Ask HN: Our Kickstarter project is failing

[py23]

We are Kickstarting a multi-platform game, an RPG for Android/iOS/Linux/Mac/PC. We are into our last week and we've only got 10% funding. We were conservative with our target, and our pricing seemed to be sound. Do we have any hope of getting funded at this stage, and if not, how can we do better?

The project page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joelotter/uplift-a-multi-platform-rpg

[Udo]

There is something to be learned from reasonable Kickstarter campaigns that successfully complete their funding. First, the video. I get the feeling that a lot of the successful video pitches are professionally produced, even though they're often made to look casual. And there's a lot of emphasis on the videos.

You guys put your main emphasis on making the text part informative - maybe too informative. I think it's no coincidence that many successful KS projects look like they're already finished. Maybe a lot of them are indeed already finished, but the rest are certainly faking it very elaborately. There's good business sense in doing that: Kickstarter has become somewhat of a pre-order platform, and people are used to ordering what they see, not what it might become after funding.

I don't mean to be overly critical towards crowd funding, but one of the big illusions "sold" by crowd funding platforms is that anyone can get their pet project funded. In reality a lot of the people (if not indeed most of them) you see doing well on Kickstarter are extremely well-connected on social media or otherwise well-known. Crowd funding is a way of leveraging that kind of clout. If you don't have that, it can be tough even getting your message in front of the right audience.

One does not simply walk into Kickstarter. Successful people put a lot of effort into looking like they are just casually letting the world know about their thing and, behold, great fame and money follows. But that's not what's actually happening behind the scenes. Crowd funding is not the big equalizer, it's just another way of leveraging marketing potential that already exists.

If you can't put a check mark on at least two of these three things I talked about (professional production, pre-existing audience, potential for runaway virality), chances are it's not going to work out.

So honestly, no I don't think you'll reach your funding goal. However, that doesn't mean it's a bad project. In fact, I would love following it over time to see what you're doing. If you feel strongly about the concept, consider doing it on the side or taking a few months off - this is the kind of project that looks like it could very well be implemented as a hobby. Use that development time to churn out videos and blog about your progress. Slowly build up that audience. By the time you're done, you'll already have customers and fans lined up.

[andyidsinga]

you're especially right about the pre-existing audience. i went to a kickstarter boot camp ..and it was brought up a few times that a kickstarter campaign should be at the end of a project's marketing effort. A community or audience must be in place before day one of the campaign.

Also brought up : if a campaign fails, dont despair, put a link up before the project ends that can 3xx redirect to a new campaign ...then build momentum & audience from the failed campaign.

[Udo]

Sure, they could always try again. I can see how for some projects getting crowdfunding traction might be the only real prospect, so it makes sense if there are people who basically do nothing but hustle for weeks on end.

However, this doesn't strike me as that kind of project.

These guys could happily go on to make their thing and gradually show it to an incremental audience as they're building it. It's not at all clear that they actually need to be successful on Kickstarter. They're makers and they'll just make something that's fun for them. It could in fact be argued they'll have more fun and freedom doing it on their own instead of subjecting themselves to that sort of external pressure in exchange for a pittance.

[andyidsinga]

thats a great point - incremental build plus audience building is effectively boot strapping. probably the best approach as long as they can continue to avoid "needing" an injection of funds.

[andrewhillman]

These are all valid points. I would also like to add that I have noticed when projects fail the first time, some repost months later and succeed.

[maccard]

I didn't watch the video, but I read the description. How much do you think you can accomplish in 3 months? 3 months, 3 people, 8000 pounds, that's hardly living money, never mind development costs, and any costs you have to pay for kickstarter for the physical rewards, etc. I wouldn't put my money out for some people who have no track record of delivery, and there's no plan for what will be delivered for the money, or what the end product will entail, what you intend on doing with the product afterwards.

Also, anyone who stumbles across the page sees a project that is nowhere near funding, and doomed for failure. If you can, get a lend of 4 or 5k, and get your family and friends to pump the money into the kickstarter. If it's close to funding you might get enough to clear the goal, and your money back from your loan.

