Games top Kickstarter successes in 2012
Funding platform Kickstarter helped back over 18,000 projects in 2012; video games snag the biggest share with $83 million in pledges.
According to the statistics published on the Kickstarter website, 2.2 million contributors pledged $320 million on over 18,000 different projects in 2012. Video games won the biggest share in donations, receiving $83 million. Within the gaming realm, which encompasses all platforms including mobile, 561,000 backers contributed $83 million to 2,796 submitted projects, though only 911 managed to reach the set target of donations--around a 30 percent success rate.
One of the games garnering the most contributions was Tim Schafer's upcoming Double Fine adventure title, which managed to generate $3.3 million in donations--substantially more than the original $400,000 target. Other successes from 2012 include the remake of 1984's Elite, named Elite: Dangerous, which reached its ambitious $2 million goal.
Launched in 2009, the Kickstarter platform exists to fund independent creative projects via public donations. While the platform is used to finance ventures in various categories, including music, film, art, and theatre, last year's biggest category was games, attracting the largest amount in donations, and music, which had the most projects funded.
41 comments
1 Like The real surprise was tabletop miniature war games, that for some reason get lumped in with computer games. At least 10% (if not 20%) of that 83 million went to them.
Reaper Miniatures Bones raised 3.5 million alone (11430% of its target no less) and was the forth most successful Kickstarter ever.
Kingdom Death: Monster, kicked of this year with a cool 2 million and some beautiful miniatures to boot.
Don't get me wrong games done well but the real props should go to the wargamers, despite being the smallest of niche communities we rocked it.
@AlexFili That's in the article:
"2,796 submitted projects, though only 911 managed to reach the set target of donations--around a 30 percent success rate."
Yet another example of how popular video games are getting. This is very good to hear. Only means good things for the industry.
Not to mention the success console developers have had over there- Ouya broke tons of records and GameStick looks on course to at least triple what they were looking to raise as well. This is all good news for the industry as a whole.
I was unaware that Kickstarter help fund other projects other than video games. I had to wonder how successful the non-gaming projects are.
@thom_maytees That's funny you mention that because I had no idea until I was listening to the radio today(I guess that would be yesterday techincally) and some DJ was promoting some kickstarter fund. Can't remember exactly what it was, but all I was thinking was I had no idea it was for things other than games. Then again, why not?
Star Citizen earned over 6 million, but since you could also pay through their website and/or Kick Starter, they do not count the whole amount.
@TheOnlyConan I was thinking of bringing that up too. I think Star Citizen was actually one of the most successful (if not THE most successful).
How many videogames wouldn't get second notice from the big publishers. So kickstarter a least provides a chance indie games can at least have a chance at being made. or long foggetten games from era's past. Like SNES version of Nightmare Busters can actually be created and released in physical form. But at the same time a kickstarter project a miss the target by as little as $28.00. Still it is worth it to take the chance for small and indie game creators.
@Megavideogamer The nice thing about kickstarter is that there's no risk for the project owner or the investor.
These numbers are inaccurate, at least regarding "The game gleaning the most contributions." If you had said contributors and not contributions, then that might be correct, but as it stands this isn't right.
I'm not saying this takes the cake because I don't know all of the numbers, but Obsidian's Kickstarter grossed more funds. Obsidian's Project Eternity raised $3,986,929 from 73,986 Kickstarter backers and $324,650 from roughly 5,698 unique PayPal backers. Even with out Paypal backers, it's still more than Double Fine's Kickstarter.
Either way it's still amazing and Kickstarter is quite fantastic, but the article isn't accurate.
what about the strangest, and fasted money gaining game on kickstarter? The strange paradox universes of Homestuck. gained all its 2 million in just two days
@Stevefin I think you've got your numbers wrong. It took the Homestuck Kickstarter most of a month to get $2.5million. The original goal, 750k, however, may have been reached in 2 days? I didn't hear about it until sometime into the drive, so I'm not sure of that.
Homestuck IS amazing, but there's no need to exaggerate..
I did not see the kick starter for it till near the end of its time, and hence missed out on pledging for it. I was just going what a friend had said that it had raised that 2 million in two days
If interested you can follow a day to day total of the pledges on the link below. It works for all KS projects without exception. And show you neat graphs.
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/14293468/homestuck-adventure-game/#
Homestuck got 457k the first day, 270k the second days and never went above 172k the following days which are the picks after big updates and promotion on big websites, but it usually got around 30/40k a day.
"561,000 backers contributed $83 million to 2,796 submitted projects,
though only 911 managed to reach the set target of donations" The failed projects had to call 911, because they would be in a critical state without that backing.
Games are expensive, but people are also willing to donate to something that expensive. 83 out 320 million is a bit more than 1/4, though 2796 out of 18000 is a bit less than 1/6, so the projects were more expensive than the average kickstarter project.
I have several games I'm looking forward to coming from kickstarter and several others that I'm interested in finding out how they turned out.
@phoenixto there has been one report of a person who ran off with a bunch of money.. not sure what they did about it though
@phoenixto Although im not sure, i think those who wish to enter kickstarter must have some prerequisites that insure their legitimacy.
There was only one kickstarter success in 2012 and to date as far as I'm aware and that is FTL. Nothing else has yet made it to release and for the one success we also have one failure, Haunts. I've funded a few projects myself but people need to calm down about crowd funding and be realistic about what it has actually achieved rather than what it might.
"he game gleaning the most contributions was Tim Schafer's upcoming Double Fine adventure title, which managed to generate $3.3 million" didn't project etrnity get 3.9 million $ or does he mean the game that exceded it's target the most?
"Most contributions" can also mean the number of pledgers. Over 80.000 people pledged on DFA, no other game managed to get that many people behind it.
@evil-zodiark Well it was kinda the break out game that showed Kickstarter can yield these types of results.
1 Like A breath of fresh are for some game makers.
Just push out some quality games and I'll happily part with my cash.
Star Citizen was already pre-backed by private investors set up by Roberts, so I don't think the 5.1 really counts.
1 Like @Roger_Smith Actually the $5.2 mil was crowd sourced, just through his own site (I contributed that way myself). He added kickstarter because the response actually crashed the system he had set up.
This is about kickstarter so I understand why it wasn't included, but if the article were about crowd sourcing in general, Star Citizen is by far the biggest success.
3 Like Surprised they didn't mention Star Citizen. It only got 2.1mil on Kickstarter but got another 5.2mil on its own site.
3 Like Yeah don't forget about Project Eternity, which received 3.9 million dollars from Kickstarter alone.
1 Like Yeah, I had the same thought. I sent the author a note suggesting a correction.
@nocoolnamejim @Roger_Smith Was all of that from Kickstarter? I know they garnered a significant amount after that from their website.
Most contributions = number of pledgers. I'm not saying this was the idea behind the author's writing, but that would be true, and it would make sense in this case.
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