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Kickstarter wants projects to be more transparent about their budget
Crowdfunding is great in theory, but many projects fail to meet their fundraising goals, end up asking for more money or fall apart entirely. In an attempt to help creators avoid those fates, Kickstarter is launching a new tool called Project Budget.
Oregon authorities are investigating Kickstarter darling Coolest (updated)
When Coolest debuted on Kickstarter back in 2014, it set a funding record. The do-it-all cooler campaing took in $13 million for an outdoor beverage option with blender, Bluetooth speaker, USB charging and more. The company asked its backers for more money back in April, saying that the price it offered during the crowdfunding campaign was too low. What's more, some backers still haven't received their coolers despite the company selling them for a discounted price on Amazon, its own website and other retailers. The Coolest website says that if you hand over $400 for a cooler right now, it will ship in 48 hours.
Coolest Cooler asks backers for more money
Coolest Cooler is the latest proof that there are a lot of interesting ideas on Kickstarter from companies that lack a plan to execute them. The company set a funding record in 2014 with $13 million for a do-it-all cooler with a waterproof Bluetooth speaker, USB charger, cutting board and blender. However, it burned through the entire amount after shipping just a third of the products, showing that the tempting $185 price tag was way too generous. To complete orders, the company now says that existing backers (who already paid the full Kickstarter price) will have to pony up another $97 for "expedited" shipping of their Coolest Coolers.
Pathfinder Online's Ryan Dancey on early adopter experience bonuses
On yesterday's Massively Speaking podcast, Justin and I discussed Pathfinder Online's plans for granting its earliest and most loyal players what seems to be the ultimate character bonus: an experience edge over everyone else, forever. I'll let the Pathfinder Online dev post Hard is Fun! explain verbatim: Our game uses a unique real-time based XP system. Characters gain XP through the passage of time, not through being logged in. So the characters that are created in the first month will be the characters with the most XP for all time. A special perk will be in effect that backdates XP to the start of Early Enrollment for the first month so no matter when you purchase an account, if you create a character in Month 1, you'll have that maximum XP. Usually games with offline experience systems also have either a hard cap or a diminishing returns mechanic to avoid the core "sandbox problem" -- that those who get to the sandbox first perpetually have the most power because they claim all the best toys (and so on). But as written, the Pathfinder Online system seems to exacerbate rather than fix that problem by promising "pioneers" more power in the form of permanently more experience. Suspecting there was more to the plan, we asked Goblinworks' Ryan Scott Dancey to explain just how it plans to balance its concessions to early backers with its presumed desire to attract newbie players in the more distant future. He's done so, in detail, for us today.
Kickstarter changes terms regarding unfinished projects
Kickstarter updated its terms of use late last week, mostly cleaning up the site's fine-print language to better spell out the relationship between project creators and backers. It will remain hands-off while project leads enter agreements with their supporters, which worked well for the funding platform to this point, as it reached $1 billion in pledges in March. Those contracts are the focus of the revised terms, as Kickstarter is now emphasizing the actions creators must take if they fail to live up to their word as well as the potential consequences if they walk away. The boldest inclusion stressed that creators who are unable to satisfy the terms "may be subject to legal action by backers." While Kickstarter still won't involve itself in the proceedings, this opens a clearer lane for possible lawsuits from project backers should creators fail to live up to their agreement or offer alternative solutions.
Crowdfund Bookie Quarterly Report: Looks can be deceiving
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.
The Soapbox: How to run a successful Kickstarter campaign
The past few years have seen an absolute revolution in the games industry, with an explosion of studios securing funding through crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter. In a time when banks worldwide are tightening their belts, Kickstarter represents a lifeline for indie developers and a way for the bigger studios to work on their own projects free from the need for outside investors or publishers. But with the growing number of projects seeking funding each year, developers are facing stiff competition and the rising challenge of running a successful campaign. Most developers don't release all of their stats or write up advice and insights following a successful crowdfunding campaign, and those who do are often lost on obscure blogs that don't appear when you Google for advice. But I'm in the unusual position of both being a games journalist and having successfully Kickstarted a small game project (unrelated to MMOs and my work on Massively). Six months ago, I ran a campaign for my new sci-fi 4X game Predestination, and in the process I learned some valuable lessons on what works and doesn't work on Kickstarter. We've since published the campaign stats and gone on to help a few other campaigns hit their goals. In this article, I run down the lessons I learned the hard way during the Predestination Kickstarter campaign and give some advice for developers hoping to get funded.
Romo the iPhone robot is back, Kickstarting version 2
Romo is a little iPhone-powered robot that showed up on Kickstarter around this time last year. It was successfully funded and distributed out into the world, making everyone happy by cycling itself around with the buzz and whirr of tiny mechanics. But as is usual with these things, the team behind Romo had even more ideas and other thoughts about how to make Romo work even better, and do even more things. So they did what worked before: They're back on Kickstarter, this time trying to put together $100,000 to remake a next-generation Romo. In addition to a redesigned circuit board and a friendlier base, this robot will have advanced functionality in terms of moving around and navigating the world. Plus, the team wants to work on some really advanced procedures, doing things like facial recognition, two-way telepresence (so you could see what the robot sees and show up on the screen yourself), and other features. The production line for this robot is already set up, says the team -- it's the software that they are Kickstarting for, as well as the actual product costs, obviously. There is one big drawback, and it's that this new Romo won't work with an iPhone 5 -- the production line that's set up currently works with the old dock connector, not the new Lightning connector. That could be an issue, since lots of early adopters will probably already have moved on to the new dock format. But the Romo team says the next robot is set to work with the iPhone 5 (and be female, by the way), so the hookup is coming, at least. At any rate, if you like the project and want to support this once-successful team yet again, the Kickstarter page is open right now. [via Engadget]
Kickstarter hits a million backers, impoverished design students rejoice
Despite these shaky economic times, people still have the time -- and money -- for modded Arduino kits, iPhone lens and air guitar mods. Kickstarter users have now pledged over $100 million to projects, with the number of backers leaping from around 250,000 in September last year to over one million. The crowd-funding site is marking the occasion with visualizations of its vital statistics, showing, among other things, that one-time backers make up the bulk of investment. With over 13,000 projects green-lighted so far, projects still vying for our investment dollars include a caterpillar-tracked smartphone robot, a bike light that attaches to your spokes generating an 8-bit light show and an energy recovery unit that picks up on heat from a dryer exhaust. If the idea of heat exchanges gets you all hot under the collar, check out Kickstarter to help give the creators a fiscal foothold.
