3 Fascinating Strategies by Recent Crowdfunding Projects – Stonemaier Games

3 Fascinating Strategies by Recent Crowdfunding Projects

In this series, I highlight some of the interesting choices made by creators regarding their project’s reward levels, stretch goals, and overall campaign design (the projects themselves, not the content or product). This isn’t an endorsement or promotion.

Nanty Narking

I love creative twists on stretch goals, and the creators of the Nanty Narking project have gone so far as to completely replace the stretch goal system with something called “story goals.”

Every day of the campaign, the creators post a snippet of story (text and images), then they ask backers to vote where their character should visit next. Hundreds of people are commenting on these updates with their votes, and when the results are solidified, a new component related to their decision is revealed, and the story heads in that direction. It’s like a collective choose-your-own-adventure with tangible rewards for everyone.

I love the daily engagement and the thematics, but perhaps even more, I like that the creators have found a way spread out the reveal of all the cool stuff they planned for the game without putting those goals at the unpredictable whim of the funding total.

 

 

Infinities: Defiance of Fate

Infinities: Defiance of Fate caught my eye when it launched last month because it implemented something called “flash funding goals.” I wrote about these a long time ago in reference to the original Trickerion project: The idea is that if you reach a certain funding level on the first day, everyone benefits. In my opinion, this is SO much better than early bird discounts, as I consider the entire campaign to be the early bird special.

The twist that Infinities implemented is that they didn’t just include a flash goal tied to 100% funding, but also one for 50% funding. I really like that they did this. You never know when you’re going to have a slower start than anticipated, but 50% funding on Day 1 is perfectly fine–I’m glad they built that goal into the concept (though they ended up surpassing their funding goal with plenty of time to spare).

The other nice thing about these flash goals (which you really could implement any time during the project) is that if you don’t achieve them, you can shift them into the stretch goals to unlock later.

 

The Island of El Dorado

Other than being an all-around well-crafted project page (really, all 3 of these projects are great examples), I loved how the creator of The Island of El Dorado highlighted backer testimonials on the same level as reviewer quotes. There are a few examples below.

These quotes demonstrate much more than just kind words about the game. They show that the creator interacts with his backers and sees them as more than just numbers. They also subtly show that the first campaign had quite a bit of support, which I think is encouraging to backers of the reprint/expansion. Also, these quotes are spread out on the campaign page, which makes them easier to consume (and not skip) as you scroll down.

If you want to do something like this on your first campaign (or not a reprint), I would recommend using playtester testimonials. I did this for a few of my campaigns, but I didn’t highlight them in text boxes as I should have.

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What do you think about these strategies? Have you seen any crowdfunding projects implement some unique tactics recently?

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9 Comments on “3 Fascinating Strategies by Recent Crowdfunding Projects

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  1. Jamey,

    I’ve only just at the 11th hour come upon your fantastic site, and just wanted to say thank you – I think I’ve completely upped my game on the launch of my 3rd Kickstarter campaign, inspired by your “3 Fascinating Strategies” post – by gamifying what is fundamentally a publishing project.

    I may be wrong, but I think Not Just Pencils is the first Kickstarter project to propose giving something (other than their 5% commission) to Kickstarter. I hope to have learned enough about the success and limitations of this novel strategy by campaign’s close to offer you a guest post. Good things come in 3s, and in response to your request, so far I’m anticipating:

    1) the gift-giving stratagem is newsworthy for media attention at this season;

    2) we are leveraging both the creator and backer communities – mainly in publishing, design, and tech/architecture, but hopefully ALL categories;

    3) learning about the effectiveness of using Kickstarter’s in house creator messaging/contact function for building support.

    Thanks again for your creative generosity – fully expressed at every turn at your Stonemaier Games site!

  2. […] be interesting to see a campaign use this reward system for their stretch goals (note: I’ve seen projects use some of the methods described below, but not all of them in […]

  3. I think Mintme too should be part of the latest fascinating crowdfunding projects. It has a very nice strategy where project owners can create tokens themselves and the tokens will be worth as much as they make them. They give their tokens the value, by advertising them to the crowd such that the crowd can buy them in return raising funds.

  4. Is It Now Necessary to Successfully Fund Within the First 48 Hours on Kickstarter? – Stonemaier Games says:

    […] technique, used by a number of projects like Trickerion, Tidal Blades, and Infinities: Defiance of Fate, gives potential backers a compelling reason to back (and share) the project now rather than […]

  5. Thank you for featuring Infinities in this roundup, Jamey! I can tell you that the 50% Flash Funding goal was a huge booster for the first several hours in our Discord and other social outlets. People got excited and that gave them the momentum to keep pushing for the second one at 100%. To be honest, I would have been pleased with 50% in the first day then the rest on day 2. This strategy particularly seems quite effective for a first-timer on Kickstarter who is trying to get that initial buy-in from curious browsers. If any creators reading want to chat sometime about this, please feel free to reach out.

  6. It’s funny because I will launch a Resource Management & Worker Placement game in 2 months. I’ll have 50 metal coins ($15 value) as a “flash stretch goal” type of stretch goal. If the game funds in 24 hours ($30,000 goal), all backers will get metal coins for free with their game. It will also be a Kickstarter exclusive offer. The funny thing is, I was going to offer it as an add-on but instead of getting more from backers, I think aiming more early backers is a better strategy. We’ll see how it goes.

  7. These are all clever ideas. Notably, I like the idea of incorporating comments from playtesters/ previous backers into the campaign. This adds more of a sense of involvement and ownership into the project, perhaps even more pride that those individuals can associate with the project. It also shows you, as a designer or team, really care and are involved with your supporters.

    -Austin

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