How to run a successful kickstarter? (And a little more)

[burnt_offering]

I've been working on a game for a while, that I was going to release as a free game, but people keep saying that for a game of it's length (~250k words) I should be trying a commercial release. However, I've never actually released a game before, so I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing.

So, the first thing is that I'd quite like to pay my artist if I'm selling the game, but have little budget myself. I've never tried to run a kickstarter before, so I'm not entirely sure of the dos and don'ts. I have a lot of example script, and a playable demo (albeit with placeholder art), but I'm not sure what to display, or how much to ask for. The game itself is pretty CG intensive.

Also, I have very little knowledge of how selling stuff on the internet works, eg how VAT works on the internet, what would be a good payment system, how much people are actually willing to pay for this kind of work, etc.

If anyone could help me out with any of this, it would be very much appreciated

[Godline]

Don't start a Kickstarter before releasing a demo. And don't go away to a camp right after releasing demo and miss your advertising opportunities.

Learn from me, I have a failing Kickstarter *cries*

[firecat]

its also not a good idea to start a commercial game if you didn't read the rules about taxes, international laws, your bank, and TOS on websites. yes websites like gamasutra tell you its easy but that only implies to how easy it is to set it up on a website. another thing is that less people are going to play your game because it either cost money or people are not willing to play a unknown game, you also have less support because we can't tell people what to put in their taxes and such.

business is tricky so i say wait until you have a good understanding of it.

[netravelr]

So 250k words for a first project sounds a little bit like overkill. You said you had a demo of sorts, but I'm not sure how large it is compared to what you're planning on making. My suggestion is to first create a smaller title, say 25k (10% of what you're planning) and make sure you know the amount of work that it takes to do so. Once you finish that smaller project, you can use that as your demo of the larger project and start building up a budget of what you need to have to get the art for your title. Showing you can complete something of high quality is vital for getting people's belief in you, and are will more willing to put forth money to see that final project.

Good luck!

[Razz]

Though I don't think there's anything wrong with having a commercial project be your first, the monetary cost of making a commercial game is pretty much beyond what I think most people realize. Add that in to when you don't know a lot about making games you wont only be losing time you'll actually be losing money going through the same trial and error people normally get from their first free game.

And though KS can be a dream come true in terms of getting funds, it can also be expensive just to have the campaign. I ended up about $600 out of pocket just prepping for materials in my demo and campaign. I am also the artist for my game... for a project missing an artist I expect start-up costs to double or triple if you have any inclination towards commercial.

And yeah for sure you need to figure out budgeting before the KS. This might come as a shock but: devs can lose money on Kickstarters. Sometimes a lot of money. Money they are obligated to pay to get their rewards out or end up looking like a scammer and ruining their dev career. It's not a good idea to go in blind or hoping it will work itself out in your favor; research! Figure out what commissions are going to cost, what KS is going to cut, what rewards are going to cost to create and ship well before you ever press that launch button.

I spent a very long time looking through Deji and Kittykatstar's VN ks list comparing and contrasting campaigns:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... 1SEso/edit

Also I found this website after the fact but it would have been very useful. Cliqist is a website that posts analysis and articles about kickstarter projects. They do a monthly 'failed' and 'successful' campaign segment you can view by searching for those two words on the site:
http://cliqist.com/

[Kailoto]

As netravelr suggested, if you don't have any experience with commercial releases, I'd highly recommend that you take a small project and run it through the entire process first. If you start with something short and easy to create and fund, you can run a Kickstarter campaign and a full development cycle and get a nice vertical slice of the experience. You can then use what you've learned with the smaller project to make your current one much more efficient and polished.

It's all good to look at resources and all, but I still think that the risk is too high for it to be done right off the bat without any prior experience. And since crowdfunding distributes some of that risk to the customers, it's even worse than if you were to just swallow the losses yourself (which is still a bad outcome.)

[trooper6]

I also agree with the doing a smaller non-Kickstarter game first. Why? Because as a potential backer I am very loathe to give money to someone who has no prior experience in the thing they are asking for my money for.

If you have a short free game that I can play and see a) that I like it and b) that you can finish projects...then I'm more likely to back (assuming I like the concept). If you have no prior experience finishing a game? I'm not likely to back the Kickstarter.

[burnt_offering]

I guess I could release my NanoReno attempt for the year? I didn't manage to find voice talent but it's an example of a finished script.

[papillon]

Do you actually have a 250,000 word+ script, or are you just partway into a project that you estimate will eventually get that big? If it's the latter, you're putting the cart before the horse here. Kickstarter is not the only or necessarily the best way to finish a project, and if you don't have a complete script yet, you may not have enough idea of what you'll need to structure the kickstarter in the first place. You don't want to knock yourself out trying to run a fundraising effort only to discover that you can't actually finish the game.

