Crowdfund Bookie, winter quarter: Hibernation
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the month and produces pretty charts for you to look at.
Money spent on crowdfunded games dropped 51.1 percent in the three-month period of December 2013 through February 2014. In this winter quarter, 76 projects received a total of $6,138,890, which compares unfavorably to the combined $12,543,198 in funding for the fall quarter (September through November 2013).
While the funding space squeaked by in December and took a nosedive in January, it gained a little ground in February in terms of dollars spent, with $2,961,953 pledged in that month alone, which stands well with other months we've tracked dating back to June 2013. The catch, and where the trend continues to be a concern, comes from the number of projects and backers overall. Only 16 projects were funded during February, and 20 in January. The average number of successful projects per month from June through December was just over 32, so roughly half the number of projects are being funded on Kickstarter and Indiegogo at this stage.
One of February's few funded projects was the wildly successful Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Kingdom Come earned $1,842,218 thanks to 35,384 backers. Without that game's contributions, February would have amounted to $1,119,735 in pledges from 28,355 backers. Looking at January's figures as well, there's a clear downward trend in crowdfunding at the moment. Whether it was a lack of enticing projects, a stack of holiday bills or just the winter doldrums, something kept backers from adding their two cents to crowdfunding.
The median, or middle points in the data set for the quarter point to a positively-skewed distribution as well, and gives a better indicator of how much projects actually earn when compared to mean averages. When comparing the median averages to the previous six months, we find that more backers (616 versus 542) are funding fewer projects, and at a lower spending amount ($18,087 versus $25,188). Unless the crowdfunding space has simply gone into hibernation and will return to life in the spring, the next few months may prove more difficult for project creators than in the past.
Head past the break for a list of the quarter's top ten earners as well as a breakdown by genre.
Action (20) - $708,580 (144.87%) by 22,037 people ($32.15 mean average)
Adventure (13) - $399,176 (124.17%) by 13,386 people ($29.82 mean average)
Platformer (6) - $160,661 (157.66%) by 5,299 people ($30.32 mean average)
Puzzle (2) - $103,720 (109.88%) by 2,020 people ($51.35 mean average)
RPG (13) - $2,977,297 (222.29%) by 61,832 people ($48.15 mean average)
Simulation (8) - $531,084 (112.28%) by 7,193 people ($73.83 mean average)
Strategy (14) - $1,258,372 (162.62%) by 26,931 people ($46.73 mean average)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance by Warhorse - $1,842,218
The Mandate by Perihelion Interactive - $701,010
Unsung Story by Playdek - $660,126
Novus Aeterno by Taitale Studios - $268,875
La-Mulana 2 by Playism Games - $266,670
The Repopulation by Above and Beyond Technologies - $176,525
Trainz Simulator: A New Era by N3V Games - $170,446
MMA Federation by Mixed Martial Mobile - $163,924
Paradise Lost: First Contact by Ashtree Works - $144,960
Stasis by Christopher Bischoff - $132,523
[Image: Warhorse]
