Using Kickstarter To Promote, Fund, and Develop Your Game…

Hey folks,

In the last couple months, I’ve been hearing about a service called KickStarter…where you propose a project and then get people to fund it. You still keep 100% ownership.

I went to the site and did a quick search for open game projects…here’s what I found…
Here’s a game called “Eminent Domain: The Next Evolution Of Deck Building Games”

This is not a computer game…it is a board game…and they got almost 700 people to sponsor them and raised almost $50,000…that’s pretty amazing considering that many board game designers I’ve talked to have complained about getting exposure. In fact, $50,000 seems to be more revenue than most indie computer games make…and they have not even released the game!

They have awesome exposure and they have some loyal fans…who donated money for the game…and for the chance to fund a great game…I think that’s part of the fun for the folks donating…they get a game…but they also get to be part of the story…to help build a game…that sounds cool.

Here’s another game being funded…it’s an iPhone game…and has already raised over $25,000…
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zarf/hadean-lands-interactive-fiction-for-the-iphone?ref=category

This game is about interactive fiction. The guy has a dream to make text adventures…and he already does it. Now he’s gotten enough money to work on his iPhone game…and the 500 people that sponsored him are going to talk about this guy’s development. He’s getting paid to have people market the game for him!

Btw, the developer/team gets to still keep 100% ownership of the game…even if a lot of folks donated money towards the cause.

As smaller game developers work on marketing their games…they need to consider doing unique things like this…like posting their project on kickstarter.

As small developers, do we need to reconsider the concept of how to market our game? Is it more than ads…is it now involving our audience in the development of the game…giving them some little piece of story/update they can check out every morning. I like to call this “Conversational Development”…where you are having a continuous and fun conversation about the game development with your current and future customers.

Wolfire games seems to have done this well…where they got their whole game funded by pre-orders of the game! You can check out their interviews here…part 1 and part 2.

Does gameplay even matter anymore? Sure, you have things like Bejeweled that have killer gameplay. But there seems to be an opening for new types of games…games that aren’t even fun…as long as you can sell customers on the hope and fun of helping to fund a dream game. The kickstarter donors are paying for a 6 month documentary of sorts…where they get daily updates on the developer’s progress.

I consider this a new game design space…

To succeed with these new types of games…a developer needs to the following…
a) Recognize that the game is about 10% of the product…the other 90% is about entertaining the customers with the story of development. Being a comedian has more value than actual game design skill.
a) Come up with a funny or interesting theme…something worth talking about…something that can serve as a conversation piece for your patrons.
b) Be able to give gameplay/video updates each day or couple days…preferrably on a blog or YouTube…or some other place like Twitter
c) Consciously and purposely make development dramatic. Being a poor project manager works best in this case…as the drama from poor project management makes the story of developing the game more interesting.

You could get penalized for being too effective and efficient at game development. If you are too effective and efficient, you won’t be a fun story to your patrons…and they will lose interest in the game development process…and eventually the game.

d) Having constant prototypes is good…it keeps your patrons engaged in the development story…while giving you feedback on the game

Even if you don’t need the money for your game, it is a great way to get exposure at the moment…so who’s going
to be the first indie to post their game up there…I’ll give the project a plug on the show 🙂