Russians on Kickstarter.com

What is Kickstarter

In this article, I want to share the knowledge gained during my research on the Kickstarter.com crowdfunding platform. I will write from the point of view of the developer of computer games, as this is my profession, but everything described above is also suitable for other projects. In addition, I will explain some very obvious things - on the questions received recently, they were not as obvious as I thought.



Kickstarter is an American crowdfunding portal. In short, ordinary people throw off various projects they like - be it a heavy metal stand for iPhone, a dance project or a game. The latest sensational news in the field of igrostroy were the achievements of Brian Fargo, who collected $ 2,933,252 for his Wasteland 2 game and Tim Scheifer, who collected $ 3,336,371 at Double Fine Adventure .



But these are the stars of the gaming industry that everyone knows. Their community has been forming for decades and has tens of thousands of players. Many are interested in the question: can a young and unknown team raise funds for developing a game with the help of Kickstarter?

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According to statistics provided by the Kickstarter team, only 25% of game projects collect the necessary funds. These statistics include projects of industry gededev stars, so the chance of young and unknown teams is even lower - in my subjective assessment, no more than 15%. Much or less - you decide.

What determines the success of the Kickstarter campaign?

First of all, the success of the project depends on the presence of five elements:

1. Developer videos where you and / or your team are. This video should be interesting, fun and - preferably - with a sense of humor. Sense of humor in the video is considered the “rule of thumb”. At the same time, as shown by the study of videos of various projects - the audience does not like circus and clowning, stupid jokes or arrogance. The motto of the video is banal: be simple, be yourself and be sincere. How to make a good video for Kickstarter can be viewed here .
2. Video showing your game , gameplay or modeling it (in the case of projects from other areas, respectively, a video showing what you want to do in the end). For example, you do not have a game yet - but the characters are drawn, the world is thought out, a map. You can show how the characters will move around the map, interact. Tell about the combat system, if it is, and so on. So for example, Two Guys from Andromeda was made, until they had a prototype on HTML5. Often, gaming companies have a working prototype of the game, which they demonstrate in the video.
3. Awards (rewards) . This is one of the strongest motivators why users invest money. For example, very often for $ 15 you can get a box with a game, which after publishing a game will cost for example $ 50, and for a $ 50 reward you can get a gift edition + jersey + flash drive with the game logo. Rewards can be many different, from $ 1 to $ 10,000. For example, Tim Scheifer “sold” four dinners with him and Ron Gilbert to four different people. The cost of lunch was $ 10,000.
4. The amount you want to collect on your project . If you put too little - a little and collect (with rare exceptions, when the developers asked for example $ 10,000 and raised $ 200,000, project FTL ). If you ask too much, they will not believe you and will not invest in you. Again, stars like Brian Fargo can ask for a couple of million, even though he claimed $ 900,000. Therefore, it is necessary to soberly assess your strength, the complexity of the project and the potential interest of the audience not only in your game, but also in your chosen genre, setting and so on.
5. Preparation This is probably the most important factor. Kickstarter is 90% PR, 10% is your project. Links to major news sites, a list of forums and blogs, pre-prepared articles and reviews, art, photos or sketches of prizes (revovers), and more. It is highly desirable to enlist the support of a good, experienced PR company that already has established contacts with major specialized portals.

Obstacles in the way of domestic teams

The biggest challenge for domestic teams is that Kickstarter works with Amazon Payments. And Amazon Payments does not work with anyone except residents of the United States. In other words, if you are not an American, then it will be difficult for you to get to Kickstarter as a developer. Payments are accepted from all over the world - you can become a “backer”, that is, a person who supported the project, if you have a regular bank card.



But there are always solutions. If you are a developer, and you have partners in the United States — trusted friends or relatives — you can negotiate with them. By signing a contract with you, they will be able to become your representatives and create a project for you on Kickstarter. This is the simplest of all that you have to do. In addition, you can open an account in a US bank yourself (personal presence is required). This will be enough to run your project on Kickstarter.



The next challenge is low organic traffic. At Kickstarter, the search for projects or their presentation to the audience is rather poorly organized, there is no unified community - therefore, without articles on top thematic sites and wide dissemination of information about your project in the media, the project itself is unlikely to collect the required amount. That is why the above item number 5 is so important. If you want to succeed, then look for contacts, agree on articles and reviews will have to be in advance. In addition, you will really need the help of your backers. Without their support, the chances are minimal. It is possible to spread information on hundreds of small sites that are thematically relevant to your project - but there is a general opinion of the creators of the projects that an article on one large site will do more good than on a hundred small sites. Of course, this does not mean that small portals should be neglected; if there is a possibility of placing information there, be sure to do it.



But that's not all. Many projects do not take into account the cost of manufacturing awards, which they promise to Beckers. For example, one project claimed as awards for sweaters with symbols, the production of which, together with mailing, was worth more than the amount paid by the backers (unfortunately, I can’t find this particular link). Another example is another team , which, together with taxes, the not calculated cost of sounds and music, the underestimated cost of making rewards, left to develop just $ 4,000. Therefore, very carefully consider the cost of making all game content, all prizes, shipments (international shipping costs about $ 15).

