crowdfund-bookie

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  • Joystiq Weekly: Battlefield 4's launch, an Entwined review, E3 previews and more

    by 
    Thomas Schulenberg
    Thomas Schulenberg
    06.22.2014

    Welcome to Joystiq Weekly, a "too long; didn't read" of each week's biggest stories, reviews and original content. Each category's top story is introduced with a reactionary gif, because moving pictures aren't just for The Daily Prophet. Joystiq celebrated its tenth anniversary of existence this week, which means ... we're teetering on that edge of middle school angst? No, no, we're thankfully immune to that. What it does mean is that we're still alive, and we think being alive is pretty okay! While the site has presumably made it this far because of its content, quality isn't sustainable on its own – we've been able to write news, produce videos, record podcasts and talk about video games for years because of all of you. Whether you stop in every day, have only read a single breaking news story from us, or you've just fallen down an impressive wrong turn on the Internet and have no idea why you're here: Thank you. Your patronage is a huge part of why we get to cover this industry, and we look forward to creating compelling content for you for another 10 years. Speaking of content, there's a ton of it this week: EA CEO Andrew Wilson addressed Battlefield 4's launch, we have reviews for Entwined and Pushmo World, and there's an avalanche of written previews and video interviews from E3, all waiting for you in a neat pile of bulletpoints. Dive in after the break, right after you drop off our presents next to the cake.

  • Crowdfund Bookie: One year, $35 million

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    06.20.2014

    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. A total of 341 video game projects were funded on Kickstarter and Indiegogo in the past year. Those games earned $35,945,510 from June 2013 through May 2014 thanks to the generosity of 782,147 people. It was a year that saw games like Double Fine's Massive Chalice and Keiji Inafune's Mighty No. 9 pull in over $5 million alone. The crowdfunding year was marked by projects like these which, when measured over time, consistently tipped impressions of average Kickstarter and Indiegogo earnings to appear more favorable. The 341 projects in question earned a mean average of $105,412, though creators really earned closer to the median average of $25,457. Removing the more costly projects drags the mean average of money earned down towards that mark; it drops to $61,152 without the top ten projects for the year, $45,153 without the top 20 and $37,862 without the top 30. It was an ever-changing year, as well. Just glancing at the monthly comparison charts after the break shows a gradual decline in most categories, such as the average amount an individual project backer spent on a given project. The first three months of the year saw an average of $49.40 pledged per person, which dropped to $39.80 in the last quarter of the year. This reflects the averages for the entire year; the year showed a mean average of $45.96, though funders spent closer to the median amount of $36.10. By the end of the year, fewer projects earned far beyond their initial goals, potentially reaching fewer stretch goals as a result. The first quarter of the year averaged an earning rate of 211 percent, over double the amount of money projects set out to achieve. The final three months amounted to 166 percent of the combined goals, even after the average combined goals per month dropped $453,639. Relative to their ambitions, project creators earned more to start the year than those whose games were funded late in the year. The year also featured a number of fascinating stories in the crowdfunding space. It included the highly-questionable campaign for Gridiron Thunder and the related fallout of Ouya's Free the Games Fund program. More recently, it looked favorably on Harmonix's new Amplitude game, which was an anomaly among crowdfunded games. Head past the break for another look at the year in crowdfunding, including the top 20 projects and the year's breakdown by genre.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, April 2014: Wallets open once again

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    05.14.2014

    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. While not a return to crowdfunding's previous glory, April was a bounce-back month for video game Kickstarter projects, which raised $1,920,268 for 35 games, the most games put up in a month since December's 40. Nearly double the number of backers showed up to support these games compared to last month (50,525 versus 28,460) as well, so the funding space may be in renewed form. April bears other similarities to the month of December in crowdfunding: Both months saw a decreased amount of funding pledged beyond initial goals in addition to a decreased pledge per backer and boosted number of successful projects. This trend has generally held strong since December, and may shape our new understanding of the gaming section of Kickstarter. Whereas a popular funding month like September featured a generous average pledges per person amount of $54.35, April's backers offered just $38.01 each. That number shrinks further to $34.26 after removing three projects that sported average funding amounts of $175 or greater. April also saw eight separate projects receive over $100,000 in support, the most since October. Six of these projects featured initial reward tiers between $15 and $17 that granted backers a copy of their respective games. Aside from each project having gradually-increasing reward tiers that offered bonus in-game content as well as goods like soundtracks and art books, four of the projects also included tiers ranging from $20 to $40 that promised beta and alpha access to games. Providing this continues on with other successful projects, developers looking to add attractive and pricier buy-in levels for their Kickstarters may want to note: Players appear to be willing to pay to get their hands on a game sooner. Head past the break for the month's top five grossing projects as well as breakdowns by genre.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, March 2014: The slide continues

