Over the last few months, I’ve profiled a number of Kickstarter projects here on the Post Game Report. Most of them not only make their funding—but do so quite easily.
One project that caught my eye, unfortunately, didn’t. In fact, it didn’t even come close. It was called The Ship: Full Steam Ahead.
But, they’re not done trying to bring the game to fruition. And to learn more about what happens after a Kickstarter fails and how a game developer soldiers on, I spoke with their Media and Communications Manager, Phil Harris, over email last week. Here’s what we discussed.
What was the final amount you raised when the Kickstarter ended?
£18,247.00 about 14.25%
Why do you think you were unable to reach the goal you set? Do you think you made it too high?
The value we set was what we needed to make a fully up-to-date version of the original games’ multiplayer experience. It would have been unrealistic if we’d asked for less.
We certainly didn’t think the goal was too high and some people even suggested we’d set it too low and should have asked for funding for the full game. However we felt that building the game in stages (modular design) [would] allow us to start development sooner and progress onto the full game development, consequently, more quickly as well.
There were many factors we felt led to the Kickstarter missing its funding target. A unique initial video, which failed to explain the concept to new players, the timing of the Kickstarter, the need for more digital content at the lower pledge levels, pledge levels in pounds sterling rather than dollars and not updating more regularly were some. We discuss our thoughts about the process quite candidly in our blog post released on the same day.
You had a number of press articles written about your Kickstarter—including here on the Post Game Report. Do you think the press attention helped or hurt your chances?
Anything that gets your name out there about what you’re producing is valuable and we appreciate the interest shown from a variety of sources, including NYPost.com.
As previously mentioned we discussed the issues with the Kickstarter in a very candid blog, published immediately after we weren’t funded. This blog post has had a great reception across the web, as it not only explains some of the pitfalls you can encounter with Kickstarter but how we see them being resolved. Just goes to show that candid honesty is mostly appreciated
Hardware products like Ouya and GameStick are having no trouble garnering success on Kickstarter. But some software projects are starting to have trouble—do you think some consumers just believe there are too many Kickstarters out there? Is consumer interest and excitement starting to wane?
With the advent of some of the larger studios and/or bigger brand named games being pitched in a very polished way, the expectations of what the users of a site like Kickstarter are have become quite high. And as we found out if you try something a little quirky you may not achieve the level of support aimed for.
Also when one of these larger projects come along and manage to capture the imagination of a large portion of user base, it leaves less capital in the ecosystem for other projects.
We don’t think the interest is waning but do believe that competition is going to become quite fierce over the next while.
We’re also looking at the point where some of the projects, that have now been funded, are completed and released into the wild: Which will allow those backers, that did contribute, to see the effect ‘getting involved’ can have and we hope this will bring about an even greater resurgence of crowd funding in general.
What’s next for you guys? Talk to me about how Steam Greenlight Concepts works.
While the Kickstarter was running we’ve been working on Distant Star which is a 4x (eXpand, eXplore, eXploit, eXterminate) Space Strategy Game being launched for iOS. We’ll be finishing this off over the next couple of months.
With regards to Full Steam Ahead it certainly is not dead either. Steam Greenlight Concepts has proven to us that there is a massive interest in a sequel to The Ship, and provided us with some fantastic feedback too. Concepts allows you to put a game concept, in pre-development, onto Steam. People get to like the project and comment on it, giving the company a fine idea of how much interest is out there. It’s also an opportunity to try things out, as votes on Steam Greenlight Concept have no impact on the game when it goes onto Steam Greenlight.
If you are actually in development then Steam Greenlight gives Valve a clear idea of which games players would like to see supported and launched on Steam.
Would you do anything differently if you could do your Kickstarter again?
More regular updates are certainly one thing. Now with the Steam Greenlight Concept page which has given us far more publicity, along with the blog, and we have learned other lessons about the pledge levels, that digital content is preferred and having other ways that people can pledge to the project.
Without having tried we wouldn’t have learned some of these lessons and so next time out we’ll be bigger and bolder. We’re considering the next strategy to fund Full Steam Ahead as we speak.
Would you still use Kickstarter again in the future?
Certainly. With the knowledge we’ve gained and the massive catchment Kickstarter has it would be foolish to ignore it as a funding stream and you’ll see us back on there in the future for Full Steam Ahead and other projects.