Why aren’t more game developers using Kickstarter?

Kickstarter is not just a way to get money for your game, but is a way to really capture some excitement and some community building around the development of your game. I wouldn't be here without Kickstarter, and it's so hard.
What is true is that crowdfunding more than any other kind of like commercial transaction is related to emotional connection. And nostalgia is an easy emotional connection you have immediately.
Hello and welcome to the Game Business Show. We have a double bill for you today. Now, a good 3 months ago, I interviewed Asher McLeanahan. He's the head of games at Kickstarter, and I wanted to find out about whether the crowdfunding platform has become a viable alternative for developers who have been struggling to find investment via [clears throat] other means like publishers and VCs and and things like that. Just as I was about to run it though, self-publishing games agency Ico Partners released a series of facts and figures around the state of play on Kickstarter. So, I then interviewed Ico

Partners founder and CEO Thomas Bidaux on the same subject. It is a niche topic, but I found both conversations really insightful, especially for someone who hasn't been paying much attention to crowdfunding since that initial Kickstarter gold rush that took place 10 years ago. So, today you're going to hear both of these interviews. Now, first, here's my chat with Kickstarter games boss Asher McLeanahan. There was a window in game industry history when Kickstarter, and indeed crowdfunding in general, was the way to get indie projects, and some not so indie projects, off the ground. But it turned out to be more complicated. The unpredictable nature of game development proved problematic to the developers when trying to deliver on the promises they had made, and many companies backed away from it. Yet, in 2025, video games are still appearing on Kickstarter, and some of them from familiar household names. So, I was eager to find out about the state of play with crowdfunding video games, and who better to ask about that than the head of games at Kickstarter. Hello Asher, welcome to the show.
Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me. I

really appreciate it.
Was I right there? Did I get the analysis of Kickstarter's history of games spot-on?
Yeah, I mean, I think I think to some degree that's right, directionally at least. I think there's a little more nuance, you know, that period of time was wild. There were so many major projects. I mean, you had everything like you said from indie games like Hollow Knight, I think raised around 35,000 US on Kickstarter about 10 years ago, and then we had, you know, the sort of Star Citizen, you know, feel about that game whatever you will.
Mhm.
Larian had a couple of of games, you know, the the Divinity Original Sin games were were kickstarted and um there really was this this huge groundswell moment where people saw it as as the right way to get funding or like a really really viable path. And I think what ended up happening was um a lot of people got that idea and running a Kickstarter and a crowdfunding

campaign is really challenging because you need to make something compelling for folks and you need to be able to make sure that you have the resources to drive that development all the way home and I think there were a cadre of developers that used Kickstarter as a sort of point in their pitch deck to go to investors um or uh publishers and say, "Hey, we have market fit for this. People want this game." Um and that didn't pan out in the ways that we were expecting. And I'm happy to talk more about that. But yes, I think I think there was not a contraction [snorts] because they're still I mean, I think we've we've successfully funded over 500 video games on Kickstarter this year.
Oh, wow.
But there was there is definitely a change in the dynamic uh and I I it's largely a more sustainable change. So, um I'm here for it even if it means there are, as a number, fewer campaigns running.
Well, hopefully more successful ones. I

mean, how many actually Colin, you took mention that number there, 500. How are video games doing on Kickstarter today? I I Is there has there been an uptake in people using it now that investment in other avenues is proving harder to find?
Yes, and uh I think that there are there are some publishers who simply never left the platform. You know, we have some some smaller publishers, um like uh Creativo Publishing, you know, they ran a million-dollar campaign earlier this year. Um there's a great YouTuber who run a a million-dollar campaign. I don't know if you remember from the early uh like the early days of YouTube, there's this YouTube series called Animation Versus, it's stick figures fighting with computer UI.
Yeah.
Uh they ran a million-dollar campaign for a the video game version of that. And there are many many projects that are doing really well um that that were, you know, sub a million but are getting the money that they need.
Yeah. I quite know Charles Cecil in the UK. I know uh Broken Sword and they use Kickstarter quite a lot. I don't know if they still do, but they were using it yeah, well beyond when other people

might have stepped away.
Mhm. Yeah, it's it's really great to see how people have figured out how to sustainably leverage Kickstarter into their platform. I think for a lot of video game developers, the ones that are, I would say, most prolifically successful um on Kickstarter that are raising the sort of largest dollar amounts and they're finding the most success, is they're seeing it as sort of a go-to-market platform. It is a way to engage your audience early for a game that we know is going to, you know, have the resources it needs to come out because I you know, as you said in your intro, video game development is and any software development is so challenging to like really genuinely estimate resource needs for and understand where all of that funding is going to come from. Um and so I think the folks who have who are very clear-eyed uh that Kickstarter is not just a way to get money for your game, but is a way to