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    04.08.2014

    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. In case there was any hope that the crowdfunded video game space was on the verge of climbing out of its current slump, the projects that ended in March killed it. Crowdfunding projects during the month raised $991,113 collectively, the second-worst month of funding of the previous ten (January being the lowest that our data provides). A whopping $510,550 was pledged beyond March's funding goals, over half of the total amount raised. The decreasing trends in the space that began in December carried on through March. For starters, 22 projects received funding, which is just above January's 20 and February's 16 projects. March was also second to January in terms of the lowest number of backers in the last ten months, as just 28,460 people showed up to fund video game projects. To put this in perspective, here are three games that each had more backers than the entire month of March: Mighty No. 9 (67,226), Kingdom Come: Deliverance (35,384) and Massive Chalice (31,774). The more telling figure is March's average pledge per person amount: $34.82, the lowest of any month since we began tracking crowdfunding data. What's more, two games saw inordinately large averages, Oscar ($175.37) and BasketWars ($366.18). Without those two projects, March would have sported an average pledge of $33.44. By comparison, the average pledge during the winter quarter $44.26 and backers during the previous six months ponied up an average pledge of $47.78. The data here indicates one notion (albeit a dangerously simplified one): People are spending less on Kickstarter and Indiegogo in the video game space these days. Head past the break to see the month's breakdown by genre and a list of its top five projects.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, winter quarter: Hibernation

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    03.10.2014

    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.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, January 2014: 63 percent nosedive

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    02.07.2014

    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. Any momentum maintained in the video game crowdfunding space in December 2013 was dashed just one month later. Gaming projects for the month totaled only $845,876, a 63.71 percent decrease from December's $2,331,061. Just 20 projects were funded during a five-week January period, half the amount that were successful in December. The number of backers for projects also saw a 79.58 percent downturn, plummeting to 12,712 funders. Unlike previous months, there wasn't a marquee project to prop the crowdfunding arena's totals up, as the top earner was Taitale Studios' 4X strategy game Novus Aeterno, which hauled in $268,875. Another game stole our attention for the month: MMA Federation. Much like the infamously suspicious funding patterns of Gridiron Thunder, the MMA-focused mobile social game managed to earn $163,924 thanks to only 159 backers, an outlandish average of $1,030.97 per funder. As expected, the odd funding averages of MMA Federation significantly impacted the end results for January, as removing the game's data for the month drops the mean average pledge per backer amount from $66.54 to $54.33. Without MMA Federation's sales data, January's projects also added up to 281.3 percent of their funding goals. Both impacted data points show that January's projects still stayed consistent with the funding trends seen in our past Bookies; pledges average out to roughly $50 and backers tend to push projects well past their goal amounts. Head past the break to see the month's top five projects and a breakdown by genre.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, December 2013: Squeaking by

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    01.03.2014

    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. As the weeks go by, the video game crowdfunding space appears to be under a shift of sorts. December 2013 saw the second-lowest total amount of dollars raised by gaming projects ($2,331,061) in the last seven months, since we began tracking such data. Unlike September 2013's $2,211,975 raised, backers in December managed to fund 40 projects, the second-highest number of successful projects in, again, the past seven months. December 2013 is the first month in which crowdfunded projects failed to raise $1 million over the top of their combined project goals, toppling the combined goal amount by $568,518. While it still seems like a lot of extra money, that averages out to $14,213 in extra dollars for each of the 40 crowdfunders last month. The trends we've tracked to this point indicated that crowdfunding was especially a boon for creators to reach stretch goals to bring games to additional platforms. Therefore, December's numbers go against the grain, showing that money spread out a bit more evenly across more projects. Whether that has anything to do with the holiday season is unclear. Head past the break to see the month's breakdown by genre as well as a list of December's top five-earning games.

