russians, who drink vodka, where bears roam the streets, where revelers are thrown in jail for political reasons (whether that’s so or not doesn’t matter; the main thing is that a large portion of backers see things that way) and in general here there’s fear and horror. It seems to me that the political history of PR could seriously spoil the impression starting with launch. We can only hope that the commotion in this regard will settle down by the time the company is launched.

And most importantly—we still don’t have a fighting video. That is the greatest risk, since the results of the feedback show that everyone is mostly interested in fighting. In spite of the fact that we already have a balance of objects, weaponry, shields, ships, and generally all of the equipment that it operates—artificial intelligence is still only in the process of development. In the ideal, we should first finish that and show how the ships fight, how battles take place, how they fly and respond to events—but deadlines are pressing and we have to launch the campaign with that very important part of the game. Of course, a miracle might happen and at the moment of launch everything will change (about two weeks now remain before launch). But if that does not happen, we’ll have to show a fighting video by means of an update. Without a doubt that is a good informational method for underpinning flagging interest by the audience; however, it would be better to have such a video right from the start.

The last of the basic risks is the “Kickstarter fatigue effect”. Briefly, the press has gotten bored with writing about Kickstarter, and bored of the constant requests to write about this or that project. On some forums it’s even forbidden already to start that sort of thread. That makes the life of indie-companies in the crowdfunding arena much more complicated; at the same time, people will write as much and as happily as they’d like about stars such as Bryan Fargo or Tim Shafer. In this way, Kickstarter and its analogs will become steadily more complicated for indie companies (for whom they position themselves) and more accessible—for the stars. At least, that’s the situation in the video games industry; probably in other areas it’s a little easier for indie companies.

Material rewards (an artbook and something else) are among the things that we still don’t have. We chose Amazon as producer of an artbook, because it’s possible to send them a template and they’ll print them off and send them to the indicated address themselves. The price is very reasonable, but we must recall that international shipping is somewhere around $10 – 15. That is, ideally the party manufacturing the rewards should be located in the US or China and should send them out themselves throughout the world, so that the cost price of the rewards won’t rise because of international shipping, maybe even doubling. We have not yet finally solved that problem, other than the artbook. We’re now looking for a reliable producer of souvenirs in China, who could take shipment to various addresses on themselves; we’re hoping that they exist.

A corporation and Amazon

A basic question that I get is how we’ve solved the problem of US residency. We’ve settled on the help of a trustworthy person, a Russian, who has already been living and working for a long time in the US. In Kickstarter they told me that such a person should be a part of the team (a collaborator). Since he also works in the IT arena, we’ve concluded an agreement with him and have become partners. In this way he is our representative in the US and does the interactions with Amazon through his company.

Other versions are to fly to the US myself, obtain all necessary documents, open a corporation and a bank account (a corporation so as not to pay the unreasonable taxes that a private person has to pay, or at least that’s what I was told in a law firm offering their services as intermediary with KS). In essence that is a third version—to find a respected incorporated company (not a flash in the pan and not young) and they, for a fixed price or a modest percentage, would become our representatives in the US

A fourth version is to find fellow Russians who have already been to KS and negotiate with them about representing our interests at KS.

Registration with Amazon took almost a month (Amazon is very slow in their approval of a bank account. Unless you phone them several times, you’ll hang in the “pending” status.) I think if I’d phoned them sooner things would have gotten done faster, but we did not have that kind of timing. But if you don’t phone, more than likely the account will hang.

Launch!

The most important moment after a company’s launch is to create a peak of interest and backers in the first three days. According to the statistics studied, the first three days are the most active, and then there’s a fall-off, a plateau, and the campaign is completed with three more days of growing interest (why—I explained in my previous article). Therefore it is very important on the first day to notify journalists, forums, gamers, and friends as much as possible—everyone who might be interested in this project. If you succeed in creating such a peak, the campaign will begin to live a life of its own. The first active backers appear, who help the developers spread information and who give moral support both to the team and to other backers. If on the other hand there is no such bright launch, then everything will be much slower and unfortunate. For example, again from statistics, if a project has gathered 30% of the total sum in the first third, then there’s a 90% chance that it will succeed. Thirty percent can be collected only if you manage to create that peak. Therefore the first days are fully dedicated to communications with journalists portals and to answering questions and dealing with backers.

Then—updates. You need to have them ready and know what you’ll be telling about, why and for what purpose. Updates support interest in the project and stimulate the sincere active backers to continue their mission, as well as showing the doubtful or passive backers that its life is at full steam, that the project is growing and developing, and the developers should not put down the gamers. It’s good to have updates once every 2 or 3 days. Less often could turn out to be not enough; more often, too bothersome. And, of course, updates should be interesting. We’ve prepared about 30 different updates; some of them we had to combine into one, so as not to overload the backers and the project. Basically those are sketches, outlines; I’ll write out each update in detail, starting from the circumstances. If the update is a video, then it’s better to prepare it ahead of time, since otherwise there usually will not be time.

The length of our project is 45 days. Although statistics show that the time limit for most successful projects is 30 days, the experience of Russian projects shows that that is insufficient to break into the foreign press. A two-week reserve is taken precisely so that we can get published and notify the mass media before the campaign ends, and not in the last days.

We have launched at October, 10. You can see how our campaign is going and whether the results are living up to expectations, whether the game is worth the candle, here:

Best wishes and stay tuned, post-mortem will be here after end of our campaign.

Soon, many intersting things will be here – not only blogs, but absolutely new functionality.

No, it’s not yet another crowdfunding platform. And not just a blog.
It’s way better!