Hi! So you want to ruin a videogame Kickstarter campaign, do ya? Well, follow these steps and your sure-fire, high profile project could cling to life support and risk missing your minimum funding target!
- Take a classic console gaming series series with a supportive fanbase rabid for a sequel and launch your campaign with only the PC as your target platform. Once your campaign is a week into fund raising, throw out a vague poll asking what platform your potential backers would like to play on. By doing this, backers can be unsure if they'll have access to your game at all! Once enough vocal fans speak out and your poll results show a clear console favorite choice, announce it as a stretch goal. This way, even with your trend towards missing even the minimum funding, those console fans can be even more unsure of the possibility of getting the game they want on their console choice.
- When describing your game, explain that the Kickstarter funding will not be enough to realize the full vision of your title. Talk about it's size and scope of the project, and how much planning has gone into the overall experience. Once you've built up enough interest, explain that the Kickstarter campaign is only for a "prologue" of that experience, and with the minimum funding goal, all the features you want to include won't be possible and you'll need to scale back from this goal. Use descriptive words like "small" when explaining this prologue to wow potential supporters.
- Once things start trending towards missing your goal, promise an additional future portion of game unrelated to the game that is currently being funded as an "upgrade" for current backers. Set a firm time table so that anyone interested has a chance to miss the message because you continue to send out daily "updates" with useless information about the project. Once time has passed, explain anyone at the $79 level or higher will get both the currently funding title, and the vague unsecured future portion. Yes, $79 is more than the average full-scale retail release, and in your confusing charts and graphs you can show that this is of questionable value. This should shake a lot of confidence for would-be backers.
- If you can, simultaneously run a separate Kickstarter for an animated companion project related to your game. Don't wait for the game campaign to be over so that potential backers can gauge the scope of the project or allow a bundled tier to get both the game and animation in one go. This would only allow for extra support for the project, and would deter from ruining your chances for success.
- Bonus points: If you have a previously successful high-profile campaign, don't wait for that project to be released before starting your new campaign. If you can, wait until 2 months before that project is going to release so any buzz or positive reviews or discussion from that title can't benefit your campaign. You'll be able to undermine your own free publicity and jeopardize the success of your project even further! Remember, you want to limit your potential so stretch goals are never on the table, and minimum funding is just out of reach!
On a totally different note, be sure to check out Kenji Inafune and Comcepts latest Kickstarter campaign for the spiritual successor to Mega Man Legends!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/red-ash-the-indelible-legend
- -Darren Hupke
@darrenhupke
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