Kickstarter exit: how we failed

Training

We are a young game studio, which was created from a fusion of indie developers and people who used to work in domestic game development studios. We have released several mobile games.

We started developing a desktop game some time ago and decided to try to finance it with the help of Kickstarter (hereinafter KS). Analyzing the experience of other projects at KS and preparing our campaign took us three months, during which we thought over and prepared the content for posting on the project page, videos and other related things.

Before starting to design the KS page, we learned about it from wherever we could, arranged online conferences with people living at the other side of the world, personal conversations with employees of other studios. They even talked to the marketer, who led more than 100 projects on KS.
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Some of us already had experience going out with another project and another team at KS and the past experience was also not successful, but then we went out through an intermediary in the states who promised marketing support as well, but we were extremely dissatisfied with the work of the intermediary and therefore this time we decided to go out by ourselves.

It seemed to us that we had foreseen a lot. Every little thing and nuance. Knowledgeable people assured us that the project must shoot. But they were right only half.

On January 13, the campaign started at KS, a little later the game appeared on Steam Greenlight. In the first 12 hours, the backers brought more than $ 250, and we already enthusiastically rubbed our hands, because only a couple of media outlets wrote about the start (and we approached marketing very seriously), who agreed to cover this event. There were still a lot of publications, who promised to write about the game and a few mailings. But no. The influx of backers has declined dramatically and is now almost gone.



And this is strange, because in Greenlight and on the forums, the game was even somehow loyal. There were practically no people who had a serious project, the maximum that could be embarrassing is that the game has obvious references to the game Cave Story, but we don’t hide it. Mainly in the comments there were words of support and promises to be sure to play the project when it gets to the release.

Paradox? Loyal audience was found, and the company died at KS? Should there be a reason for this?

We approached the page design on KS with due scrupulousness. Below is a diagram of how and what we placed on the page:

1. Content

Naturally, people who look at our page will prefer to see it as a well-designed, rather than a wall of text with a couple of pictures. Based on the analyzed successful projects on KS, we identified what should be on the project page:

- Selling and mysterious project icon (so that you want to press it, juicy and colorful, but, most importantly, understandable). It is desirable that the icon contains the logos of the platforms on which the game will be released;

- A brief description under the icon for 135 characters (in order to fit into these symbols, it is necessary to describe the content of the game as precisely and concisely as possible);

- We thought that the name One Dog Story (win \ mac \ linux \ consoles) was definitely better than just One Dog Story. We decided to do this so that people could see on which platforms the game will be released, since the 135 character field is already taken up under a brief description;



- Headings to points were made using art from the game and separately drawn details. It looks and is perceived much better than dry writings;

- At the very beginning of the page, after the video we posted links to the social. the networks and the press kit, maybe it will be useful to someone, maybe some media will be interested;



- Prototype game. Yes, we posted a prototype of the game almost at the beginning of the page after the video. After playing it, someone may be more interested in the project. Was this decision right? After all, a prototype is a prototype. Perhaps he scared off some of the backers.

- Beautiful decorated moments (screenshots);

- Interesting GIF animations. Yes, it is assumed that not everyone watches the video, so we posted GIF-animations;

- A good and clear description of the game. We started with Synopsis, further The Game and Gameplay, where it is described in detail what and how. We spiced up all this with beautiful headers and decorated screenshots from the game;



- Board achievements or (stretch goals). Backers must see why all this, because achievements must be shown almost immediately. Virtually every project at KS has such an achievement board. It shows your sponsors that your plans and ambitions are much higher, something you have at the moment. It was supposed to make it better as a beautiful art from the elements of the game and add animation to attract attention. Next, we painted the text that gives each of the contributions to the game;



- The main theme of the game music. Music is inserted very simply if you have it on soundcloud.com;



- Rewards are also better described on a page with good headings (for example, CREATOR), i.e. each item must have its own rank. 25% of projects do not do this, but statistics show that it is better not to neglect it. We animated the icons of the revolutions to look nice. It will be a plus to lay out a grid of revolutions with a separate art, where you can see who will get what and for what amount. Perhaps our mistake was that in the reward grid should be located from the smallest to the largest, we did not attach any importance to this and our grid turned out to be unreadable. We also initially described each level of revolutions in great detail in the text itself, which was difficult to read. One could confine oneself to something like “everything that was higher + ...”. This we corrected later.



- We announced a small challenge. Its meaning is that the backer who invested the most gets the opportunity to give a name to the main character of the game (a dog who does not know from the script who he is and what his name is). Each update we planned to publish the name and surname (nickname) of the leader at the moment. We expected this to create some kind of competitive element among the Beckers. The leader will be the one who at the time of the end of the campaign will invest the largest amount;

- Chart or graph explaining what the money will go for. Almost all projects do this, although it is likely that backers do not look at it;



- Info block about the team. This block is considered very important, as it contributes to the development of confidence in the team from the backers. We told about our thoughts about our game + what we do and what the role of each of us comes down to. There is another assumption. Perhaps some of the backers were scared away by our Slavic names and surnames (despite the fact that the project is formally done in Florida and even in the video we included a moment with a camera on a quadcopter flying off from the only member of the team who actually is in the states + on the set of the team we They did not specifically wear sweaters, so as not to give out that it is winter outside the windows of the office). However, it may simply be the absence of this unit would contribute to a more successful move of the company.