really capture some excitement and some community building around the development of your game. I think those those folks are the ones that are finding the most success on the platform right now.
And you played tonic quite played tonic quite well he the ukulele on Kickstarter and I was totally by somebody on their team that they promised a certain amount of bosses that would be in the game, which was a regret for them later on because you know, they did they put those bosses in, but it was a lot of development time spent on something when they actually they may have been better off spending that energy elsewhere, but that was the promise they made and of course he's all part of the learning process I guess of those sort of things. Now obviously they started on Kickstarter. They didn't really have a game at that point. So do you you finding these people who are building communities, people who are able to make more accurate predictions about the game's going to be they're coming in later on down the down the process?
Yeah, I mean when we look at the largest numbers, you know, when we look [clears throat] at the campaigns that are doing, you know, say over a million dollars, I I would say generally that is the case. That said though, there are a lot of games that are in really kind of early stages, but what they have, the

ones that are that are really successful on the long tail of that engagement, um those folks are taking the time to understand really what the core value of the game is and being very careful not to promise not to over promise um what the game can be and I think that that is really delighting backers generally speaking um because they, you know, backers Kickstarter has been around since 2009. People who have been backing game Kickstarters have been around since 2009. And so you can sort of see and into it um whether or not a developer like really has their head wrapped around sort of what the game is. And I think if you have some creative assets that you can show the game show of the game if you've got especially some version of a full vertical slice like playable demo. I mean I think you can really you can really still share a vision with people that they'll get excited about.

So so it is absolutely still possible to be in relatively early game development and be successful on the platform. It just takes a lot of care and a lot of spreadsheets.
[laughter]
How do how do you find some I'll go back to the question about how those video games performing on on Kickstarter? You said 500 games in funding the last year. Is that is that good? Is how's it compared to other categories?
Compared to other categories is [clears throat] interesting. So every category is so different on the platform.
Mhm.
You know when we look at like tabletop games like board games of which there are a large number of video game IPs going to the platform. You know that is a much more prolific category. I think they did around 5,000 games.
So that's because you only they've got the product. They're just looking for manufacturing money not the other time, isn't it?
Right. It's a little more linear a path.
Yeah.
Right. It's like it is usually it's

really easy to do not really easy. Making a board game is really hard, but it's much simpler to do with kind of a very small core team. You know right? You can have the person that's running the crowdfunding campaign is also the game designer and you know there's like a husband and wife duo that do the graphic design and the game design of games and they do amazing on Kickstarter. And so it's a little bit more linear a path I think of development. And so so there are a ton of tabletop games. And we look outside of games. I mean it depends category by category. You know technology obviously a huge space the biggest crowdfunding campaign ever was a 3D printer earlier this year, which is exactly that. You know, it's just manufacturing and and sort of this like go-to-market idea. So, it is a smaller category. That said, it's growing. We have more successful The thing that I really care about at the end of the day is that projects are successful

on the platform, not necessarily the sheer number. So, I try to do a lot to talk about how challenging it is so that everybody who runs a campaign can be very eyes wide open. Like, this is not a super easy and linear path. You will have to do a lot of work to figure it out. But, yeah, it is growing. 2024 was a great year for us. 2025 looks to be just a little bit more successful. I think we'll have, you know, 10%ish more games, more video games on the platform. I mean, I think next year, from the conversations that I've had, there are there are even more coming.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
There's a lot of physical items. Used to be anyway, back in back in the old days. Has that softened down a little bit? And has tariffs had an impact on that?
Yeah, I mean, look, [clears throat] tariffs tariffs have been a very interesting part of 2025 across the globe, but also in Kickstarter. And I've talked to a lot of video game publishers this year that are terrified of physical products. And I think this is an area

where you can look towards what tabletop games do and understand more deeply how to do it sustainably. I think there was a period of time where video game Kickstarters it was all about the physical merch. Like, you were selling the game, but really you were also you had shirts and like stuffed animals and backpacks and all of this sort of accoutrement. And that that does take a lot of time and it is complicated and I think video game creators especially have sort of realized that that that's a challenge that may not always be worth it. I think generally speaking most video game creators I talked to you are like they just don't want to do physical products anymore and I try to let them know like I think that we have a rubber banded too far in the opposite direction like no physical products will never do it. I think there's a sustainable way to do it. But again, it just takes it's that

