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Kickstarter question

Agame

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From what I have seen most kickstarter projects seem to be successful based on advertising, social media etc.

If I was to make a low budget indie RPG kickstarter and I am terrible at all that social media promotion stuff would I be wasting my time?
 

Bester

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Low budget indie RPGs can get 30k max on KS nowadays. Not worth the trouble.
 

Nathaniel3W

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I made $11k on Kickstarter nearly three years ago, and that was mostly friends and family contributing. For months prior to the Kickstarter I was promoting it, and I had two team members who were very active on social media, and I had a Thunderclap campaign, and I sent out emails to a MailChimp list I had been compiling. I think I got as much money as I possibly could for a no-name developer with a rough demo and no social media following.
 
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Davaris

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From what I have seen most kickstarter projects seem to be successful based on advertising, social media etc.

If I was to make a low budget indie RPG kickstarter and I am terrible at all that social media promotion stuff would I be wasting my time?

KIckstarter will not promote you. Its like Youtube. Just because you put a video up there, it doesn't mean anyone will see it. If you have to do all the work to get people to visit *their* website, why not promote your *own* website instead of theirs?

If the game has a good original idea, it might take off. If you can't crowd fund a game, then the game probably won't succeed financially either.

I suggest you have a look through this fellow's blog, as he talks about business quite a bit. He was promoting and selling his own games before Steam and Kickstarter ever existed. He doesn't need them to survive, they are just a bonus.

http://www.positech.co.uk/cliffsblo...-your-game-online-without-using-an-app-store/

and that was mostly friends and family contributing.

That's what I read about Kickstarter a few years ago. If that is the case, what do you need Kickstarter for? Can't you post videos on a site like Youtube and and link to them from your own website? Instead of Kickstarter, use a payment processor. Why give Kickstarter anything if they do nothing to promote you?
 

daveyd

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Really depends on what your expectations, needs, and goals are. If you think raising a couple thousand would still be helpful to the game's development, then go for it. As others have noted raising anything more than $10K or $20K is extremely hard for unknown indie developers. Unless you have a really incredible original concept or really amazing / unique visuals that will cause it to get lots of attention, you'll be lucky to get even that much.

As to the question of why even use Kickstarter at all, it's basically because of the familiarity people have with the brand. Kickstarter is the youtube of crowdfunding. People have heard of it, they probably already have an account and it makes a crowdfunding project seem more legit (even though KS does basically nothing to vet projects or follow up on abandoned projects) I think people trust it a bit more than just sending money to a developer via Paypal. (e.g., at least on KS backers can interact with eachother and plan a class action lawsuit or something if they feel they've been scammed :)

Although to maximize funds raised you'd probably want to do both a KS and offer pledges for some time through your site. There's also at least a small chance some game news sites will cover your Kickstarter... Or maybe also look into Indiegogo which lets you do either flexible funding / continue to collect funds after the campaign is "over". However, even if you do attempt a KS, even if it fails, you could always post an update telling your backers you'll just accept pledges / pre-orders through your site.
 

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