Kickstarter CAN still Fund Games

Kickstarter saw a record number of games being project funded in 2021. Welcome to another games rec. Hey, what's up everybody? This is your host, Brandon Fam, back at it with another Games Recap where I rant about today's top news, unfiltered, unedited, for you guys live on YouTube at 11:00 a.m. PST every day. So, let's go on to the news. uh the crowdfunding platform. I don't know if you guys remember this Kickstarter was very popular about 5 eight years ago and since have been kind of losing a lot of steam at least in public opinion. Uh in fact what we saw in the last 2 years was a rise in uh projects being funded which means it's still a viable platform. So I was kind of surprised by by reading this. Uh it

saw a record of $24 million raised across 441 different titles, different projects and saw a slight decline in fundraiser with a target of over $500,000. So what does that mean? That means in 2020 uh it had a total of 26 million and then last year it had a total of 24 million slight decline but overall pretty good in terms of like overall project being funded. What this means and why it's important to us is that Kickstarter is still relevant. It's still viable. It's a great way to connect uh and it has a great platform to get the money that you need from uh an active audience uh that you incur yourself or from other Kickstarter uh projects that people are just generally checking out the site and being able to uh see your project go live or whatever. All right. So, this is uh like I said before, pretty damn surprising because for a while I thought Kickstarter

uh had its moment but then lost a lot of steam because there was a lot of projects that just uh flamed out because of overpromise, underdelivering. Um, I think there was a a little bit for a little while the the the uh validity of it was kind of um untrustworthy uh is the best way I could put it. But I think because of all that noise kind of fizzling out allowed Kickstarter to boil down to the hardcore developers that are actually delivering on their promises, but also the people who are serious about using the platform to support their uh favorite game developer or projects. it it it just essentialized the people that cares about the platform and about the project uh to remain there, right?

So, it's kind of exciting because that means, you know, it's still a nice uh way to kind of get your dreams come true, right? And uh directly connect without having to come up and and try to fund it through your own website, right? the the advantages and I've had guests on this uh on my podcast a couple years before talking about the decline of Kickstarter and the advantages of what it is versus you you sell funding on your website is that there's a lot of eyes there's a lot of projects being still funneled in although the game sector have kind of uh simmered down a bit there are other industrial design type of projects happening all the time in Kickstarter that are garnering a lot of attention still which also means by collateral damage or um in this case collateral advantages uh they can still come across your project. So

that's the advantage of having something like Kickstarter versus hosting something on your own site. uh IEO uh who did the study for Kickstarter said that there's about 51 projects raising funds in the 100 to $500,000 category. So that gives you an idea if you have a game that you want to pitch. It seems like the safe spot is still under $500,000. And this is kind of ringing true if you go to a professional investor. Usually under 500k is a lot easier to kind of fund your project. uh there's less risk involved, but anything starting to go over 500K to a million, there's a lot more questions and answers that needs to be provided to kind of give you the green light for for your dreams. Um so this is still uh in line with what in the professional investing world would look like. So in a way I do like that, right? If you're out there

and most ideas are unproven, but if you have more than the standard uh evidence to kind of show that your project is the next big hit, usually I always recommend to start under 500,000 or start small to the bare minimum so that you're not ending up losing your credibility. I mean, it's not a loan, per se. But credibility goes a long way. Um, just think of No Man's Sky, right? They they they went super crazy with their with their promises and it took them a while to earn that trust back. But because of them working hard and not abandoning their loyal uh audience, they were able to not just have that initial profit but continue to profit from their branding

and and their ability to deliver. So that means that any future projects behind after No Man's Sky, they will see continued success because they have a good comeback story, right? And one of the biggest things that people like to see is the downfall of the Giants, but what they want to see even more is the comeback of the uh the one defeated, right? So Kickstarter kind of has that similar story. uh for a while I think the last 5 years it did feel at least personally to me and probably you guys can share the sentiment that uh it didn't seem like it was a place anymore to kind of hang but to kind of see how the last two years during the pandemic that these projects especially finding a place in having Kickstarter realize their dream it's actually pretty exciting. So, uh, this only means that it hit bottom already and now it's on its rise and I'm super super super excited to see what

the next couple years look like for Kickstarter. So, that concludes today's games recap. As always, I want to hear you guys in the discussion and comments below. Uh, see you guys next time. [Music]