So,
someone at Larian sent it Swen. 
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[More stats again]
Percentage of total funding in the "B League":
$90-800:
DOS2: 36%
Eternity: 37.45%
Torment: 36.3%
The B league seems to be consistent across all three, so Divinity is doing pretty well there,
however, out of the 12 original tiers only 6 are still available: $90, $100, $125, $200, $700 and $800.
That means it has exhausted all funding between $200 and $700. If you want to get something better than the $200 pledge, you have to increase your pledge to $700. That means even if they add some incredible stretch goals, a lot of these guys at $90-200 (2222 backers so far) cannot increase their pledges in a small upgrade, they can only spend more than 3 times the original price.
Between $200 and $700:
Eternity: 15.8%
Torment: 15.3%
D:OS2: 7.1%
That's a considerable number. I understand that the in-game painting of the backer's likeness cannot be mass produced, but they can still add multiple tiers in that range that don't put a lot of strain on the company's artists. The tombstones and backer NPCs in Pillars of Eternity were poorly implemented, and we have both backers and Obsidian to blame, but as a reward they were ideal. By making the players write the stuff for the backers and the tombstones, all they had to do was include the text and use the character creator to make the backer NPCs. That doesn't require a lot of resources and gives players an in-game presence.
As for Divinity: OS II, I don't know what kind of backer content they could add in that range, but Larian knows their lore, their tone and they have other games to learn from. They're doing well in this range for now, but in practice that percentage can't stay there anymore.
The fact half of the pledges there are gone means the total funding could suffer for it and the percentage of total funding from this group will decrease, and for a very simple reason: people can't pledge in the $200-700 range even if they wanted to.
Now the other groups:
$5-80:
DOS2: 60.35%
Eternity: 48%
Torment: 53.23%
$1000+
DOS2: 3.65%
Eternity: 14.55%
Torment: 10.47%
D:OS2 is at $1,029,916. If it had Torment's ratio, it'd be at
$1,172,309, a 13.8% increase.
Torment didn't have a perfect campaign, as I mentioned in the first post. They could've had Eternity's level of funding among big donors, but the rewards were not nearly as interesting. Larian could use their experience and go for the best of both worlds.
- Another thing InXile did really well in the campaigns: they kept upgrading the pledges, adding more stuff to the cheaper pledges over time. One thing I forgot is that Divinity has plenty of other games. Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Dragon Commander and Divinity II could be included in multiple tiers, adding great value to all pledges.
- Hoodies are cool, but they're limited to cold weather and they're more expensive. At $100 you also got a Pillars of Eternity T-Shirt, which can be used anywhere, any time of the year and cost less to manufacture.
- Stretch goal: in-game developer commentary. I don't think it'll increase funding significantly or anything, but it was a nice touch to PoE and with Swen on the team the game practically begs for it.
- A digital novella could definitelly make people upgrade their pledges, but it does put a lot of strain on whoever's going to write it, and there's always the risk it'll be like the PoE novella that has yet to be released (although MCA has finished it and is waiting for editing). It'd be up to you guys to decide, but as far as digital extras go, it's probably among the best.
- Stretch goal: live orchestra recording for the soundtrack. Sort of related, but I really support this suggestion ;(
- More languages as stretch goals. According to the SteamSpy guy, data shows games sell a lot more in some regions when localized (Germany and Russia being notorious examples, but you've got that covered in subtitles at least). I don't have special access to SteamSpy to provide some numbers on the original game and similar ones, but Polish, Spanish, French and Italian can't hurt. It is said that it increases sales in China dramatically, but without specific numbers on CRPGs it's hard to say.
- Playing cards for physical reward tiers at ~$125+ or optional upgrades on a backer portal or something. In large quantities a deck can cost ~$1.5 or less to manufacture. PoE had that as a $10 upgrade IIRC. Maybe if you guys approach Obsidian they might tell you how many they've sold and whether it was worth it or not.
- Second big town as stretch goal. Cyseal was one of my favourite parts, and it's one upgrade that did wonders to PoE. It's hard to imagine it without Twin Elms, so that's another successful example to analyze.
