Dungeon Crawler Carl Crowdfunding Campaign

 

Dungeon Crawler Carl the RPG crowdfunding campaign was one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever and a remider as to many publishers are now using crowdfunding, notsomuch as a means of raising funds to publish a product and moreso as a promotional device (See “Dungeon Crawler Carl:  The BackerKit”). After following the Dungeon Crawler Carl campaign, a crowdfunding campaign from another publisher popped up in my social media ads, only this one was touting that their campaign had fully funded in only 15 MINUTES. That sounded pretty impressive so I took a look at it, which now means that ads for their campaign keep showing up all across my social media feeds. The magic of tracking and algorithms.

Anyhow, funding in 15 minutes should mean quite a bit of excitement about the product and, looking at the campaign now, the amount of money it has raised is comparatively impressive but the project’s funding goal was only in the mid four figures, a comparatively easy figure to raise and create the opportunity to promote how quickly it funding and how far in perms of percentage the project is over goal. This is what copywriter Bob Bly refers to as the “magic of false logic”, not lying or misrepresenting the situation but making manipulating existing facts to make the result sound far better than it is through skillful writing. I also have heard this referred to as “fun with statistics”. For example, if a particular game has not sold a copy in six months and then sells two copies, I can legitimately claim a 200% sales increase in six months. Is that a true statement? Absolutely. Does it reflect the actual popularity of the game? Nope.

A Retail View of Kickstarted Projects

While from a publisher’s point of view, there is no real downside to Kickstarter, from a retailer’s point of view, there is almost no upside to the process, at least at the basic level at which crowdfunding works.

Conisder, the publisher lists a game on Kickstarter, or IndieGoGo, or some other crowdfunding site, gets pre-orders for it, collects funding, produces the game and ships it out.  Yes, there is more to it than that, but the publisher is selling their games to the customers who are most primed and ready to buy them.  At least one publisher that uses Kickstarter extensively has said they have moved their business model to a crowdfunding platform.  The company develops a game, puts it on Kickstarter, pre-sells 500-1000 copies, then, instead of keeping the game in print, develops another one and launches it via Kickstarter.

From the retailer’s point of view, stores see games coming up on Kickstarter and watch as they fund, with the opportunity to stock them occurring weeks or even months after those who participated in the Kickstarter receive their copies.  Assuming the typical print RPG sells  300-500 copies of a print run while small press boardgames sell 500-1000 copies, almost all of that demand gets satisfied by the Kickstarter campaign, leaving little demand left for distributors and retailers to satisfy.  Unless the game attracts a lot of post production buzz, such as Brotherwise Games Boss Monster, a Kickstarter funded game has already seen most of its sales during the campaign, leaving only a few potential sales through the distribution channel and lots of unsold Kickstarted games sitting on the shelf.

A number of Kickstarter campaigns do offer retailer tiers, wherein the retailer commits to purchasing several copies of the game, delivered at the same time as other supporters, at a discount comparable to what the store would get if purchasing the game through distribution.  This does require the retailer to tie up precious capital for several months, waiting for the product to release. Other Kickstarter campaigns, if the retailer commits to purchasing a certain number of copies of the game, have arranged to take payment and ship the game at the same time as it ships to the regular backers, putting it on the shelves while buzz still exists about it.

The big benefit that Kickstarter provides to retailers is the potential to develop an unending flow of new games and related products, some of which will prove comparatively successful in the distribution channel, such as 13^th Age, and some which will not, such as Kill the Overlord.  The case then becomes how much scarce time the store can allocate to determining which is which.

Wi Wheaton's Brand

For those not familiar with Wil Wheaton and TableTop, an IndieGoGo campaign launched on International TableTop Day to raise $500,000 to fund a third season of his  TableTop web series. Funders blew past that target,  eventually pledging over $1.4 million, making the campaign the most successful one for a video series in IndieGoGo history.

Here’s how branding comes into play in both of these. Wil Wheaton is widely known within the pop culture community (I just cannot bring myself to call it geek or nerd culture), with an active blog, Tumblr, web series, and over 2.5 million followers on Twitter. Over the years, he has built up this following by saying, writing and doing things that his followers find interesting. A Tweet like “Loud. Noises” gets 131 retweets and 400 likes. Let me emphasize that. A two word Tweet from Wil Wheaton gets 400 likes and it’s not even anything like “KINGS WIN”.  People know what to expect from Wheaton and TableTop and gladly gave money to make it happen.  That’s the power of the Wheaton brand. If someone without Wheaton’s name recognition had launched a similar campaign, offering similar rewards and stretch goals, likely it would have failed because the lack of name recognition means backers would have little idea what they would get with their money.

The Problem With Kickstarter

The major problem with Kickstarter is, what happens if a project funds but never gets produced.  In the early days of Kickstarter,  projects were typically musicians seeking funding from fans so they could produce another album.  Today,  aKickstarter project is much more likely a developer  seeking funding by preselling a product before producing it.   According to the terms of service on Kickstarter, if this happens , the creator is supposed to refund all money fund to the backers but the company provides no method for doing so on the website.  Since  Kickstarter never has the funds for a project, operating solely as a facilitator between creator and funder,  the company’s position is that it does not  give refunds and all negotiations must take place between creator and backer. 

According to a recent story on NPR, the designer of PopSockets, an iPod case and cord designed not to tangle while dancing, raised about $18,600 from 520 backers, last February.  Now, the money is gone, spent on legal and manufacturing fees, with no PopSockets to show for it, none likely to appear, and a host of unhappy backers.    Creator David Barnett eventually refunded about $1300 to 40 of them, which only made the 480 unpaid backers even unhappier.

The problem, really, is that Kickstarter is not set up to police itself, similar to eBay in its early days.  The side only does cursory investigation of projects before allowing them to post and, while the terms of use do constitute a legal requirement for the creator to produce or refund, there is no mechanism on the site for enforcement.  All legal disputes are between creator and backer and, given the size of many pledges, backers likely don’t feel it worthwhile to involve the law.

For the moment, Kickstarter is the premier source for crowdfunded projects.  However, unless the company develops better mechanisms for policing itself, it likely will lose that position to a similar website that provides stronger protections for funders.