Another developer sees diminishing returns on Kickstarter
"Kickstarter is dying."- Developer Agustin Cordes describes a trend he's seen in the course of crowdfunding multiple games on Kickstarter.
Early last year, Scratches designer Agustin Cordes successfully funded the development of his upcoming horror game Asylum on Kickstarter. A year later he returned to the platform with a bigger pitch for a more complex game, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward...and fell flat.
"It’s impossible not to notice a sense of apathy towards Kickstarter these days," writes Cordes in an updateto the Charles Dexter Ward Kickstarter page. "In short, few people seem to be backing games these days, including our own."
Cordes points out that while his latest Kickstarter has a funding goal that more than doubles that ofAsylum, it also enjoys the imprimatur of H.P. Lovecraft's estate and earned far more press attention than his earlier, successful Kickstarter campaign.
"Between our pre-launch campaign, buzz on Twitter, local and international celebrities supporting us, our own posts that went viral, and a massive article in the second-biggest newspaper in Argentina, I estimate well over 100,000 people heard about Charles Dexter Ward," notes Cordes.
"It boggles the mind, then, that barely 2,000 people have backed the game — with such a strong launch and the evident appeal of the project, a year ago we’d easily have reached $400k."
Instead, they've earned pledges of just over $100k towards a $250k goal, and on the final day of the campaign the developer is putting the project "on hold" and focusing on finishing Asylum.
"We’re disbanding part of our team as we focus solely on completing Asylum, which is coming along great," writes Cordes. "There’s nothing left to do; this was our best shot."
We already knew that Kickstarter campaigns were slumping in 2014, at least when it comes to crowdfunding games; Cortes' commentary suggests that interest in the platform has continued to wane.
Update: Of course, not everyone agrees; many developers have taken to Twitter and to the comments section of this story to rightly point out that this campaign may have failed for reasons beyond Kickstarter's slumping appeal.
Most notably, Charles Dexter Ward developer Senscape has not yet delivered Asylum, the game it Kickstarted and initially expected to release last year.
For more details, you can read a mini-postmortem of the failed crowdfunding campaign over on the game's Kickstarter page.
"It's all Kickstarter's fault. The fact that our game is a shitty abortion has absolutely nothing to do with out abject failure."
Maybe after btoken age adventurers are more wary of this stuff.Instead, they've earned pledges of just over $100k towards a $250k goal, and on the final day of the campaign the developer is putting the project "on hold" and focusing on finishing Asylum
Meh...I don't understand why creatives are obsessed with Lovecraft.
I'm not so sure. Look at InXile's double dip, they had an almost universally positive reaction to the gameplay video before they launched T:TON. They get more money.I, for one, don't think Asylum was the primary reason this failed.
I think it failed primarily because it looked like an unappealing 3D adventure game, the likes of which you can buy a few times a year on Steam for a 75% discount. Why Kickstart when I can just go and buy the latest Sherlock Holmes on Steam right now?
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if a retro early 90s-look would have earned more money (while being cheaper to produce). He should check how many people who visited the Kickstarter page bothered to play the pitch video upon seeing the title image.
It probably also didn't help that Charles Dexter Ward, while an excellent story, is very "bookish" and not easy to sell - though on the other hand, the popular squiggly green Cthulhu thing is so old hat by now that it probably wouldn't have worked either.
I, for one, don't think Asylum was the primary reason this failed.
I think it failed primarily because it looked like an unappealing 3D adventure game, the likes of which you can buy a few times a year on Steam for a 75% discount. Why Kickstart when I can just go and buy the latest Sherlock Holmes on Steam right now?
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if a retro early 90s-look would have earned more money (while being cheaper to produce). He should check how many people who visited the Kickstarter page bothered to play the pitch video upon seeing the title image.
It probably also didn't help that Charles Dexter Ward, while an excellent story, is very "bookish" and not easy to sell - though on the other hand, the popular squiggly green Cthulhu thing is so old hat by now that it probably wouldn't have worked either.
Meh...I don't understand why creatives are obsessed with Lovecraft. Just going on reddit.com/r/writingprompts gives you more inspiring settings.
- John is a depressed man in his 20's. He is under the illusion the entire world is against him, he finds out it's not an illusion.
- (Pi) turns out not to be infinite. When the end is found, a tiny gap in every circles is discovered. Doorways to...
- Humans figure out warp drives and take to exploring the galaxy. Ironically, it is found that we are the only species to have survived the invention of the "A" bomb.
- All of your close friends and family vanish and only you remember them, 5 years later they start to reappear but have no idea who you are and how they were connected to you...
- Calling the number 666 gets you through to a helpline where you can ask someone to commit a crime FOR you.
- In the future, certain emotions are illegal. Write about the day of a black market emotion dealer.
- Aliens try to invade Earth on Halloween but nobody takes them seriously.
I literally find ALL of those story prompts more interesting than Lovecraft. And that's just on the first page.
I'm not so sure. Look at InXile's double dip, they had an almost universally positive reaction to the gameplay video before they launched T:TON. They get more money.I, for one, don't think Asylum was the primary reason this failed.
I think it failed primarily because it looked like an unappealing 3D adventure game, the likes of which you can buy a few times a year on Steam for a 75% discount. Why Kickstart when I can just go and buy the latest Sherlock Holmes on Steam right now?
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if a retro early 90s-look would have earned more money (while being cheaper to produce). He should check how many people who visited the Kickstarter page bothered to play the pitch video upon seeing the title image.
It probably also didn't help that Charles Dexter Ward, while an excellent story, is very "bookish" and not easy to sell - though on the other hand, the popular squiggly green Cthulhu thing is so old hat by now that it probably wouldn't have worked either.
This company and Double Fine both have a mixed reaction to their initial ks, and their follow ups do far worse.
I don't know for certain, but it may be that Lovecrafts works are still held by a Family. Similar to Tolkien and James Bond rights.