  • Crowdfund Bookie: $23 million raised in six months

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    12.11.2013

    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. The past six months have proven fruitful for crowdfunded games. In total, 186 different Indiegogo and Kickstarter video game projects earned $23,914,666 from the months of June through November. Those numbers are courtesy of 500,467 backers in the six-month period, who raised $13,173,182 beyond the combined goals of the projects to reach stretch goals that will bring games to additional platforms and grant players more content. On average, crowdfunding projects raised $128,573 in the last six months, but as we examined in our last quarterly report, these mean averages can be quite misleading. By comparison, the median, or middle number in the data set for the amount of money raised by each of the 186 projects, is $25,188. Given that only six of the projects raised at least one million dollars, and just seven more raised at least $500,000 during that time frame, we can conclude that the average amount of money raised by crowdfunding projects in the last six months is positively skewed. Similarly, the median number of backers per project was 542 (a sharp contrast to a mean average of 2,691). Future project creators should take note, then: Your average Kickstarter or Indiegogo gaming project earns closer to $25,188, not $128,573. Additionally, the data shows that strategy games like Hex and Warmachine: Tactics led the genre to the top of the list, as they earned the most money of the group ($6,901,527). Conversely, the adventure genre had the most successful projects, as 46 adventurous or narrative-driven games were funded in the last six months, such as Obduction and Armikrog. Action games had the highest number of backers (145,316), thanks especially to the highest-earning game of the group, Keiji Inafune's Mighty No. 9, which hauled in $3,845,170 thanks to 67,226 people. Head past the break to see the top-earning games and breakdown by genre for the six-month period.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, October 2013: Two is greater than 58

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    11.07.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. The month of October saw 172,360 people pledge $7,361,713 towards 42 successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo video game projects. To put that in perspective, that's 4,833 more project backers than the past three months combined. As discussed in our September quarterly report, some high-earning games serve as extreme samples in a month's data set. October was no different, as Keiji Inafune's Mighty No. 9 lured in $3,845,170 thanks to 67,226 backers. What's more, both Shantae: Half-Genie Hero and Hyper Light Drifter combined to account for 42,708 backers, which means these three projects had enough backers to match the number of funders in August and September combined, a two-month period that saw 58 successful projects. All three games fit into the action genre this month as well, which accounts for that category's high numbers. Without those three projects, the other four action games would have combined for only $113,876. October also saw some of the first Canada-based developers take advantage of Kickstarter's expansion to the country, which began in September. Eight projects came from Canadian developers, three of which were among the top six earning games for the month: RimWorld, The Long Dark and River City Ransom: Underground. The eight games accounted for 11.16 percent of the overall picture for the month ($821,411), so it'll be interesting to watch for the impact Kickstarter's expansion has on our crowdfunding trends. The funding platform will open up to Australia and New Zealand-based creators on November 13, as well. Head past the break for the month's breakdown by genre as well as the list of October's top five earners.

  • Crowdfund Bookie: Story generator RimWorld earns $257K

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    11.04.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter projects for RimWorld, Cosmic Star Heroine, Pulsar: Lost Colony, HuniePop, Universum: War Front, Rebuild: Gangs of Deadsville, Spark Rising and Monster Stacker as well as the Indiegogo campaigns for Sword of the Stars: Ground Pounders and Beyond Eyes came to a close. RimWorld, a top-down, tactical game with an AI "story generator" earned the most money ($257,152) and had the highest number of funders of the week, with 9,498 people funding the project. Flex-funded, sci-fi strategy game Sword of the Stars: Ground Pounders had the highest average pledge per person rate of the group ($75.84). Check out the week's results and our pretty charts after the break.

  • Crowdfund Bookie: Knite is a $43k hand-crafted adventure

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    10.29.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter projects for Knite and the Ghost Lights, Cornerstone: The Song of Tyrim and Comic ConQuest as well as the Indiegogo project for 0 AD: Empires Ascendant concluded. Mobot Studios' "hand-crafted" side-scrolling adventure Knite and the Ghost Lights raised the most amount of money this week ($43,768) and had the highest number of backers (1,774). Comic ConQuest, an RPG set in the "halls of a comic con gone wrong," had the highest average pledge per backer for the week ($43.59). This week also saw an entry from a successful, flexible-funded Indiegogo project in 0 AD: Empires Ascendant. The platform's flexible funding option ultimately negates the use of a campaign goal, as all pledges are guaranteed to transfer to the project creator. In this case, while 0 AD developer Wildfire Games did not meet its $160,000 goal, it will retain the $33,251 it did achieve. Aside from noting the percentage of its goal the project met, we're treating flexible funding campaigns like 0 AD as if they didn't have a goal when crunching our delicious crowdfunding numbers going forward, keeping in line with the spirit of those campaigns. Check out the week's results and our beautiful charts after the break.