- High quality physical goods for the $200-$800 range. The demand for video game merchandise is increasing every year. The beer mug was great, for instance. High quality figurines, books and practical items are also something early backers could upgrade to later on.
One more thing:
The logic behind stretch goals, new rewards and new tiers is that backers might be willing to upgrade their pledges to help the creators reach them. However, the excitement depends on the stretch goals: not just the content, but how close they are as well. The other thing to consider, and the most important one, is how much they can increase without having to double or triple their original pledge. This affects mostly the sub-$90 pledges rather than the $100-800 ones, for obvious reasons: they're more price sensitive.
Even if there's a stretch goal they'd like to help or a new tier they'd like to purchase, there's only so much they can add on top of their current pledge.
Right now for D:OS II we have:
$5 - These are symbolic and 99% of times the next pledge is the base game one. They're rarely more than a few hundred and don't really affect much, but they still want to help, so kudos to them. There's not much anyone can do here.
$25/26 - Minimum pledge to get the game. This is the "core" group, usually half of total backers, and they can make the biggest difference if they decide to upgrade their pledges.
$30 - Slightly above the minimum pledge, with one or two digital extras in the mix.
$50 - When speaking of the most successful KS games, this is usually the one closest to the average pledge, and it's as high as a lot of people are willing to go.
After that we have $90, which is the 4-pack, and then $100 and above. This might be a problem, and Torment and Eternity are good examples again:
Percentage of total backers at minimum pledges ($20-28):
Eternity: 62%
Torment: 50.66%
D:OS2: 60.3%
Again, Eternity had a great campaign, great promises, great pitch, great stretch goals, but Torment did a better job all around in the sense that it made it easier for the people at the lowest pledges to upgrade. Like I said, Torment had 10 options below $95 (11 shown, but the $20 one was gone after a while). Eternity had 5, D:OS2 had only 3. 4 if you include the four pack at $90, which is more like four $22.50 pledges.
So even if Larian adds amazing stretch goals, a person at the $25 tier with a limited budget has 3 options:
- Add another $5.
- Double their original pledge.
- Go for the 4-pack: that doesn't increase funding because the 4 people sharing it are only saving $2.50 and might be interested in a better individual pledge.
- Spend 4x as much and get the collector's edition.
This is a tough sell. With Torment that person could move to $35, $39, $45, $65, $75 and $80. If you have a limited budget, even the $50 pledge might be too much, or if you're willing to go higher than $50, going up to $100 might be too expensive.
Numbers speak volumes:
Percentage of total backers in $30-45 range:
Eternity: 11.3%
Torment: 24.29%
D:OS2: 10.6%
Add them up and it's 73.3% for Eternity, 74,95% for Torment and 70,9% for Divinity: Original Sin II in the $20-45 group. I also checked other Kickstarter RPGs: Wasteland 2 (67,88%), Shadowrun: Hong Kong (80,58%), The Bard's Tale IV (73.34%), Kingdom Come (72.38%), Divinity: Original Sin (73,95%), The Banner Saga (68,55%).
It's a clear pattern there, the average being 72.87%.
Worth reminding that the percentages above are based on the number of backers, not total funds raised. As an RPG developer on Kickstarter, chances are at least 70% of backers will spend less than $50, so the goal should be to make them move closer and closer to the $50 pledge, but not force them to pay that much if they want to upgrade. Eternity had a lot more backers at the exact $50 than Torment (5727 x 2987), for instance, but not enough to compensante the difference below that. Torment had 10,271 on $45 alone, for instance.
It might be tempting to think "That's 5 bucks, with enough incentive in the campaign they'll upgrade to 50, it'd be bad to have them move to $40 or $45 and just stop there". It might be true in some cases, maybe some people will not spend $50 because the pledge right before was good enough, but that's without considering the people who would've spent just $20 or $25 otherwise.
A lot of the backers at $30-45 are people who would've paid the minimum to get the game if that was the only option under $50. And a lot of the $60, $65, $75 and $80 backers are people who would've kept their $50 pledge if not given these choices.
