It has been five long years since I crafted Kickstart This! How To Get More Coin For Your Game, my first guide to crowdfunding for game developers. Since then, we have seen a smorgasbord of game projects launch into the crowdfunding seas, some reaching the legendary Land of the Funded, while most turned back. Those who went in without a map were suddenly lost at sea or smashed against the rocks of failure.
During this period, I launched two film projects on Kickstarter. The first, The Illuminant Midnight Project, crashed and burned, raising a paltry £874 against a target of £15,000. It was a trio of short films that were, in retrospect, far too ambitious, with a lofty goal on a project that I had I not put enough work into (and I had put in a lot of work).
Several years later, I took what I learned from those first mistakes and launched The Water Rat, a short film with a single location and only three actors. The constraints allowed a much smaller initial target of £500. We passed this in three days, ending our 30 day run at the start of April with a total of £1750, enough to make two short films.
With that in mind, it seemed like an ideal time to revisit my original guide, as well as its sequel (Kickstart This! 10 Pointers To Get More Gold For Your Game). I’m going to address new features that Kickstarter has launched, and look at old ideas in a new light, especially in developing an audience or community before launch.
Community and Social Media
Before you even think about building a Kickstarter page for your campaign, you need to build an audience. The quickest and easiest way to do this is through social media, with networks of millions of users to connect with. For The Water Rat I used three… Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Best Examples
I created a Business Page on Facebook and then invited friends and family to join it. Once we had cast and crew members on board, they also signed up to the page and sent it to their friends and it had a nice snowball effect. I did consider building a separate website for the project, but a Facebook page does a much better job of engaging people at zero cost.
With Twitter I sent out various tweets at different times of the day, often tagging other Twitter users who are strong retweeters. Before starting your campaign, I would suggest browsing users, categories and hashtags on Twitter, and keeping a spreadsheet of all of those who are not only relevant to your project, but also interested in it as well. It’s worth sending them a tweet or a direct message if they follow you back, as many will have platforms such as blogs and podcasts where you could contribute, perhaps as an interviewee or a guest columnist.
There are also Twitter feeds dedicated to crowdfunding who openly invite followers to tag them, and doing so will allow them to RT to their followers. Every time we tweeted we saw a spark of visitors that often resulted in a pledge, although not as much as Facebook, which was our primary driving platform.
Instagram was difficult because until the film was shown, we had little imagery to use. What I did was take our poster image, and edit it into a colourful countdown. I didn’t post to Instagram every day, only at specific points or events (i.e. hitting a stretch goal or 20 days to go). For a game project, I’d share everything I could on Instagram during a campaign, including artwork, screenshots, and developers and artists at work. With each picture, always ensure your linking to the Kickstarter campaign and using relevant hashtags so people can find you. You can paste links into Instagram but they won’t be clickable, however, you can add a website to your profile, so alter this to suit your project.
They key to managing all of these channels is to keep them flush with fresh content. When I started the campaign I had planned to do 10 major video updates on the Kickstarter page that I could then replicate on other channels. I think we managed only eight of those due to time constraints, so make sure you have most, if not all, of your supplementary material ready to go before launch. For example, plan an update around each aspect of the game – inspiration, script, design, sound, gameplay. People engage more with social media posts and updates that have something to see or watch. Pictures and videos are your friends, so find a way to make them in abundance. You don’t have to be a wiz at Photoshop or Final Cut. I edited pictures on my phone when I was away from home.
One platform that is custom-built for gaming projects is Twitch. Look at what No Matter Studios did with Prey for the Gods. Not only did they have a great game concept, but during and after the campaign they had interviews on Twitch with various members of the team, offering backers a unique insight into how the game was being shaped. They raised over $500,000, which is insane!
One tool I looked at using but ultimately decided against was Kickstarter Live. It may be something I use to connect with backers during the production, but I think if you are working as part of a team of designers, Kickstarter Live could be very advantageous to do a Q&A session with backers. However, if time is a factor and can only do a few live videos, then I would go with Twitch. It is the bigger viewing platform, and while it is trying to diversify with other channels, its roots are in video games. If you are technically savvy and have more than one device, you could broadcast to Twitch, Kickstarter Live, Facebook, and Twitter simultaneously!
Another avenue to look at is Ask Me Anything. These are no longer confined to Reddit, although if you use that platform then why not take advantage of its huge user base. You could even do it on Twitter with a hashtag, although it does limit the length of questions and answers, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I did an AMA a while ago on AMA Feed for a book I was promoting, and found it very useful to engage with people and answer their questions.
Beyond these platforms, try and spread your project message far and wide. Join crowdfunding groups on Google Plus, or start a Hangout. Post artwork on Pinterest and Flickr. Post any video updates on YouTube and Vimeo. Start conversations or host an AMA on Reddit. Update your LinkedIn profile and let those in the industry know that you are launching a project. Just get the word out however you can!
As well as social media, you can look at building up an email contact list of people to contact. This comes more into play when you are contact journalists and bloggers rather than potential backers, so we’ll look at that a both later.
If you already have a demo of your game then make it super-easy for people to download. If you can, host it on your website, but if you need to be frugal, use a public folder in Google Drive or Dropbox, which have no restrictions in terms of bandwidth or how many times the file can be downloaded.
In exchange for the demo, try to capture an email address. This gives you a chance to contact people directly to get feedback on the demo. It also makes it easier to invite them to pledge if they have not already done so, perhaps with an added incentive or perk, such as an early bird discount.
Last, but not least, is Kickstarter itself. Those who have already backed you will help amplify your message, so put out as many updates as you can during the campaign, and they can share them and spread the word. However, only update if you have something to share, instead of spamming those who have donated their money to you with irrelevant information. Plan your updates before you launch, preparing videos or pictures and text so you can copy and paste it in.
However, your updates will also be reacting to what is happening during the campaign. We were lucky enough to reach our goal in less than three days, so we sent out a thank you update, and shifted our other updates back a few days. Ideally, you want to be updating the project every two to three days, which means 10-15 updates in a 30 day funding window.
Next time, we’ll be looking at the design of your Kickstarter campaign page, and tips to tweak it.
And in case you missed any of the other parts of our “Kickstart This! Guide to Getting Your Game Funded,” here they are…