  • Crowdfund Bookie: 'The Long Dark' path to $248K

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    10.21.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. It was a busy week in crowdfunding, as the Kickstarter projects for The Long Dark, Contagion, Steam Squad, King Randall's Party, The Ballads of Reemus 2, Slip, Emerald, SC2VN, Destiny Fails Us and Worlds Quest as well as the Indiegogo projects for Lords of Zulima and TurfBattles concluded. The Long Dark, a first-person survival simulator coming from triple-A veterans Hinterland Studio earned the most money this week, hauling in $256,217 CAD ($248,899). The game also had the highest number of backers of the group, with 6,966 people funding the project. King Randall's Party, a "side-scrolling fortress defense game," had the highest per-person pledge amount of the week ($184.23). Head past the break to check out the week's results along with some pretty charts.

  • Crowdfund Bookie: Hyper Light Drifter is the post-apocalyptic Zelda

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    10.14.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. A post-apocalyptic, Zelda-like action game and a reboot of a beloved brawler were both funded this this week, as the Kickstarter projects for Hyper Light Drifter, River City Ransom: Underground, The Fall, Epic Space Online: Capital Ships, Luna's Wandering Stars and Soul Power ended. Hyper Light Drifter, a pitched as a blend of the Diablo and Zelda series, earned the most money ($645,158) and had the highest number of backers of the group (24,150). The "Capital Ships" expansion for the Epic Space Online infinite sandbox MMO had the highest pledge-per-backer rate for the week, as each of the project's 491 funders invested an average of $50.27 into the campaign. Head past the break for the week's results, accompanied by some fancy charts.

  • Crowdfund Bookie: Inafune's mighty $3.8 million haul

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    10.07.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. The power of Keiji Inafune's name couldn't be more evident than in this highly-profitable week in crowdfunding, which covers the Kickstarter projects for Mighty No. 9, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Sunless Sea, DCS WWII: Europe 1944, Neverending Nightmares, Penguemic, Mysterious Cities of Gold, Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore A Fedora, Data Hacker: Corruption and Neo-Victorian Skirmish Squad. Mighty No. 9, the action platformer project from the Mega Man creator earned the most money this week ($3,845,170) and had the highest number of backers (67,226). LearnDistrict Inc's educational game Penguemic: Word Domination had the highest average pledge per person of the group ($160.81). Head past the break to see the week's results and our set of fancy charts.

  • Crowdfund Bookie September 2013: The best of times, the worst of times

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    10.02.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. The month of September embodied the best and, arguably, the worst crowdfunding has to offer video games. On the positive side of things, September saw the birth of Project Phoenix, the month's highest-funded game ($1,014,600). The RPG-meets-RTS features an all-star crew, including Lead Composer Nobuo Uematsu, Art Director Kiyoshi Arai and Director/Producer Hiroaki Yura, each with ties to the Final Fantasy series as well as Diablo 3 and Valkyria Chronicles. September will also be remembered as the month that Ouya's Free the Games Fund left its mark on crowdfunding. One game in the program, Gridiron Thunder, was accused of unfairly bolstering its own campaign by self-funding it past the $100,000 mark in order to earn rewards offered by Ouya. The hardware company's program fell under great scrutiny before being overhauled, at which point developer MogoTXT removed Gridiron Thunder from Free the Games Fund eligibility. As an example of the discrepancy in funding, Evelend Games' action platformer Indiegogo project AdventurOS had over ten times as many funders as Gridiron Thunder (1,899 versus 183), yet the Ouya football game earned over eight times as much money as AdventurOS ($171,009 versus $21,323). Additionally, removing Gridiron Thunder from the action genre for the month takes the category's average pledge per backer rate down from $44.19 to $34.31. As seen in our latest quarterly report, it only takes a few projects like Gridiron Thunder to shape the community's perception of entire crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo and Kickstarter. While September saw the same number of successful projects (29), the $2,211,975 raised by 40,701 funders were down by $764,575 and 23,218 people from the previous month, and were the lowest amounts seen in the last four months. It's unclear whether potential community distrust thanks to controversial projects like Gridiron Thunder or the release of big retail games, such as the recent launch of Grand Theft Auto 5 will have a bigger impact on crowdfunding in the coming months. Head past the break to see the month's breakdown by genre as well as a list of September's top five projects.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, September 22 - 28: Death Road to Canada, Octopus City Blues