extra thought and care I think that goes into it. You there was a period of time where people were just like building their tears the night before their campaign went live and we're like yeah, we'll make a t-shirt and a hoodie and a leather bomber jacket and I think that that created some sustainability problems for for creators.
I'm what I'm picking up from you Ashton and I mean it is that they were a lot of game companies that perhaps not prepared enough for how much work and energy foresight and planning that is going into the Kickstarter campaign. You still getting people coming in the day before come up with stuff or finding themselves surprised by having to manage this community and and and things like that. What do you recommend to a company that's thinking about Kickstarter apart from be thoughtful and be careful. What do you say right you need to make sure you have these things in place?
Yeah. Yeah, so I'm from the tabletop space. I ran two tabletop campaigns but then I also ran a platform for playing role-playing games online. We did that on Kickstarter and they were quite successful.

The first two that I did I'm so glad we did smaller campaigns so that we could learn really meaningfully how challenging it was. So I would say one of two things. If you have a smaller project that's maybe like maybe it's ready to go. Maybe it's like a side project that you've been working on for a couple of years and you would like to see it come to light or you just want to test out how Kickstarter is try that. Do a smaller campaign that is a little bit less um maybe ambitious and learn sort of the hard way, the way that I did. Uh alternatively, I think the really amazing thing about Kickstarter is that if you come across a Kickstarter campaign and they did well and you want to talk to them, almost certainly, you can just find their email address and send them an email and they will respond. And one of the best parts about this community, my favorite part of this job and the whole reason that I'm here is that they will share every secret that they have with

you. Nobody is obtuse, nobody is opaque. People are more than happy to share everything that they've learned and I think that's one of the biggest pieces of advice that I can give. I'm always happy to talk to a a video game creator. Um I give everybody my email address all the time. I want everybody to talk to me and my team about what it takes. Um but I also think talking to other people who have just been through it um is one of the most important things that you can do uh because it is a very unique platform. Um you will it's it's taking an entire go-to-market strategy that you might you might lay out over 6, 9, 12 months and truncating it to a 30-day window and that comes with a lot of complexity and so talk to other creators because they will share with you everything, all of the mistakes that they made, uh you know, I'm always happy to tell people that my co-founder had to sell a car so that we

could fulfill our our game because we mismanaged our shipping. Um so I that's the biggest piece of advice that I give creators all the time. It's just just talk to other people who have done it, learn from them so that you can make your own mistakes because you will not avoid making a mistake that keeps you up for at least one night.
Yeah, yeah.
But you certainly can set your up yourself up for for success more meaningfully by just talking to the community.
So, I'm interested. Do you have any sort of recent examples of successful video games on Kickstarter?
Yeah, absolutely. So, um when we look at 2025, I think one of the one of the games that's really setting the bar, there's a there's a Polish publishing studio called Creativo, um
[snorts]
and they ran a campaign called Autonoma earlier this year. Now, they've done quite a few campaigns, but I think they have done an incredible job of looking at what tabletop has done with design

aesthetic and immersion. Uh they've done a really wonderful job building community around their games. Um and I think that their tiers are really bespoke, and they sort of speak to the audience that is backing that game. And so, to me, the things that they are doing um with their campaign page, and if you're just looking for inspiration, um they are a bit of a high-water mark in terms of creating an environment where people are leaving like really deeply understanding what game they are about to back, um and why it is that they want to back it. So, I always point everybody there if you're just thinking and you're trying to design a page or you're thinking about what it takes, um have a look at what they're doing because I think it's really, really great.
Where do you people most often go wrong with their Kickstarter campaigns, do you find?
[sighs]

That's a great question. I It does vary quite a bit, but I think they go wrong in one of two places. Um So, there's this level of fit and finish that I think a lot of video game creators tend to miss, um because they believe that their game will sort of stand on its own. And in some ways, that is absolutely true, but there are right now live on the platform as we are in this conversation, there are 150 video game projects on the platform that are in the middle of getting funding. You need to find a way to meaningfully differentiate yourself so that when people click on your game, they're like, "Wow, this is amazing. I'm so excited about this." And you don't have terribly long, you know, people are passively browsing the platform. And so you really have to make a great sales pitch right away for your game.