Our on Kickstarter

For example, the Belarusian game " Legends of Eisenwald " successfully received funding: a small, only $ 83,577. But still it is a success with all the difficulties that the domestic team faces. This is the first game from the CIS countries, collected such a serious amount on Kickstarter. Now the developers of "Legend of Eisenwald" believe that they could well have collected twice as much. However, the Russians (and the inhabitants of the CIS) practically did not support the project: about 70% of the funding fell on the American audience, 15-20% on the German audience and the rest on all the rest.



The second domestic project, al-Skyjacker , set a goal of $ 200,000. For the project of this level it is quite a bit, especially since the project already has a playable demo version. However, apparently the genre of space simulators (quite hardcore and niche in itself), the origin of the team and this amount frightened American Becker. Now Skyjacker went to the second run, taking into account the mistakes of the previous (canceled) campaign.



But even if the project does not collect the required amount, the developer is far from being a loser (of course, provided that he survives without the necessary funds): his project becomes famous. Kickstarter projects are monitored by both regular users and bloggers, thematic information portals, and are discussed in forums and in person. This allows you to form a community and, if the project is done, run with some good (for a start) number of players. In addition, so far there is no prohibition on re-submitting the project on Kickstarter. Having received experience and feedback from your audience, you can improve your project, take into account comments and make corrections, then submit the application again. The only thing that you most likely will not be able to change is your country and the “national identity” of the project (real, not the one indicated on the site). In addition, all projects are moderated before publication, so that if the project is just restarted, there is a high probability of failure to publish it.

A bit of patriotism and optimism

With this article and my experience, I hope to awaken optimism in our developers, and in the players - a feeling of patriotism. After all, Russia is a huge country, with a huge number of players. Having gathered together, we can well show the Americans that our projects also have a future on Kickstarter, that they are no worse. The main thing - to have a suitable project. Soon we, taking into account the experience of our colleagues and all of the above, will submit our project to Kickstarter. In order not to break the rules of Habra, I will not give the link - as I understand it, this can be attributed to advertising. After that, we hope that our people will show greater interest in their compatriots on Kikstarter. Will there be a competition between our audience and the US audience? I think now - hardly. But in the future it may well be, because if you look at the English projects - they are strongly supported by the British (which only costs Totalbisquit alone and its CynicalBrit). By the way, we do not know such strong community leaders. And of course it all depends on ourselves, our players and developers - and on the quality that developers can offer players. If a domestic crowdfunding community is formed, this will give a huge boost to our indie developers. Regarding the industry of domestic games, there can be huge changes: the games will be made the way players want. Developers will no longer be put in an interesting position and will be able to decide for themselves what to do; what games they want to do; what games are really interesting, and are not just a means of earning money from their "patrons" (whoever they are, I will not point the finger).

A couple of words about payments.amazon.com

Accepts payments, transfers money from backers to developers, and deals with checking accounts, cards, and other financial issues on payments.amazon.com. One of the main problems for foreigners on Kickstarter is Amazon - it is he who works only with US residents. Now, as far as I know, Kickstarter is looking for ways to solve this problem and become an international platform.



The good of Amazon is an excellent payment acceptance system. I believe that this is why the backers so boldly and generously support projects on Kickstarter. Its essence is simple: you can support a project with any amount (from $ 1 to $ 10,000). But as long as the project does not collect the minimum amount requested, the money remains in your account. Amazon blocks them, but they do not leave your account. This gives the Bakers confidence and calm. At any time, they can change their bid on Kickstarter, or cancel it altogether (and this happens in any projects - you have to be prepared for this and treat with understanding).

If the project is successful - money is transferred by Amazon at this moment. If the project did not collect the required amount (at least $ 1) - the payment is canceled and the money is not transferred anywhere.



Not everyone can use Amazon, so many developers on their websites make additional payment acceptance through PayPal (and / or other payment systems). For example: one game project collected about $ 580,000 on Kickstarter and on its website (via PayPal) collected about $ 35,000 (I don’t remember the exact numbers, but such orders). Thus, it makes sense to duplicate the acceptance of payments through alternative payment systems.

Useful resources

Kickstarter project statistics website - Kicktraq.com . Before creating a project on Kickstarter, I strongly recommend to study similar projects there, the daily influx of backers, the average payment and so on.



The Russian on Kickstarter group is for those who are interested in the development of a Russian audience on Kickstarter, who have any questions or thoughts about Kickstarter (she was mentioned by Alexander Dergay in his interview ) and the experience gained there.



Divine Space (our project): I don’t put the link away. When we launch the project on Kickstarter - I will try to write notes from the battlefield in another article where I’ll tell you how they prepared, what they did, why and why.

Acknowledgments

Thanks for the information, advice, tips, and other help in writing this article: Alexandru Dergay (Legends of Eisenwald), Evgeny Zhukov (al-Skyjacker), Vic Wertz (The Terah Project) and Chris Pope (Two Guys from Andromeda).