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    09.30.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter projects for Death Road to Canada, Octopus City Blues, The Moaning Words, Swords of Edo, Tetrapulse, Crystal Arena and The Attack Pack ended. Death Road to Canada, a roguelike "road trip simulator" that has players managing a crew of randomly generated survivors of a zombie apocalypse, earned the most money ($42,708) and had the highest number of backers this week (1,879). The week's highest average pledge per funder went to Crystal Arena, a MOBA-like strategy game, which received an average of $134.23 from each of its 98 backers. Head past the break to see the week's results.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, September 15 - 21: Awesomenauts, Chromancer

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    09.23.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter projects for Awesomenauts: Starstorm, Chromancer, Fandrafter, Piano Wizard, Stronghold 2D, Icebound and Lucid: The Awakening as well as the Indiegogo projects for AdventurOS and Choice: Texas ended. Ronimo Games' project to fund an Awesomenauts expansion generated the most interest this week, earning $345,835 from 7,496 backers. The project with the highest average pledge per person was asynchronous fantasy football app Fandrafter, which saw a mean average of $547.09 from its 56 funders. Pitched as Words with Friends-meets-fantasy football with no season commitments, the Fandrafter project's average was boosted by three backers that pledged at least $8,000. Check out the week's results, as well as our fancy graphs, after the break.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, September 8 - 14: Project Phoenix, StarCraft Universe

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    09.16.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter campaigns for Project Phoenix, Gridiron Thunder, StarCraft Universe and Pro Pinball: Timeshock ended. Project Phoenix earned the most money and had the highest number of backers by a landslide this week, hauling in $1,014,600 thanks to 15,802 funders. Gridiron Thunder, the Ouya football game that has been embroiled in controversy with its involvement in Ouya's Free the Games Fund, had the highest average pledge per person ($934.48). This was due to a handful of suspicious backers that each pledged over $10,000 to the project. Head past the break to see the week's results and pretty charts.

  • Crowdfund Bookie, September 1 - 7: Edo Superstar, Ghost Song

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    09.09.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter campaigns for Edo Superstar, Ghost Song, Divergence: Online, World War 2: TCG, Paranautical Activity, Steel & Steam: Episode 1, Sword N' Board, Proton Pulse Shift and Barter Empire came to a close. Edo Superstar, a "fighting RPG" earned the most money this week ($67,764), while Metroidvania-styled Ghost Song had the most backers of the group, with 3,014 people funding the action game. MMORPG Divergence: Online had the highest average pledge per person for the week, as each funder averaged a whopping $169.19. Take a gander at the week's results and our fancy charts after the break.

  • Crowdfund Bookie Quarterly Report: Looks can be deceiving

    by 
    Mike Suszek
    Mike Suszek
    09.06.2013

    The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. Crowdfunding platforms like Indiegogo and Kickstarter are golden tickets to over $100,000. At least, that's what one might surmise when looking at the results from projects tracked during the months of June through August. A total of $11,371,468 funded 84 projects during the quarter, and while that averages out to $135,375 earned per project, the numbers are painting a skewed picture, one more positive than the truth. As discussed in August's report, there are times in which extreme samples from top earners like Hex and Massive Chalice can skew the resulting numbers, affecting our perception of how evenly spread these monthly totals are. The mean average of funding for projects in the last quarter is $135,375, but the median, or middle data point in the set, is $27,753. Analyzing both the mean and median averages indicates that the data is positively skewed, being severely affected by a few projects that made millions of dollars. It tells us that crowdfunded projects may truly earn less on average than at first glance. It might also tell future project creators that aiming for the mean average as a funding goal may be projecting their earnings too high, based on recent history. This translates to the average pledge per person as well. The mean average pledge per person in the quarter's projects is $50.59, while the median is $32.35. This indicates that your average crowdfunding backer probably spent closer to $32 than $50 on any given project. Millions of dollars didn't just fund 84 games in this quarter of the year either, as $6,046,567 of that money was beyond the combined crowdfunding goals of the projects. That means 53.17 percent of money pledged to successful crowdfunding initiatives between June and August was in excess, funding additional content and reaching stretch goals for additional platform support. Still, crowdfunders looking to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars from their video game project should be better prepared to earn closer to $20,000, and would be wise to adjust their goals accordingly. This is just our first quarter of tracking crowdfunding trends, so expect more analysis as the year continues. Head past the break to see the quarter's top ten projects, its breakdown by genre and pretty charts with the results from the last three months.