And so I think that's that's the first one that people miss a little bit. Um And I think the other is the community building that needs to exist outside of Kickstarter for a couple of reasons. So Kickstarter will bring you, generally speaking, and it's actually really fascinating how this works. Kickstarter brings you about 30% of your backings. Like for every seven backers that you bring to the platform, Kickstarter will naturally bring you three to four. Generally. What's fascinating about that is that it scales almost perfectly all the way up. No matter how little or how much you pledge, it is almost certain unless there is something extraordinary either good or bad about your game that that Kickstarter browsers aren't aren't or are interested in, it's about 30% every time. And so that is to say you still need to find that other 70%.

And so your Discord communities, your you know, paid advertising if that's something that you're that you're working with, your email newsletter, getting people excited at shows and and getting them to follow the pre-launch page, things like that, um is a really, really important facet of making a video game campaign, at any campaign on Kickstarter. Um and it's been that way for a long time, I think. It's just now that that Kickstarter is a bit of a household name, I think there are more people who just haven't gotten that memo yet.
My My last question was going to be, I get PR agencies email me about Kickstarter campaigns. Not as many as they used to, but I still get them from time to time. And how important is that inorganic activity to driving Kickstarter numbers? But 70% of it, basically, is what you're saying is is is from Whether it's PR agencies, whether it's Discord, whether it's community, it comes from the comes from you and what you're doing outside of the platform rather than the platform itself. That's um

So, that yeah, it it I mean, I think I think anyone who's who's considering Kickstarter for whether it's just finishing funding or whatever it is, you're trying to make it very clear this is not an easy option. This is I mean, there are not very many easy options out there in the games industry at the moment, anyway. But, uh this is this will require energy and effort and probably dedicated resource in order to deliver on it.
That's right. Yeah, and I mean, when we met and I spoke at New Horizons, um you know, one of the things that I like to say is that like Kickstarter changed my life. I raised $950,000 on the platform across three campaigns. Two were very small, and then one of them I raised 750,000 and more in pledge management. It
[snorts]
made it possible for me to be in the games industry. I wouldn't be here without Kickstarter. And it's so hard. Like, it is so worth it, but it becomes your all of your being

for a while you are planning for and preparing the campaign. It's totally worth it, but I want people to come in eyes wide open. I don't want there to be any misconceptions about what Kickstarter can or cannot be for them. There are a million different ways to bring your creativity to the world and Kickstarter is my favorite way to do it, but that is not to say that it is the only way and I never want people to feel like they had a different set of expectations coming into running the campaign than they do leaving it. And so, yeah, it's it's challenging. I love it. It's totally worth it, but it's hard.
Asha, it's been a pleasure to have you on. How [clears throat] can people get in touch and learn more about what they should and shouldn't be doing on Kickstarter or ignoring?
Yeah, absolutely. Um so, you can always reach out to my team directly. We are [email protected].

Um I've got a subset of folks that are extraordinarily adept at video games. They've been in the industry for decades. Um they're always happy to help. I'm always happy to tell help talk to folks. We all get that email and I respond to just as many as anybody else. So, please [email protected]. And if you want to speak with me directly, just mention my name and my team will leave it for me. I'm absolutely always happy to chat.
Well, brilliant. Thank you, Asha there. Now, on to Thomas Bidaux, the CEO of Ico Partners. Thomas has done some deep analysis on Kickstarter. In 2025, $26 million was raised for video games on Kickstarter. That's basically the same as 2024, which at the time was the highest number raised since 2015, the Kickstarter heyday. Back in 2015, Kickstarter generated $42 million for video games. 443 games was funded on Kickstarter in 2025. Now, that's actually below the 2024 number, which is 463. However, that number, the 2024 number, was the biggest ever number of

Kickstarter backed games. And that 443 from last year is the second biggest number. 2024 also saw a large number of campaigns that did more than $500,000 with 11 projects raising above that threshold. That's the highest number of projects in that band since 2015, more than twice the number of similar projects in 2024. So, overall, Kickstarter is proving a stable place for the video game industry, but we're not talking huge growth here. And considering the investment challenges facing the entire industry, why aren't more game developers turning to the platform for that extra bit of funding? Asher gave us some insights just a moment ago, but I thought let's get an independent view. So, here is my interview with ICO Partners CEO, Thomas Bidaux. Hello, Thomas. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
Um I I enjoyed reading your Kickstarter report. Your numbers show that we're seeing some growth in Kickstarter, right? I mean, I know 2025 uh wasn't the biggest year that 2024 in terms of number of campaigns, successful campaigns, but 2025 was the second biggest. 2025 also saw the largest