Also, your goal deliveries are october (for early access?) yet your funding is for 3 months? what about the other 3/4 months in between times? What sort of money are you going to spend on marketing the game when it reaches the app store? All this information should be on the kickstarter page. You've also had no updates in the month, which would be disappointing to see if I was a backer.

[py23]

Being students, we were modest with personal funding as we've learned how to live cheaply while working hard. Based on what we live off during term time, this amount of funding is viable for us.

A loan is a big nono, we want 100% of funding to originate from customers. We would not be Kickstarting otherwise.

So we are in university until the end of June (2.5 months), full time development would begin at the start of July, ending with release at the start of October (3 months). Early access would be some point prior to that. I hope this justifies our timescale, although it does prove that we have not been clear enough with this matter.

Thanks for your comment, lots for consideration!

[egypturnash]

I'm going to be cruel here.

I'm pretty sure you've got no hope of getting funded.

You're three guys barely out of school who are talking about your huge, sprawling vision, and all you have to back it up is a handful of samey-looking coder art. You've got a buggy abandoned year-old demo. You don't feel like people who can even begin to finish a small game, much less this big dream.

If you guys want to be a game dev team, then narrow your scope. Build a name for yourselves doing smaller games, learn something about promoting yourself. Build an audience. Or work on this in your spare time, and produce a compelling, polished first chapter of the story that gets people saying "wow! I want to know how it ends!" when they play it.

When you have fans who are willing to give you a few bucks for a good, finished game of limited scope, THEN you can consider a Kickstarter. Because a lot of what makes a Kickstarter work is ACTIVATING YOUR EXISTING AUDIENCE. Sure, you get people hearing about you and your work through KS, and you get your fans promoting your work because they want the KS to succeed - but if you don't have any existing fans who trust you to deliver on your promises, all you're going to get is sympathy pledges from rich relatives.

Also? Find someone for your team who is actually training to be an artist instead of letting the comp sci major who kinda likes to draw handle all the art duties. Or have that coder who kinda likes to draw go take some serious art classes. The existing art is high school notebook doodle level, those big crude head shots of your different races really screams "amateur" to me. (As do their names. Greens, Reds, Pinks? That's screaming that your world building is superficial. Your elevator pitch is "explore a vast and beautiful galaxy with rich stories at its heart"; what you're showing is neither beautiful nor a compelling narrative base.)

I applaud you dreaming big. But you are not ready for this yet. This campaign is the first failure of many you will encounter on your way to realizing this dream of making a Cool Sci-Fi Zelda; if you stay on this path you will fail many more times. Ideally you will learn something from every failure, and the next one will be an excitingly new kind of failure; eventually you'll run out of easy ways to fail and start finding some modest success. Good luck.

[ChuckMcM]

Personally, I think a straight up analysis like the OP here is not particularly cruel, if it can be internalized by the team (which basically means they can listen to it and not take it personally)

Summarizing it seems to be, story is poorly defined, the retro-8-bit art doesn't work, and the lack of previous efforts does not give one confidence that these things will be fixed.

I agree that failures will help define the value of success in the future. (Experiencing overcoming that is the 'reward' for putting in the effort)

Short answer on the feedback, for the author, you are failing because you are not ready yet. This has been a good checkpoint, and you have some good ideas in this list of comments to explore.

[bhouston]

Hmm... here is some constructive criticism in the hopes that it helps. Please note that I am making a snap judgement but that is what a lot of people do to Kickstarters, so it is probably somewhat applicable even if it is harsh.

The graphics are lack luster in my opinion, at least the screenshots are not that attractive as compared to other pixel art I have seen. They are quite simple overall. Animation of the characters when moving is really not good, it is Atari console level graphics in a lot of ways.

The camera work & lighting in the pitch video is really poor. Some of it could have been said better as well. It was obviously recorded on web cams with no color correction and no punchy editing. I think that hurts a lot as well.

[secoif]

Overall lack of professionalism is the problem. It looks like a highschool student project. Art (not just the game-art) is sub-par (sorry!). Next time you should involve someone who knows how to assemble a professional presentation. Knowing when to call in help is the best skill you can learn.

[tiquorsj]

I own gameskinny.com and we cover a lot of kick starters. I will just give you my opinion straight up. Based on your pledges you did not build a community ahead of your kick starter. You have 800 pounds or so which is 10% of your goal.

