It’s the start of a new year, which means analysts are pouring over statistics from the previous 365 days, especially to do with the weird and wonderful world of crowdfunding, which still appears to be more of an art than a science.
So what have we learned? Kickstarter revealed that investment in the Games category is down to $89.1 million in 2014, compared to $105.6 million the previous year. Yet successful projects were up from 1,481 to 1,979. That’s nearly a difference of 500, suggesting investors are backing smaller projects that have a larger chance of success. According to Kickstarter’s own stats, the overall rate of success for Games is 34.18%, 5.5% less than the total success rate of the site, which sits at 39.68%.
In short, video games donations and numbers were down.
A lot.
The problem is quality. I have been writing Warp Zoned’s Kickstart This! feature for nearly two years now, and have watched Kickstarter blossom into something that I am passionate about and regularly pledge money towards – not just video games, but technology and films as well. Yet it genuinely astounds me when I find a game project that has an excellent concept that is ruined by poor execution. These tend to be accompanied by shoddy or non-existent artwork and terribly written synopses and treatments that sound like pale imitations of beloved titles.
People post game projects without videos expecting to raise funds because they simply asked. You could be the best developer in the world, but unless you have something to show, or unless you can speak to me and make me believe that I’m parting with my money for something brilliant in return, you will not succeed. If you cannot write compelling copy, then hire a writer. If you lack footage of your game, hire an artist or two.
“But I don’t have the money to hire anyone…”
You could try persuading someone to do it on a deferred payment, but my response would be: if you do not believe in your project enough to invest your own money, why should other people? Do what you need to make it look like there is a well-oiled team behind this project, rather than a couple of people in a basement dossing around with half-baked ideas (unless that idea is for a potato salad recipe).
Then there are the rewards. Kickstarter has seen a number of trends in its rewards, and while I applaud the application of early bird systems for getting a copy of the game, there are those who offer very little in return for the donation. The higher tiers often offer some form of “come meet the developers” reward, but at your own expense on top of the donation. There have even been some who offer the chance for them to fly to you. How does that work? If I donate money to your game, I want it going to your game, not so that you can swan off around the world. I’m all up for meeting developers and chatting to them, but I’d prefer a friendly half hour bit of banter on Skype rather than a $1000 round ticket to a cramped office, as I have my own right here.
There has also been a rise in fraudulent projects, which is possibly making potential backers weary of any big-budget endeavour from an unestablished studio, as they often reek of criminal desperation.
Enter Leonid and Max Kovtun, and their two game projects, Areal and Space Pioneer respectively. If the latter sounds familiar, that is because it appeared in the January 2014 edition of Kickstart This! If that was not bad enough, I interviewed Max Kovtun the following month. It was an email interview, so it was hard to gauge the man, but he seemed to have an immense enthusiasm for space exploration, and the main draw of the project was that it alleged to have Russian cosmonauts as part of the development team. This, it turns out, was a complete fabrication. Kotaku ran a story which best captures the entire saga.
Meanwhile, Forbes got to the bottom of Areal’s troubles when the team behind it attempted to crowdfund another game, STALKER: Apocalypse. However, this was not on Kickstarter, but on a crowdfunding site called Wfunder, which, it transpires, was also a fake. Part of Areal’s pitch was that it was from the creators of the original STALKER, which was just another lie found in this shady house of cards. In the end, Kickstarter shut down the Areal project, but it proved to be a valuable lesson about the guarantees, or lack thereof, in crowdfunding.
So not only do game designers have to sell their game, they have to sell themselves as genuine, devoted developers who will deliver what they have promised. One way that many of the projects I choose for Kickstart This! do so is to show specifics: exactly why they need the target amount, which department or resource it is going towards, how long it will last, and what happens if there is any leftover (hint: Kick it Forward should be your answer). For those who are unaware of what Kick it Forward involves, Crowd Crux has a great article on the pros and cons of the scheme.
At the start of 2014, Evil As A Hobby revealed that, at that point in time, only 37% of funded projects had delivered on what was promised. Developers, you have to do better.
I believe 2015 is going to be a make-or-break year for crowdfunding, after the boom of 2013 and the slump of 2014. Gamers are looking for quality projects that they will actually play within one or two years of donating. They are looking for developers to trust and invest in, to grow with. Big development studios such as Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Sony all released broken AAA titles last year. The pithy apologies and crumbs of free DLC are unlikely to make up for the loss of trust felt by gamers, and, if as Brian Crecente of Polygon believes, it is becoming the new norm, they will abandon these companies and their flagging franchises in droves. And they will look for an alternative.
Kickstarter could be it.
Kickstarter should be it.
