Kickstarter Lesson #38: Be Mentally Prepared for Cancellations – Stonemaier Games

Kickstarter Lesson #38: Be Mentally Prepared for Cancellations

Over the course of my 28-day Kickstarter campaign for Euphoria, 298 people canceled their pledges. If you added those backers to the final count of 4,765 backers, you would have 5,063 backers. Thus about 6% of the overall pool of backers canceled their pledges at some point during the project. Compare that to Viticulture, during which 41 backers canceled their pledges out of an overall backer pool of 983 (4%).

This is a small sample size. But based on what I’ve heard from other projects, a 5% cancellation rate is pretty normal.

However, knowing that something is normal is different than facing it when it happens. I’m pretty thick-skinned. I rarely take things personally, and I understand that people have a wide variety of reasons for canceling their pledge: They may not have enough money for your project and another project, they may decide they don’t like the game, or a new aspect revealed in a project update may not have sat well with them. Also, the nice thing about Kickstarter is that you can cancel your pledge any time during the campaign, so some people might sign up early and back out later.

I’m here to tell you that despite the validity of those reasons (which, of course, you’ll never know unless a backer tells you. I always appreciate that, but it’s very rare), every cancellation will sting.

Rejection in any form stings a bit, even after you’re used to it. Think of all the times you’ve been rejected in life. Hundreds, at least. You’ve built up a thick skin. And yet every time it happens, it stings.

There’s really not anything you can do about it on Kickstarter except be mentally prepared for it. Whenever someone cancels, remind yourself that you also got 5 new backers the past hour. Focus on the positive, not the negative.

Usually cancellations are pretty random, but every once in a while you’ll see a pattern. Maybe you just posted an update, and an hour later 10 people had canceled. That’s not a coincidence. Go back to that update and figure out what went wrong.

Learn from it if possible, but also understand that most cancellations don’t have a lesson. It’s just a fact of Kickstarter that not everyone who wants to support you on Day 1 will want to support you on Day 10 or 17 or 28. And that’s okay.

When I got my first few cancellations on Viticulture, I messaged the people and asked very nicely if I could better understand the reasons for their cancellation. I wouldn’t recommend doing this. It’s tough to do without coming across as a pest. Rather than focus on the 5% of people who changed their mind about your project, focus on the other 95% who have decided to stick with you.

I’ve only cancelled one pledge during my time on Kickstarter, so I’m curious to hear from people who have. Perhaps you can help other project creators by mentioning in the comments the types of things that cause you to cancel your pledge.

If you want to read more about cancellations, check out KS Lesson #79.

72 Comments on “Kickstarter Lesson #38: Be Mentally Prepared for Cancellations

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  1. We’ve had a few cancellations, even at day one, on Chroma Arcana, and every single one stings! Glad to have read this, Jamey, thank you!

  2. I’d like to ask something… What if a stretch goal has been reached… but due to cancellations, it goes back? Should we cancelled the stretch goal too?

    1. That’s up to you as the creator. Unless it breaks the bank, I generally think a good way to reward the backers who stick around is to keep it.

  3. Great post! Right now Gnomistic from BGamer is live on Kickstarter and the campaign is about to end… and some people cancelled their pledges… and you are right! it hurts! But this post just saved my life. I feel better now and I will focus on the other 95% great loyal backers!

  4. Thanks for this! I’m running my first campaign and though we are constantly trending up we get a lot of cancellations. I’d love to better understand why they are leaving but figured it’s best not to pester them.

  5. […] Pledge timeline; some platforms collect pledges until the end of a campaign, which can cause pledge cancelation up to 6% […]

  6. This is an astonishing wealth of information for the Kickstarter community! They should hire you to run their new campus/forum (I am not even kidding). They might be retiring campus soon, however, I think they might be running a podcast and a forum right now! The resources we collected from your website to launch and run our campaign, directly contributed to our Kickstarter success. Thank you SO VERY MUCH. xoxo Veroncia @Packsture : https://kck.st/2Ty3lHg

  7. I’m running a campaign at the moment. I’ve lost 4 pledges out of 25, one person backing out twice after they re-pledged. It really does sting :(

  8. […] to this blogger one could expect a cancellation rate of about […]

  9. Love your lessons Jamey. I’ve had an annoying one on my current campaign. A marketing spammer pledged £25 as a way to entice me to use his services. I knew he would cancel eventually, but still, it skews the numbers for a while. It was a pretty poor stunt IMO.