number of $500,000 dollar campaigns since well, in 10 years, basically.
Yeah.
I know that those numbers [clears throat] look great. Do you Do you have any idea what's driving this?
Um I think there's a So, from the people I'm talking to, the funding for games is not the same as it used to be. Publishers are more strict about what they want to add to their portfolio. They reduce uh their overall budget. So, individual budget for games also has kind of like dropped a little bit. But But also, just in general, they sign fewer titles. Equity investment in studios definitely going down. So, think it's good That's the first thing is where can you get funding to get your game to launch? And crowdfunding happens relatively late in the life cycle of a video game project. It's very difficult to start, despite, you know, the main platform being called Kickstarter. It's more something something that happens like a maybe in the second half or uh uh last third of

the life cycle of a game. So, this that first thing is that, you know, oh we need more juice, we need a bit more money to get there. So, it's uh going to the crowd, going to your fans, your engaged audiences is is an option that people are more uh interested in. Um also, we have to look at this, you know, it's like 400 plus games a year that get funded on Kickstarter. That's about 2 weeks of Steam releases if you look at that metrics. So, it's it's it's it's it's you know, stable, it's growing, it's a it's not in the insignificant, but this is not something that people are going in droves to get funding, right?
Uh my experience of Kickstarter goes back a long long time ago where actually people were coming to Kickstarter with we haven't really started development yet. We've been doing it for a few weeks and now we're launching into it. And it now does seem to be, okay, we actually have most of the game done now. We just need to get over the line. Um can you help us do it? Which seems to be the vibe. I don't have the the the anything to back that up. But do you not

think that's going to increase quite a bit with the current investor landscape? Particularly if you get those studios that perhaps got a load of funding 4 or 5 years ago to set up and get going and then they can't get those extra rounds of money. The more studios I talk to now are trying everything to bring in little bits of extra money to try and cuz they're not getting it from, you know, yes, extra seed round, extra series B round, or whatever rounds they need to in order to bring that extra investor revenue in. They're having to go elsewhere and Kickstarter seems to be an avenue for them. The data doesn't necessarily suggest we're seeing that happen in droves, but do you think it might?
I think it's I would expect it to to stay like steady and maybe grow a little bit, but I don't think it's going to grow massively. Um I don't see a sign of that, let's say. Uh phrase it that way. Kickstarter as an exercise is a really And I think it scares people away in the sense that you need to have Like if you look at you know, from from a video game point of view specifically

and the way the ecosystem is is is managed and a lot of games go like let's boost Steam first. A lot of your efforts are going into your Steam page and your wish list and your follows. And when people look at crowdfunding campaign, they're like well, that's another thing. That's another platform, another space where I need to invest to drive attention. It's also you have [clears throat] to do some arbitrage between like oh, I have a I don't know. I have a tweet. Do I send people to my Kickstarter page? Do I send people to my Steam page? Do I try to send them to both? So, it's it is a bit of a a difficult exercise for people. It's a distraction and all that. So, I think it's good, right? And I have answers to these things. We I tell people not to send people to Steam or Kickstarter. I tell them to send them to their newsletter registration because Kickstarter and Steam don't give you the email of the people who follow you. Uh and ultimately that's something that you might want. You'll appreciate it someone who manages a newsletter, right?
Well, I well I it's about people I've

got multiple you know, you can watch this episode on YouTube. You can watch it listen to it on Spotify. You can get the newsletter. There's multiple ways you can read or watch or listen to this show. But whenever I tell people where to go, I tell them to go to the gamebusiness.com because that is that is the place you go. You can go from other avenues if you need to go down those roads. But my messaging is go to the gamebusiness.com because it's all in one place then.
That's the thing that I think sometimes video games we don't do enough. We we'd like the easy thing is just like is that obsession with wish lists on Steam. And it's a I don't think it's an healthy necessarily. I think it's important to build your wish list basis is you know, the algorithm will make you successful and all that. But it's also losing a bit of of like long-term perspective, you know? And then from from perspective, you might want to send them to your website and your newsletter and where everything is centralized because then whatever energy you spend, whether it's, you know, advertising or social media presence, all the activities you have, by driving them to where you have the long-term relationship. Because then

they can go to your socials, they can go to your your wish list, they can go to all the things, but having that central point is is pretty important. But that's one of the thing that I think that makes Kickstarter a bit a bit scary. There's nothing that makes people shy away from Kickstarter on video games which are I find fascinating and I think it's I'm still thinking a little bit about the way Kickstarter functions for video games. You're going to give away uh a free keys. You're going to go to Steam and say, "Hey, I have, you know, a thousand backers. Can Can I get those thousand keys free so I can give it to my backers?" Those backers who are your super ultra fan, people love your game the most because they backed you before anybody else on Kickstarter. Then I'm going to, you know, download the game and play the game and put a review and that review doesn't count. Your most hardcore fans' review will not count because they they were given free keys on Steam. And I had many discussions over the years about that and what we see is one of the drive for Kickstarter, one of the You look at the campaigns that have been successful last year that