This kickstarter is done. That doesn't mean you can't have a successful one again. Build a community of like minded people. Get a forum, post some info on our forums, talk to people in RPG forums. Get 500 people who would fund you for 20$ so that when you launch the next kick starter at least 100 of them do.

[py23]

We only started marketing after the Kickstarter page went live. From what you're saying it sounds like we need to start the promotion long before that. Thanks for your advice!

[tiquorsj]

I didn't say market. I said you need to build a community. You need to find people who want a game like this but can't build it. Then get them to talk to you and you talk to them. They will help spread your idea. Until you get some like minded people you have no idea if you have a market. Once you know you do have some people (and your mom and friends dont count) kick starter will help you reach more people, but kickstarter cant be your first move.

[reboog711]

How is building a community different from marketing?

[tiquorsj]

Marketing focuses on your sales goals. Community building focuses on the community's goals. They are related but that subtlety is important.

[BenSS]

Your reward tiers are pretty good, but the video goes for a full minute utill you get to the actual game. Lots of talking heads doesn't make the user want the game!

Has anyone else written about the game yet? You want it covered in other places than just Kickstarter. Are your existing fans sharing/promoting it? Have you made it easy for fans to share content about the game outside of Kickstarter? If you don't have a group of people excited about the game already and willing to promote it, your project will probably not succeed. There's nothing wrong with pulling it and retooling.

[ephemeralgomi]

I mean this in the nicest way: I'd just like to point out that before Kickstarter, pretty much your only option would have been to scrounge up the money yourselves, invest it along with your sweat, blood, tears, and time into making the game, and then release it only to find out that it doesn't resonate with your target audience. With Kickstarter, you're able to discover up front if what you're making isn't what people actually want, and save yourself the wasted effort.

There's only one bit of tangible advice I have for you - and I haven't ever run a successful Kickstarter, so take it with a grain of salt. I've worked in games, and I know that they always take way more time and effort than you expect, even with aggressive cutting/scoping. Whenever I see a game Kickstarter with a target this low, my estimation of its failure probability (even if it's overfunded!) is around 80-90%. It tells me that the people involved don't really know what they're getting into. The lowest game Kickstarter I ever backed was Radio the Universe with a target of $12k (but ended up bringing in $80k), and I fully expected it to fail.

[neltnerb]

I have run unsuccessful kickstarter campaigns, and I think think this is the least depressing way to think about it.

Kickstarter is a way to validate your business model for no money and minimal time. You've just tested your MVP, and the feedback is that it's not what your customers want.

This is pretty valuable, since hopefully by talking to the people who backed your game (and the people here who wouldn't) you'll have a much better chance of making something that is actually wanted later.

[zmitri]

I've worked with many crowd funding campaigns (around 90) and the most successful way to make sure it happens is to send out personal emails (anywhere from 10 to 25% conversion), followed by blast emails (around 10% conversion), followed by Facebook (around 7-8%). Don't even bother with Twitter unless you have over 100K followers or have an engaged following and are going to tweet non-stop (2-3% conversion). I've tracked all this in Mixpanel, so I'm not just giving you made up numbers.

Based on your goal, you will likely need to send out hundreds or potentially a thousand personal emails to your first degree connections.

Once you reach around 40% it makes sense to ask those backers to start to band around the project and share it with their friends. After which, 2nd degree and 3rd degree connections start to back the project as well.

A great Facebook hack is to make an event with the end of the campaign and invite all of your friends.

The reality is, you can still make it happen but it takes a lot of work and you need to really want it. That or find one really big backer.

[zmitri]

Also, don't listen to the negativity in this thread. The majority of commenters have probably have never done a crowdfunding campaign, and are not likely going to back this because they don't know you.

It's important to have a clear pitch, and easy to follow dialogue, but that isn't going to help you make this goal.

[forrestthewoods]

Your project looks like an amateur student game. I felt bad and didn't want to say so until I reached the "Who Are We" section where it turns out that yes, sure enough, y'all are amateur students.

If you shipped this as a complete project on your own without Kickstarter then it'd be a great portfolio piece. It would definitely help you land job interviews. It's just not something that people are going to give you money for on Kickstarter. The bar is quite high these days and your project does not meet it. I'm sorry.

