I’m thinking of trying Kickstarter to get my cross-platform cooperative tactical dungeon crawler finished. However, I’ve no idea how to handle things like download codes or in game bonuses for backers. The merchandising side also looks like it could be a bit of a time sink trying to find ways to offer T-shirts and the like.
Can anyone point to some guides, or give some advice, on how to handle these aspects of crowd-funding a game?
Depending on what you aim for with shirts those can be a nightmare to have them produced and it’s hard to make a
profit if you don’t sell huge amounts. I’d stay away from those, they artificially bloat the backing amount while not really giving you good value. Also think of shipping costs.
I agree, merchandise seems a makor risk. Just seems to be one of the things offered. Ideally I’d keep it all digital, but I’ve no idea how to handle download codes and in game bonuses!
Read all the Kickstarter guides on postmortems on Gamasutra. If you prefer podcasts, Game Design Dojo has a couple decent episodes (12 & 13) on how their Kickstarter went and how much they spent (both time and money). But Gamasutra has way more info from a variety of developers.
The most important thing to remember is that Kickstarter is a tool to call your existing supporters to action. Assume that maybe 5% (if you’re lucky) of the people who are already following your game will actually click the “Back This Project” button.
This is relevant to supporter bonuses. Any time you spend researching and setting up download codes, t-shirts, and the like, is time you’re taking away from your game development. Prepping and running a Kickstarter campaign takes months. If your Kickstarter fails, all that time is just lost.
Case in point, just this week, another developer published a Kickstarter article on Gamasutra. This one has a section on rewards.
Thanks for the advice and I’ll take it on board. Some articles on Gama have proven useful already.
Has anyone got anything on the implementation specifics asked for though? How exactly do you provide in game items and digital bonuses to specific users (whether Kickstarting, Indiegogo, or giving free samples)?