that did a good job. A number of them didn't need the money. Of course, they want the money because that's, you know, helping them uh fund extra features, you know, give more uh room for uh the development of the game, but they have like quite confident that the game is going to come out anyway. But one of the reason they do it is extra funding and the other one is like marketing. It creates another moment in the life cycle of the project and it's a very intense moment in terms of marketing because your fans are like, "I'm going to It's the 30 days where I'm going to follow what's going on. What kind of stretch goals do you unlock or, you know, do you reach the goal at all? I want to talk to my friends about it because it's good if the studio gets that money rather than through through Kickstarter rather than through Steam or anything like that. And what I've looked into a little bit more uh in the past like 18 months is yes, you're going to lose some reviews from your most hardcore fans because they want you to get it through Kickstarter. But there's there's a number of things also at play there, which is number one,

you will have hardcore fans who are not going to go Kickstart to Kickstarter. Maybe they don't like crowdfunding. Maybe they didn't have the money that month. Maybe they didn't hear about it, they missed it, and they they don't go there. So, you don't lose all your fans, you lose some of your fans reviews. Uh then the other thing is that the uplift you get from a Kickstarter campaign in terms of visibility makes up for it. I'll give you an example of a French project called The Witch's Bakery uh that just I think they just released a demo the demo during the next festival and they're about to launch. They launch their Kickstarter campaign if I top of my head with 10,000 wishlists. And they've been public about that, right? And then by the end of the campaign, they had 37,000 wishlists. So, they almost like more than triple the number of wishlists. And you know, a lot of the people wishlisted during that period are backers, but there's way more people who actually like, "Oh, well, it's a good game." And so, I think they didn't Maybe if they lose say a thousand reviews from ultra

fan, they probably gain another thousand reviews from like ultra fans who going to review their game. Uh so, back to your questions like why is it not growing more? I think it's a of a scary exercise. It gives you money, but it's you don't need to spend money. One of the big thing we tell people is that a crowdfunding campaign is not something it takes time to put together, but also it is an existence exercise in time. So, before you launch the Kickstarter campaign, you need to do the coming soon page, which is something they added like 6 years ago 7 years ago now where you can pre-launch your page, get followers if they they have exactly that wishlist. And then when you push the button then they will get notified about it and this is such a good metric is such a good exercise to do your coming soon that everybody should do it. Also de-risk your project. That also means that you need to have at least like 3 months before your coming soon and your Kickstarter launch. And that's, you know, and that's like 4 months of Kickstarter is a thing you

need to manage and you need to tackle as a studio when you have other things and other marketing is When Kickstarter was was successful in that first wave uh 2012-2015, uh the biggest competitor to Kickstarter was not another Kickstarter platform. Another crowdfunding platform, sorry. It was early access. And there's a number of games that are like, well, if I'm ready for uh for Kickstarter campaign, if I have an cuz we're going to have a demo, if you have an audience, maybe maybe early access is just easier and then I don't just make money for months, I make money until I launch, you know, it's an attractive position. And we see certain games are more suitable are are more likely to go through a crowdfunding campaign and a number of them are games that are not suitable for early access. So, we see more story-driven games, for instance, uh that that can't really spoil their content with an early access. They would more uh almost uh intuitively decide to go

through a a Kickstarter campaign if they need extra funding to to to get where where they want. It's not, you know, there's like very systemic game that good to Kickstarter than to do an early access and then launch, you know, it's not exclusive They're not exclusive from one another, but we kind of see those do those trends, you know. I also believe there's a bubble uh if it's like if people in your bubble are doing a Kickstarter campaign, you're more likely to do a Kickstarter campaign yourself and we see more like there's a number of very interesting, lovely uh like cozy, wholesome games that have gone to Kickstarter for good success in the past like 2 years. Um, and if you are not in that bubble, maybe you don't see people are being successful on Kickstarter. I think there's a Uh, it's easy to uh, think it was something you would do 10 years ago, but but doesn't exist anymore because you are not in the vicinity of those other games that are that been that success, you know, it's you know, it's still very unique exercise in English.