If you've never released a project then yeah, you might want to release something small and get feedback on it to learn more about the process. It's not required, but it may help you figure out things that haven't occurred to you yet about what a game needs in order to be properly polished.

Beyond that, some basic questions that might come up:

Why commercial? Just because someone says that long games should be? What do you hope to achieve through selling it? Is there a certain sum of money you want to raise through sales? What sort of audience do you anticipate being interested?

Would donations or a pay-what-you-want model work for you? (This can be useful if what you really want is to get people to play your game rather than to make a living at it!)

Do you have any reason for choosing kickstarter specifically in order to try and get the money for your budget? Have you looked at other methods? Would you be able to make the game without fundraising if it weren't commercial?

Do you have a team actually assembled, or do you need to find people? Do you have an artist, a musician, anything else you need? Have you investigated how much assets will cost? (If you know how much the assets will cost AND you have a complete script, then you should be able to start estimating how much budget you actually need, which is critical before a fundraising effort.)

My 'basic questions' are getting kinda long, sorry! Basic point - Don't try to leap straight into "I will run a kickstarter and that will fix everything!" Plan first. Add backup plans, too.

[noeinan]

Some similar threads you should check out (this list was originally posted by Green Glasses Girl here: How to Raise Awareness For Your Game?-- another thread on kickstarters.)

- What would you say to first time game creators?
- Networking: Making your project popular?
- What visual novel's get more attention?
- How to build a fanbase

Dealing with profit/money:
- Fanbase before or after demo release? Or after Kickstarter?
- What makes a Kickstarter successful?
- Making some money with a commercial VN - is it possible?
- Making A Living off of VNs: What should I do?

Also this thread by obscura, who created an extremely successful kickstarter for their game: Thank you for helping make my game a reality, Lemmasoft!

[Green Glasses Girl]

^Beat me to it.

I second on recommending to read the thread by obscura - specifically this post: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 42#p246657 (a long one, but if you're serious about crowdfunding, definitely worth a look)

[burnt_offering]

Do you actually have a 250,000 word+ script, or are you just partway into a project that you estimate will eventually get that big? If it's the latter, you're putting the cart before the horse here. Kickstarter is not the only or necessarily the best way to finish a project, and if you don't have a complete script yet, you may not have enough idea of what you'll need to structure the kickstarter in the first place. You don't want to knock yourself out trying to run a fundraising effort only to discover that you can't actually finish the game.

If you've never released a project then yeah, you might want to release something small and get feedback on it to learn more about the process. It's not required, but it may help you figure out things that haven't occurred to you yet about what a game needs in order to be properly polished.

Beyond that, some basic questions that might come up:

Why commercial? Just because someone says that long games should be? What do you hope to achieve through selling it? Is there a certain sum of money you want to raise through sales? What sort of audience do you anticipate being interested?

Would donations or a pay-what-you-want model work for you? (This can be useful if what you really want is to get people to play your game rather than to make a living at it!)

Do you have any reason for choosing kickstarter specifically in order to try and get the money for your budget? Have you looked at other methods? Would you be able to make the game without fundraising if it weren't commercial?

Do you have a team actually assembled, or do you need to find people? Do you have an artist, a musician, anything else you need? Have you investigated how much assets will cost? (If you know how much the assets will cost AND you have a complete script, then you should be able to start estimating how much budget you actually need, which is critical before a fundraising effort.)

My 'basic questions' are getting kinda long, sorry! Basic point - Don't try to leap straight into "I will run a kickstarter and that will fix everything!" Plan first. Add backup plans, too.

I have about 70% of the script done at this point, and two months of free time to finish it in. I've sorted out a budget for what I want using it to estimate it.

Honestly, I didn't want the game to be commercial. I would rather have a larger base or readers, but the artists I've been in talks with suggested that I should go commercial. I've been in talks with some other sources of funding, which are pretty tempting.
I'm in talks with an artist/gui designer, but I was in the process of looking for legal-to-use music in case I could put it as a stretch goal.

I think I may think this all through a little more

[firecat]

I have about 70% of the script done at this point, and two months of free time to finish it in. I've sorted out a budget for what I want using it to estimate it.

Honestly, I didn't want the game to be commercial. I would rather have a larger base or readers, but the artists I've been in talks with suggested that I should go commercial. I've been in talks with some other sources of funding, which are pretty tempting.
I'm in talks with an artist/gui designer, but I was in the process of looking for legal-to-use music in case I could put it as a stretch goal.

I think I may think this all through a little more

wait hold it, this artist sounds like someone who just wants to make quick bucks (not the deer kinds). also just because people say they give money doesn't mean that there will be fees or such. one last thing about the music, read what the artist's website TOU or you could be facing fines for not reading it.