2. Video

In KS-video, we showed teamwork in order to build confidence from the backers. As for the rest, the video takes 4 minutes, maybe a lot, but there are 30 minutes for KS videos. In it, we also showed the gameplay, intro, various game moments, art, levels. We did not read the off-screen text in broken English on our own, as this spoils the impression somewhat, so it was decided to hire a native speaker. He enters just at the moment when the command is shown on the screen.

We reworked the video 3-4 times, added or removed various points based on the feedback we received. And even now, we again redid it, cut down and removed unnecessary moments, because, statistically, we realized that the video was watched by only 10% of those who visited the page.

Separately, it is worth noting that we have embedded subtitles in the video in those languages ​​that we plan to introduce into the game. But in Reddit, where we were bombarded with links, we were told that we had a bad video. Yes, we have no specialists in this regard and everything was done by the means of the team itself. But the criticism was not constructive, and we could not understand what exactly the users of Reddit did not like about some subreddits. At the core of its rating record grew.

3. Press

It is very important that at the time of the start of the campaign about the game and the campaign learned as many people as possible. Since we do not have our large community, we contacted SoftPressRelease. This company is engaged in sending out a ready-made or ordered press release from them to various venues, both English and French, and German and Russian, of course. The newsletter was scheduled for the first day of the campaign. We also have our own list of media, to whom we wrote independently. The algorithm of working with them was as follows:

- We write a week before the release and warn.
- We write on the day of the launch of the campaign to those who either did not publish or did not answer at the last step.
- We write thanks to those who published (we choose the time)
- In a week we write to those who did not publish with the results.
- A week before the collection, write to those who wrote (boast in case of success, if he would) and those who did not write too.

The results we received are very modest. Not many resources published us, but we lit up on destructoid, gamasutra, ps4news, and many other lesser-known resources. We currently have about 2000 page views.
We think that we were greatly hindered by the fact that we didn’t have our own sufficiently large community of players before the start of the campaign on KS, and this community could and should have provided the initial impetus of the campaign, which in the end did not work.

During the launch, we notified our community as well as friends, who at the start supported us throwing in $ 1 - $ 14. On the first night, messengers were bursting with correspondence with friends. And we must pay tribute to our friends, although we were afraid that someone would mark it as spam in the VC and personal account banned - this did not happen. Moreover, many really threw money. For which we are very grateful to them! If the game does not pick up the required amount - this money will be returned to them, so do not be afraid of it. The counter is not standing still adds the feeling that the project is popular and the backers are investing in it. This may be an incentive for the following backers to also not be afraid to invest.



Even after the start, we rewrote the page 2 times. The first translation was made by our translator and according to the comments of those who were shown it before the start - it was quite good. After the start, when we just sent a link to the project to our friends - we were informed that our English is simply terrible. We gave it to a professional translator who translates for the States, spent the night and rewrote. After that, a backer appeared who invested $ 100 and said that the transfer was terrible again and he decided to help us with this case by appending a fully reworked text to the message.

4. Start date

The start date of the company changed several times, but according to the original plan, we were supposed to go out on November 19. Based on our analysis of the projects, at KS, the busiest months at the site were just November and September, plus the whole release of the game Fallout 4 convinced us that the date should be postponed. Also in this time there are huge sales in all markets, which must also be taken into account. We also decided not to go out on Christmas. As a result, we stopped at the date of January 13th.

The term of the campaign, we set to 30 days. A maximum of 60 days can be set, but it is not recommended to stretch it for a period of more than 40 days due to the fact that trite beakers can at any time cancel their decision and withdraw their invested funds.

5. Steam Greenlight

We did not want to go on Steam Greenlight in advance, although we are fully prepared for this. We planned to do this immediately after the start of the company, because the peak of interest in projects falls on these days. Thus, we wanted to spur a good flow of traffic - people from the KS page had to go to the Greenlight page and vice versa.

Now we have 22 days left until the end of the campaign, and we wonder what the reason for such a bad start was, although we did some analysis. What we have identified:

1) KS audience does not trust young teams;
2) We did not have our own community, which could support at the start of the campaign;
3) There are not so many developments on the game, but what we showed did not cause the effect that could convert a positive review on Greenlight or the forum into three bucks on Kickstarter;
4) We are from Russia and they do not love us there (joke).

I would very much like to hear in the comments also the opinion of the habrosoobschestva in this regard. We will also be happy to answer the questions of those who, like us, are just about to go to KS a couple of months ago.