Well, that's quite That's a really thorough answer, Thomas. I really like that. Um, is there anything I mean, you talked about all the things so there's some of it seems to be a perception then um, and it's I guess it is work, right? Because you you know, you talked about the coming soon page. You do need to have a community, right? The idea of Kickstarter being the way to develop a community isn't You need to come into it with already a community sort of there.
Yeah, it's a multiplayer event and it is going to help you grow your community. It's not going to help you create a community. It's a very bad exercise to start from scratch. You need to have something that primed the event in that sense. And this is also like a frustration from a lot of like indie studios who are not very experienced in marketing. Uh, maybe we're hoping to have a publisher to take care of all that, realize they can't do they have to self-publish and they're like, but where do we start? Where do we get the first 100 people that like my game, the first 1,000 people that like my game? And sadly for them, sometimes they come and I talk to a lot of other people about

crowdfunding and they're like, "Oh, can crowdfunding be that thing for me?" And I'm like, "It's not. It's something that, you know, can help you grow your community, but you need some You need some starting point, you know, you need to try to see if you can get into a showcase, you you know, see if social media, you know, media coverage, but but crowdfunding is not going to help you start your community. This is the most difficult stage for a game is when the world doesn't know it exists, they don't know who you are, and you need to start that conversation. And and and this is the the most difficult point of all all this stuff in studios, right? Um but once you have that, then, you know, down the line crowdfunding can be helpful to uh create a moment with that community, uh reward them with, you know, unique things, and engage them, and give them the opportunity to support you with not just, you know, the money that goes into the backing, but also like their voice and their passion, and, you know, them talking like word of mouth is a big thing. This is a good tool in the toolbox that you could have, but this is not the silver bullet to have.

I'll I'll worry the time, so I'll ask one more question. Is there what isn't working on Kickstarter these days? What when someone comes to you saying they're doing this and you go, "No, no, no, no, no."
I have famously like three red flags, and it's interesting because uh there's a company that we recently uh is fits into one of the three flags and still managed to be very successful. So, my three red flags are games for kids um don't work because you target the parents, and getting parents to put money into a project that has like a delivery in like 6 to 12 months later for their kid is very unlikely to support you. So, that's that's that's a very very difficult. Kickstarter as a platform is very the community, the people we see back project on Kickstarter, I should say. The platform itself is not uh biased that way. Um is very PC first, and then console, but then mobile almost doesn't exist. And mobile is very difficult to do. The distributing the keys difficult. Uh Apple and Google want their 30%. They

don't have like the the Steam option to basically get free keys. Um the price point for mobile game would on average be lower than uh than than a than than a a PC game, so like getting like a a significant significant amount of money from uh the mobile space is extra difficult. Um so, mobile is is isn't my second red flag. And my third red flag is free to play. Free to play is kind of that uh opposite of crowdfunding. Like Like crowdfunding is like 6 to 12 months before you can even play the game. Maybe you have a demo, maybe maybe not. Give me money because you know you love it. The philosophy of free to play is don't give me money. Try it, and maybe down the line you'll pay me some money. And so, but they also like both like they community driven and activity around that. But what we see is that if you are going to be free to play, you is difficult to communicate to people like I'll be give me money now. And and also the the because of the way

monetization is created in free to play where like hey, you can have like a hat or monocle or a cat or whatever and digital items, the value of that item is difficult to project. Like I know a video game is uh $20 or $30 or $50 because of that genre, right? But how much is a hat in the game? Is a hat, you know, a dollar or is a hat $50? I don't know because you need to play the game to have that sense of what the microtransaction is. And people like don't see it like oh, if you give me $50 on Kickstarter, you'll get $100 worth of, you know, currency into the game to buy things. But then, maybe everything is super expensive in that game and $100 is nothing. So, that that that distance between the what is the offering that is different than the offering in in in free to play is very difficult. So, that's kind of like where I I shy away. And then, things where if you're in a game in general that like super well served, like if you want to do like a realistic military first-person shooter, you're probably going to wait for whichever, you know,

