Project Relaunched - 80% on Day 1 [Video Game]
Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2016 5:41 pm
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to share my experiences thus far with Kickstarter and what I have learned during the process. I am by no means an expert on the topic despite all of my countless research and months of preparation - but despite all of that preparation the greatest learning happened when I clicked Launch for the first time.
Our project called Dragon of Legends went live last month on January 18th I believe (exact date escapes me now) and had an ask of $60k CDN. The initial response was alright, but soon I realized that my own marketing efforts would not be enough to make the campaign a success. I really was naive as to how much marketing muscle was required to get the eyes to the project, let alone get them to back it. I tried my best to reach out to press and spread the word locally, but my efforts went unnoticed as the big gaming news sites did not pick up our story, nor did the local press. Also during this time Hero's Song, a project very similar in nature to ours was released, as well as countless other projects which buried our project decreasing its visibility even further. In the end I knew this campaign would not be successful, and cancelled it with 11 days to go. Here's a link to the cancelled project for your reference: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/th ... of-legends
With the project cancellation, there were around 500 backers invested in the campaign and I wasn't going to let all of their efforts and support go to waste. We are a Canadian based company, and in Canada, there are many incentives for Digital Media companies. One such program covers the majority of development expenses provided a 20% cash contribution is made by the company at the time of applying.
Realizing this, I sent an update through the cancelled campaign and revealed this information to the backers, and asked if they would be willing to support the campaign through PayPal so we could tap into this funding service. The engagement on this update was quite high, and the backers provided feedback as to best course of action. Some were genuinely excited to see the project come to live and would donate in any way to make it come to fruition, while others raised the point of accountability that having a successful Kickstarter entails - and in the end I decided that relaunching the campaign would be the better move.
Now after some back and forth between the backers, the campaign has been slightly tweaked, and the ask has been dramatically lowered to $12k CDN - under the assumption that if successful we will apply for this financial assistance to generate the remaining funding needed to create the project as initially intended. The project was relaunched on February 16th (Yesterday) and at the time of writing this, is sitting at 78% funded. A link to the new campaign: http://kck.st/1omOwaE
I am going to be discussing more about what I learned through this process, but in the mean time if there are any other people involved in gaming with a project live or on the horizon, I'd love to do some cross-promotion, or just simply connect with you on Twitter (@thrive905) or Facebook (/thrivegames). Also if there are any veterans in the community who could provide any advice how to enhance this campaign even further, please share your thoughts. Thank you.
Just wanted to share my experiences thus far with Kickstarter and what I have learned during the process. I am by no means an expert on the topic despite all of my countless research and months of preparation - but despite all of that preparation the greatest learning happened when I clicked Launch for the first time.
Our project called Dragon of Legends went live last month on January 18th I believe (exact date escapes me now) and had an ask of $60k CDN. The initial response was alright, but soon I realized that my own marketing efforts would not be enough to make the campaign a success. I really was naive as to how much marketing muscle was required to get the eyes to the project, let alone get them to back it. I tried my best to reach out to press and spread the word locally, but my efforts went unnoticed as the big gaming news sites did not pick up our story, nor did the local press. Also during this time Hero's Song, a project very similar in nature to ours was released, as well as countless other projects which buried our project decreasing its visibility even further. In the end I knew this campaign would not be successful, and cancelled it with 11 days to go. Here's a link to the cancelled project for your reference: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/th ... of-legends
With the project cancellation, there were around 500 backers invested in the campaign and I wasn't going to let all of their efforts and support go to waste. We are a Canadian based company, and in Canada, there are many incentives for Digital Media companies. One such program covers the majority of development expenses provided a 20% cash contribution is made by the company at the time of applying.
Realizing this, I sent an update through the cancelled campaign and revealed this information to the backers, and asked if they would be willing to support the campaign through PayPal so we could tap into this funding service. The engagement on this update was quite high, and the backers provided feedback as to best course of action. Some were genuinely excited to see the project come to live and would donate in any way to make it come to fruition, while others raised the point of accountability that having a successful Kickstarter entails - and in the end I decided that relaunching the campaign would be the better move.
Now after some back and forth between the backers, the campaign has been slightly tweaked, and the ask has been dramatically lowered to $12k CDN - under the assumption that if successful we will apply for this financial assistance to generate the remaining funding needed to create the project as initially intended. The project was relaunched on February 16th (Yesterday) and at the time of writing this, is sitting at 78% funded. A link to the new campaign: http://kck.st/1omOwaE
I am going to be discussing more about what I learned through this process, but in the mean time if there are any other people involved in gaming with a project live or on the horizon, I'd love to do some cross-promotion, or just simply connect with you on Twitter (@thrive905) or Facebook (/thrivegames). Also if there are any veterans in the community who could provide any advice how to enhance this campaign even further, please share your thoughts. Thank you.
. What's one thing you learned from running your campaign?