  10. I really love all the help you provide for aspiring KS creators! The project of yours that I backed (Scythe) was so well-run. The Kickstarter I hope to launch someday is art-related, so not everything applies, but the posts are so useful.

    I’ve only ever cancelled two pledges out of seventy or so, myself. I don’t like cancelling – I would rather wait than pledge first and cancel later. Julia Schiller’s comment rings true for me; when I’ve gotten thank you messages from creators, on the few occasions where I thought I might pull out, I ended up sticking with the project.

    The first was cancelled for absolutely terrible communication. The project creator stated days for regular updates, missed nearly all of them, and never apologized for or explained that lapse when updates would come. To make matters worse, she was active on her regular blog, just not on her Kickstarter. I had some knowledge of the creator and faith in her ability to deliver based on reputation, but the project was the kind where you’re funding the creation of something, not just the production, and I wasn’t interested in never hearing about it for several months even if it did show up randomly the next year. It seems to me that it should go without saying you don’t get into petty spats online while maintaining radio silence on your KS, but apparently not. And if you’re asking for people to fund something that doesn’t exist yet, as opposed to something mostly finalized, you need to be prepared to live up to a higher standard of communication.

    The second was for a rather poor way of handling stretch goals and polls. The item being produced came in one color and design, with the promise that a stretch goal would unlock another option. Near the end of the campaign, when it looked like the stretch goal wouldn’t be achieved, the creators announced they would instead have a poll after the campaign was over to see which one would be produced. That left anyone who was only interested in the initial promise to either cancel or hope things went their way after they’d been charged. I’d advise creators to think carefully about how polls impact other backers, and to consider the timing of those polls. And definitely update your page to reflect that; don’t mention a poll only in one of the 10+ updates.

    There are two pledges I wish I had cancelled. More terrible communication – creators who insist on only updating their social media pages rather than post anything to their Kickstarters. Major pet peeve. Backers shouldn’t need to get on Facebook or Tumblr to see that you’re actually doing something! Even if you’re worried about spamming backers and want to put frequent, trivial updates elsewhere – sum them all up periodically for the people who actually funded you, where they funded you.

    This comment ended up longer than I intended, but after backing many projects you start to get strong opinions on them!

      1. Thanks for linking that! I’ve been reading all these posts kind of out of order. I think we’re talking about different things with respect to Facebook, so it’s more likely I agree with you – I totally understand wanting to have a presence and community on social media, especially when it comes to post-Kickstarter stuff like future projects, discussions once people have the product or what people intend once they do have it, upcoming preorders or retail releases, etc. But while a campaign is still unfulfilled, details about fulfillment should be prioritized for Kickstarter backers, as it’s presumably more relevant to that audience than followers elsewhere who may or may not be backers. (Would you hypothetically post something talking about your manufacturer tooling molds or that you’ve now got 3/4 of the art done to KS, or Tumblr?) I’ve encountered more than one creator who posts updates elsewhere but not the KS, and it wasn’t even obvious that you could follow progress there. I’m currently waiting for a late one where backers have repeatedly requested timeline updates be given, and not in the form of half-hour long videos on Facebook (which has its own accessibility issues).

        1. (And of course, the hypothetical “you” is also general – I know I got all the info I needed on Scythe from the updates there!)

        2. “while a campaign is still unfulfilled, details about fulfillment should be prioritized for Kickstarter backers, as it’s presumably more relevant to that audience than followers elsewhere who may or may not be backers.” I 100% agree with that. I like to move stuff mostly off Kickstarter after the project is done, but not until it’s completely fulfilled.

  11. Obviously we need more data from other campaigns. It’s possible there will be fewer cancellations in the second half of a campaign no matter what; I also wonder if I’d been able to retain a few more of the early backers if I’d done thank yous from the start.

  12. Midway through our campaign (i.e. during the plateau), I decided to try messaging each new backer with a personalized message of thanks to see if that would prevent cancellations. Although this is just one project, I crunched the numbers today and can share them. Scroll down to the chart in this blog I wrote (a reflection about the entire campaign): https://www.cheekyparrotgames.com/kickstarter-reflections/
    It seems a worthwhile thing to do if your campaign isn’t too busy.