Call of Duty or or Battlefield uh is the flavor of the moment. If you go to Kickstarter for that, maybe you just pass because you're well served. Whereas if you're in a niche [clears throat] that that a genre that people don't do, then you will see like oh, I want more of those games I want more like you know uh it could be point and click adventure game we had in the past or you know oh or something that is not well served right so so that's kind of also like the other the other thing But I to be honest you know these red flags these like no no's they are by default can be disproven there's a game called Epitome that just finished a Kickstarter campaign they did a half a million euros 20,000 backers and they are future play MMO they went deep into the nostalgia of MMOs from you know 10 15 years ago and that resonated with people but they're free to play and they managed to get you know a good amount of

money and good support from the community so I'm careful about you know making these hard rules blockers
What used to be it so is nostalgia still the thing cuz that's what it was when I remember when I was back in those I was back in there the game that looked like Castlevania the game that looked like Banjo-Kazooie the game that looked like you know Broken what Broken Sword it was but it was but it was whereas is and that's still the thing is that is that thing that you don't get anymore that you would like to see
So nostalgia was the thing we saw back in the days because it became a formula almost like oh I have that IP that name recognition I should leverage that What is true is that crowdfunding more than any other kind of like commercial transaction is related to emotional connection And nostalgia is an easy emotional connection you have immediately But that emotional connection is true for everything if you look at something like Boyfriend Dungeon people are like oh dating you know

smooshing a sword oh that's so cool I want to see that that I feel like I love that game to exist or I love Superhot as a previous you know Kickstarter the because uh it's a first person shooter and and it's a puzzle game, but the art direction, the concept is strong. People like, "Oh, yeah. I love that kind of idea." So, nostalgia is definitely there uh as well of the shortcut to have an emotional connection, but it but it's not the only one. I think it it's not the the one thing that works and nothing else works. It's just um it's just true because we identify nostalgia very easily. But, there's other emotional connection with Like, we worked last year on the Starfinder after light campaign, and it's based on a TTRPG, and there's no nostalgia. This is a a pretty recent modern TTRPG, but people love that universe and they love the game system. They they've played it on uh on the tabletop. They're like, "Oh, I wish I

could play like a you know, a CRPG version of that." emotional connection very successful. I you know, I think 15,000 backers, you know. Uh so, yeah, I I I love working on project that have a nostalgia component because it's almost like a cheat code, but it's not it's not exclusively that and and there's other interesting things that happen on the space that are not nostalgia related.
I know that every Kickstarter campaign I'm pretty sure I've backed, whether it was Bloodstained or Yooka-Laylee or there was an N64 controller once. I also backed Never This one didn't get approved, but Shadows of the Eternal Worlds, which was the Eternal Darkness spiritual successor. All of that is me wishing these games had existed when I was
[laughter]
younger. But, yeah, okay, that's good to know. Um it's good to see that those sort of things are um working. Well, it seems to be still quite a vibrant little market. I think it's it's good but but and I'll just sort of wrap things up a little bit. Um you're not expecting

any significant changes. You still you still think there's two it's still too much of a for a lot of developers, it's still perhaps a bit it's off-putting.
I think I wish it would grow because I think there's a lot more room. We've seen on the table top side because I've looked at the table top numbers as well over the years that [clears throat] that you can be there's room for more crowdfunding for for games for video games I believe. I I imagine it will stay relevant. And I think if it grows it will grow slowly and it will be more along the side of This is a good marketing as a size we can add. We have that many we have like a finite finite number of marketing beats for a video game and people are like we need a bit more. Maybe we should do a Kickstarter campaign as part of that.

That will be good for the life for for for the project it will get extra revenue maybe maybe we have to postpone because we have that you know long exercise in the middle but it will get us more money so moving the date is going to be fine and so I think that's that's a good good thing to do. So I would expect it to grow but grow slowly.
Oh yeah.
Unless you know unless unexpected events happen. One thing I I think is interesting to see happen is I also believe there is um an appetite for different kind of crowdfunding. We see a resurgence on crowdfunding for revenue share a little bit like the old Fig model right?
And I think there's there's more interest. There's a platform called Game Fester that's just launched in February so like last month that And and they're not the only one right? There's a there's been a a few other

uh uh initiative that are basically part of the zeitgeist uh and that would complement the Kickstarter crowdfunding uh for reward model pretty well. Uh and so uh maybe that's where we'll see uh like complementary uh crowdfunding
Yeah.
uh exercise come up.
Well, thank you for your insight, Thomas. It's super useful. Uh you are uh one of the preeminent experts in crowdfunding and Kickstarter and um it's it's been a pleasure to have you on.
I'm super happy to join. I love talking about it, as you know. So so being able to to share a bit about that is is always a pleasure.
Brilliant. Thank you so much. Thank you, Thomas, and thank you, Asher, for your words earlier. I mean, uh Kickstarter is clearly not an easy route for developers, but it does seem like there's more opportunity for the industry in this space if studios can find the time, effort, and energy to do it. Now, that's it for today's edition of the show. We'll be back, of course, with more news, analysis, opinion, interviews, and insight in the days to

come. But until then, thank you for tuning in.