[impendia]

I remember creating all sorts of games back when I was a student. I dreamed big, and created at least some games which fell far short of my dreams -- but I never imagined that I would be able to find an audience for them.

Nowadays, Kickstarter creates the illusion that it is easy to become a commercial success. Put a few screenshots up, create a website and video, and shazam! Get rich. (Or, in your case, get enough to pay your expenses for three months.) Except... as you discovered, it doesn't actually work like that.

Unfortunately, as other commenters have explained, you don't currently have the ability to convince people that you are going to make something great. But that is not to say that you can't make something great. Just to say that commercial success requires a lot more than a big vision and the talent and energy to see it through.

I urge you to give up on getting funded for now, and instead focus on finding another way to see your vision through. Even if you never get a red cent -- even if you never even convince anyone to play it for free -- you will have created something. Of your vision and conception, and through your own hard work.

And something pretty damn cool, at that. Won't pay your rent, but in the long run that's worth a hell of a lot more than eight thousand quid.

Good luck to you!

[bendmorris]

My advice would be to plan how you'll deliver the game anyway after not getting funded. Certainly it would be nice to have £8,000 in preorders, but it looks like you'll need to continue working on it in your own time until you finish. Many games are completed this way, and you can do it too.

Have any of you developed games in the past? If not, finishing this game on your own and releasing it will be a great learning experience for all you. Your game, to be blunt, looks like a student project (and it seems that two of you are in fact students.) I don't usually fund games on Kickstarter unless they're made by teams with clear track records or are very highly polished, and there's nothing that jumps out at me from the Kickstarter page as really differentiating your game from many others.

[aangjie]

I had a quick look, and my first thought was man those screenshots look like they are from old video games. I get the difficulty of creating games that runs on a variety of platforms, and that it will take some time, but I doubt the average viewer, read the text past the screenshots. So my first advice is to photoshop or re-create some of your screens, with a disclaimer it was for illustration purposes.

[lholden]

Check out the kickstarter for FTL. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-tha...

The FTL kickstarter started off demonstrating how excited they were to build the game followed almost directly with information and footage of the core mechanics. The game looked fun before even getting past the first minute of the video.

On the other hand, the presentation of your kickstarter just didn't do much for me. I got through to about 3 minutes in the video before deciding stop watching.

The main problem for me was that nothing in the presentation me made me want to love either the game or the people behind it.

You call the game an action RPG... but the footage shown during the first 3 minutes that I watched involved mostly walking around and opening a chest. I'd have much preferred to have seen some whitty dialog with an NPC or some of the core game mechanics. This would have helped immensely as nothing that I saw looked "action" or "rpg".

[muyuu]

Doesn't seem to me like the kind of project to fund via Kickstarter.

Get a demo working on other platforms and show it around. Run forums. And when there's some traction, think of the best way to fund it.

Something like this is not going to find enough of its potential target through a Kickstarter. Also, many potential customers may not be convinced with the idea if they cannot try it.

[yodhe]

Probably not imho, but as they say where I live, "Shy bairns get nowt!" I would say to me, it doesn't appeal visually, most of those similar projects I have seen succeed in their funding tend to put a lot of time and resources into making their kickstarter project look "wow!". Also I have read on various occasions that like making games, kickstarter is an evolving learning process, and you don't lose everything this time around by not getting a slice of the pie. Thankfully fresh pies seem to get baked everyday in our economic system. Once you learn to roll with the punches, and toughen up a bit (cause you ain't failing you're learning) I am sure I will have the delight of one day being entertained by one of your creations. Good luck (from a fellow homebrewer)

[lnanek2]

I would actually like more games like the old Start Flight and Star Control and whatnot. I don't think I'm willing to fund something with such ugly graphics, though. It's tough for me to even pick out the characters from the backgrounds. Maybe you should hire a graphics artist?

[egonraptor]

I'm a long-time retro RPG gamer. After about a ~2 min glance at the page and skipping around the video, I couldn't find a compelling reason it's better than an average RPGMaker game. I'd look for successful pixel/retro kickstarters and try to emulate what they did.

[heeton]

What marketing have you done so far? For the kickstarter, not just the game.