    1. Julia: Thank you so much for sharing that excellent postmortem! I may have to write about it more on an upcoming blog entry, but for now I’ll say that the data you shared about the correlation between thank-you notes and a reduction in cancellations is very intriguing.

  13. Ryan: Thanks for sharing your experience with Star Traders. The cancellations are rough, aren’t they? I’m glad this entry helped to show you that they’re quite normal–it’s just the nature of Kickstarter. I filter all cancellation notifications now, so I never see them, but I’m sure there were hundreds of cancellations during the Scythe campaign. Good luck focusing on the backers who stick with you–they’re the important ones. :)

  14. Hi, Jamey.

    I wanted to say how I love this blog. It has become my go to for Kickstarter advice.

    My partner and I have just started our very first Kickstarter campaign every for Star Traders the board game. And after 2 days we started loosing some backers. Not many. Like 3, but still it felt so crushing. I’ve primarily been responsible for building and running the campaign so you can imagine I was over analyzing every little element trying to figure out why these people no longer wanted to support us.

    It wasn’t until after reading you article that I was able to relax a little. Just knowing that it’s normal and seeing the comments that people have been leaving really has helped me a lot.

    Thank you very much.

  15. David: I can definitely relate to that. I’ve discouraged creators from doing that for a long time now, as I think it devalues the intangible value of something being limited if you don’t actually treat it as limited.

  16. I backed a project awhile back & was really annoyed when the ‘limited level’ I backed kept getting extended. As soon as the level was all taken the creator would change it from 4 of 4 to 4 of 8 then 8 of 10…I was made to think i was getting something exclusive but it was a trick. I almost canceled. Does anybody else think this is wrong or misleading?

  17. Interesting insights from backers POV.

    I am following a Kickstarter campaign about leather wallets. I just wanted to observe a project throughout its campaign life to see any trends and mode of communication of the creator etc which, later, will help me with my own campaign (In the same category).

    Anyway, the guy has disappeared since he launched his campaign No updates, No replies to comments NOTHING. His Facebook page has only 7 likes and 2,3 updates. That’s it.

    Although the product is pretty good and has acquired about 40+ backers and funded about 38%. Now that the campaign is in its last stage, everyday I see the number going down.

    I suppose the lack of communication is the primary source of this as backers don’t hear from you and tend to back away. This could have been a successful campaign if the creator has actively engaged with his backers.

    1. Ahmed: Thanks for your comment. Yeah, communication is incredibly important during and after a Kickstarter campaign, so it’s no wonder that guy is losing more backers than he gets. Hopefully he’s okay–it’s odd that he would completely disappear like that!

      1. Yeah its odd and I hope he is okay too. I don’t know if posting link here is suitable or not but you can find his campaign by the name of Vesper Wallet on KS.

        Btw Jamey, great work with all the lessons. I am literally chewing them word by word before I go for my launch.

        Thanks you and I hope you will keep writing about the changing trends on Kickstarter to guide starters like me. I would definitely recommend you blog to any new KS aspirant.

        1. Thanks Ahmed! I’m glad you enjoy the blog. I also have a book called A Crowdfunder’s Strategy Guide that just released two weeks ago. :)

          1. I checked it out on Amazon. The problem is I reside in Pakistan and they currently don’t deliver here. I would love to buy the soft copy for my Kobo reader. Is it available in ePub? I searched a bit but couldn’t find it.

          2. Ah, I see. My publisher did sell the Indian rights to the book, so maybe that version will be easier to get than one from Amazon.com. There’s a Kindle version and a PDF version available directly from the publisher.

  18. […] Perhaps that was just a research failure on my part, since after the fact I managed to dig up some articles. As it was, I was unprepared for it to happen. It wasn’t the last minute, it wasn’t the […]

  19. Hi Jamey, It’s great advice. In an earlier article you mentioned filtering out emails by excluding ‘cancellation’ in the subject field. As you mentioned above, if 10 backers cancel in a short space of time there may be a problem with an update. Would you know 10 had cancelled if you had filtered them out?

    Jamie Shaw

    1. Jamie: Good question. You would definitely still know, as you would see a drop in funding on the project page.

  20. Kickstarter makes backer’s life easy and creator’s life a real nightmare, if it were for me all pledges should be final, but a 48-72 hour window would be more reasonable i guess..i am facing a 10% cancellation rate and it is really frustrating, probably will never do a kickstarter again.

