On Halloween and despite the superstorm Sandy, Kickstarter launched in the UK and quite a few gaming companies took their campaigns live.
One of the British gaming pioneers are 6d6 who are on the way to earning £2,000 for a revised core rulebook. Their Kickstarter campaign even offers five years worth of future products for free at some pledge levels.
Geek Native has been allowed to peak at some of the behind the scenes stats and info that Kickstarter shares with campaign managers. We can see the initial curve, the first 24 hours, of the 6d6 projects growth as it begins to approach the target line.
We can also see that Kickstarter reveals which sites are sending in pledges. This is something that gaming community might like to know – many of us have blogs so it’s good to see that sites are credited when they help out campaigns.
Chris Tregenza, of 6d6, tells me that he had not posted news of the campaign on either Boardgame Geek or Reddit, both important sites, so early pledges from there are a very positive sign.
Another gaming company, Blazing Griffin, launched The Ship: Full Steam Ahead on the same day. This is a very different project; it has twice as long to run and is asking for £128,000. Why? This campaign is to create a steampunk computer game.
At the time of posting, The Ship: Full Steam Ahead, has made more than £4,000 in pledges. They have two backers who have contributed more than £256 in a single pledge to the campaign.
I asked Phil Harris of Blazing Griffin one 24 hour inspired question.
In hindsight, what would your number #1 tip be for making the most of your first 24 hours of a live Kickstarter project?
Blazing Griffin’s number one tip would be to listen to what the public are saying and, if you see a consistent theme, you should react to address those concerns. We looked at the comments from the backers, reddit, your own and many other sources and saw there was some confusion about the project. The die hard fans got it, they always would, but we believe others seemed a little unsure.
We have added new tiers to address these things and provide more digital content as rewards. We are also developing other ways to ensure people understand the exceptional and novel game The Ship: Murder Party was and how The Ship: Full Steam Ahead will bring that experience right up to date in a new steampunk setting.
Indeed, true to the statement above, Blazing Griffin have made fairly significant changes to the pledge levels; it’s now possible to get a copy of the game for a lower tier than at launch. That’s the sort of change that needs to happen very quickly if it happens at all.
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