And to answer the question, your weakness can be shown as a strength. Rally your team and do a big last minute pus: "This hidden gem of a game has only a week left! Help get it funded!"

[py23]

In terms of marketing, we compiled a huge list of review sites/subreddits/twitter profiles/email addresses/forums to promote to, trying to personalise messages as much as possible. Also plugging like crazy on Facebook.

Yeah that sounds like a good idea, we'll give one last push and see how it goes. Thanks!

[reboog711]

If I google "Uplift Kickstarter" nothing comes up. So, I assume that your attempt at getting reviews / articles / etc.. have failed. There appears to be no web presence for this game.

Unlike others, I don't mind the retro graphics [although these are very retro and that may hurt you]. I doubt anyone has heard of the game. This is a marketing fail, so to speak.

I'll also add the folks talking in the video show no enthusiasm or energy. It is a fairly boring video.

[notfoss]

I see a lot of people emphasizing on building a community and I agree that it helps a lot, but community alone might not be enough to get you the amount you would have preferred.

Below is an example of a flash based game with very simple graphics, which was successfully funded, mainly because of a decent sized community behind it. But, the developer still didn't get the amount he would have loved.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1554254835/learn-to-fly...

[chrisBob]

Is it legal to sell your iOS promo codes that way? I am sure that is against the terms of service, and to make matters worse those people won't be able to review the game in the App Store.

[gdewilde]

Each campaign only runs for a limited time.

However, the kicker if you like, you can use as much time as you need to gather the audience before running it.

At this point I see no other solution but to gather all your parents then make them feel guilty.

Bake a cake, buy some bottles of cheap wine, hand written invitation cards, then throw them an investors party.

There must be a presentation screen with slides on it, a speech must be written about future careers and the parental influence therein.

It will be a hard sell but you wanted to learn about business.

[cgriswald]

That sounds a lot like the plot to Stepbrothers. : )

[clavalle]

What have you done outside of kickstarter to promote the project?

I think that is key.

The kickstarter is just the hub of a marketing push.

Have you pointed anyone on any forums, social media or blogs to your kickstarter?

[the_unknown]

You may also want to reconsider your pricing structure. At approx $5 to get the full game I do wonder why I should bother doing the Kickstarter. You didn't mention the non-Kickstarter price so I'm going to assume it will be approx the same. So I could probably just wait until the game succeeds and pick it up for about the same cost - then I don't need to worry about the game's progress or whether it fails in development.

[Mikeb85]

The game just isn't very compelling. I've seen better graphics in Ludum Dare Compo games, and there's already other space exploration games out there (Starbound for instance).

Just focus on finishing the game, and then sell it. Maybe try Greenlight on Steam. It almost seems as though the game was an afterthought to your pitch and campaign...

[Mrb84]

Potential issue:

There is another game already with this title - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Starchaser...

I tried to find reviews and news for your game with a web search, but this is what came up.

[igl]

I think very few ppl can relate to this c64-style in 2014. You are making a game, so your audience is very young.

I am 30 and i only remember the SNES RPGs to have left a impression on me. I immediately thought of SOM/zelda when i read the title. ... just my 2 cent. Good luck!

[HelloNurse]

On Kickstarter, the project description should convince the public that you are able to deliver a fun game; unfortunately you give consistent hints of the contrary. The public knows that software projects tend to fail, run late and cost too much, and that games are often less than fun; videogames combine the two sources of uncertainty and are one of the highest risk types of Kickstarter project.

"However, about nine months ago, we decided that it would be preferable to abandon AndEngine and rewrite the game from scratch, in a graphics framework called LibGDX. This set us back quite a bit. However, we’re now at the stage where the game is back to its original functionality"

On the "being able to deliver" axis, you represent yourself as slow (over 1 year for a demo might be acceptable, but 9 months for a rewrite are a lot, smelling of part-time amateur development), prone to waste time with failed experiments (and persisting despite technical problems), unrealistically ambitious and/or unfocused (Windows and Mac and Linux and and iOS and Android? When high budget companies choose between Android and iOS?). Consider what the numerous software developers and software project managers on HN are likely to think of rewriting software from scratch, regardless of your sound technical reasons.

"The game plays like a cross between A Link to the Past and Mass Effect, and takes some inspiration from Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels - along with whatever else can be scraped from an imagination fired by years of reading brilliant science fiction. Gameplay focuses around Ra’s ability to use magic, and the player can find many new spells as they explore the game’s universe. It’s not all action, though - players will come up against a variety of puzzles, ranging from mildly vexing to fiendishly tricky."

On the "fun game" axis, you have very little to show. You sure like your game, but TELLING it's fun is vastly different from SHOWING it's fun. Descriptions like this one are simply too generic to suggest how well you are meeting the stated objectives. At least for me, the inexplicably low resolution graphics are particularly troublesome: whether they are the bizarre product of strange tastes or just a cheap and ugly placeholder, the concern over their quality projects on all other aspects of the game. If an artist thinks that much smaller sprites than on the Atari 2600 are appropriate for HD screens, explaining how and why it's the best choice for your game needs to be a very important part of your message, or the public will assume the worst (you aren't giving the due attention to graphics and/or you are unable or unwilling to draw anything better).

[smartician]

One crucial question is left unanswered: What do you need the money for? Why should I pledge now, if I could just wait with my purchase until it's finished?

[steele]

As students, I don't see how injecting money is going to make this faster/better unless you pay people to take your classes and exams.

[wellboy]

For Kickstarter, it's all about getting PR. That's what you should spend all your energy on.

[ada1981]

You can try http://prmatch.com for pay-for-results pr and free tools to help with your kickstarter.

Also, sign up over at AcademyOfCrowdfunding.com for the free training.

Reach out directly to me as we have a program to help reboot failed kickstarters.

You can try a couple of these tactics to see if it will help last minute:

- email all the backers you have and ask them to increase contribution and spread the word.

- find a few companies who might be good sponsors and call them directly and pitch them on a $10k package -- this has worked for some of my clients who had failing projects. You structure sponsorship package basically.

- do a last minute PR push

- create an event and the ticket price is via donation to your campaign

Again, if you don't hit 50% in week 1 or 2 (30 day campaign) you should be going into emergency mode, this is very last minute but you could still pull out a win. Go hard for the week, then do a comprehensive post-morteum, and find a pro to help you plan a reboot strategy.

Happy to give you a free session to analyze your work to date and make some suggestions.

Anthony @ 175g . Com

[picomancer]

This comment is mostly speaking to the author of the parent post, who seems to be a founder of prmatch.com [1].

I think OP represents an underserved market -- people who have a great product idea [2] and want to crowdfund, but don't have a clue about how to do marketing. For crowdfunding, it would be very helpful if the PR folks are rewarded with a percentage [3] of the crowdfunding proceeds when the campaign is successful, rather than cash up front -- this fits the "pay-for-performance" philosophy. And it helps entrepreneurs get another form of feedback -- if no marketers are interested in your product, it may be a sign that your product is so bad it's unmarketable, or your crowdfunding goal is too high, or your reward for the marketer is too low.

Also, "creating a press wishlist" assumes the customer knows something about marketing already. This may be fine for customers who are migrating from other advertising options, but it sounds like a place where people like OP would need hand-holding. I know little about marketing myself, so if I was hiring a marketing expert, I would certainly want to get their input as to the most cost-effective places to put ads or try to get press.

I guess it comes down to whether you're trying to target (A) people who are familiar with marketing, already know what they want, and are just having trouble finding it, or (B) people who have good products but are total noobs when it comes to marketing.

I think types (A) and (B) are both big enough markets to justify your platform catering to both of them, especially if the PR freelancers have a way to distinguish between (A) and (B) type clients (some freelancers might only want to work with one type of client, and it may be a negative experience all around if they get matched to the other type). But it seems like the current website copy is targeted more toward the (A) type.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6649911

[2] Judging from other comments in this thread, the OP's product idea may need some refinement.

[3] A fixed reward amount would also be possible, but a percentage reward encourages the marketer to keep working and hit stretch goals after the minimum funding goal is reached.

[xur17]

This service looks interesting - does anyone have experience with it, or have any information on typical pricing for it?

I'd be interested to try it out for a web service that I run.

[kaeluka]

This is not really helpful, but I love the music sample! Sounds great.