    1. Marco: I feel your pain. Cancellations hurt! That’s why I filter cancellation alerts from Kickstarter using gmail so I never actually see them. They never do me any good to see, so that method has really helped me keep my chin up during a campaign.

  21. Thank you for this post. I was wondering if the cancellation rate on my project was something to be alarmed at, but what I’m seeing here is reassuring – thus far I’m below the average.

    Incidentally, for 200 backers, of which 20 are early bird pledges, half of the cancellations have come from early birds – indicating that buyer’s remorse after having rushed into it is probably a significant factor.

  22. […] talked about preparing yourself mentally for cancellations on this blog in the past. Cancellations are inevitable, and a creator shouldn’t take them […]

  23. Project had about 50 backers. I asked a question, but creator chose to not answer mine or anyone else’s for two weeks. I specifically posted that and then yanked my money. A few days later, someone else posted that I was right and that creator was refusing to answer backers and that backer also yanked. KickTraq showed many bails.

  24. […] on their project. I’ve talked about mentally bracing yourself for cancellations in KS Lesson #38, but there’s a lot more to learn about the topic, especially when you’re experiencing […]

  25. Thank you so much for posting this–I’d had no cancellations until about day 14, then 3 in 2 days, which seemed a concern. I hadn’t sent out a recent update, so I eventually came to the conclusion that it’s more a coincidence, perhaps combined with the fact that I haven’t done a more recent update, but we’ll have to see.

    ( https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1796490608/an-iceland-nature-photography-portfolio )

    In any case, I’m less than a week from finished and at about 150% of goal, so I really have nothing to complain about :)

    Anyway, thanks, I found this post both comforting and informative. Most appreciated.

      1. Lorraine–I’ve had that happen a few times, and I refund the amount in full. If the 10% in fees in significant (i.e., if the backer pledged $300 or more), you could make them aware of that in case they want to do the right thing and only ask for a partial refund. In the end, it’s up to you.

  26. I cancelled a few pledges this summer when we had a close call with a tornado which knocked down 13 of my trees and damaged my house. My wife and I agreed to cut unnessesary expenses and I cancelled about $300 of pledges….and emailed the creators of my reason. Over half responded very positively even going so far as one asking if he could be of financial assistance. Within a few weeks when my insurance adjustment was made I repledged to all the were still active.

  27. I just came across this article. Thank you for posting it. I have had about one cancellation per day. Since we have not met our goal yet it is especially painful. It has gotten to the point where I am refreshing the screen constantly terrified that someone else has backed out. There needs to be a better system in place. I am not sure what it can be. But it is really emotional to see your backers leave and not know what to do. Here is my project if you have any suggestions I would appreciate: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1384977170/business-is-pleasure

    1. Kandice–Hi, thanks for your comment. I can understand the pain you feel when someone cancels. It really would be nice to get the feedback that those departing backers send to Kickstarter, even if it’s anonymous (perhaps a weekly compilation?) Your project looks like it’s doing great, especially with 9 days to go!

  28. Close to the end of my two successful campaigns, I saw an uptick in both pledges and cancellations. I’ve decided to believe it’s just part of the natural decision-making process of this sort of thing. Some people just change their minds, and that’s OK.

    On my last project, we were shooting for a last-minute big stretch goal that would have made a significant difference in the whole project (itself a risky move, but it made more sense than running a second Kickstarter; it was for an alternate art version of a playing card deck). There was a flurry of activity as people tried to get to the goal and as others backed off because we weren’t there yet. It’s never comfortable to be “on the bubble” like that, but I made it a point to mention the flux in an update.

    As in, I noted that we’d see the numbers wiggle around as people made their decision, and asked that people not get too caught up in tracking what the total was. Of course we wanted to make the second deck, and in the end, we did get there, but I deliberately wanted to downplay the possibilities of cancellations. I wrote that they are just part of life, and that there’s nothing wrong with them.

    I’m not sure quite what effect that had, but I’ve always felt that when I’m honest with people and do my best not to lay guilt on anyone, even implied guilt, it pays off in goodwill, if nothing else.

    I do wonder why people cancel sometimes, though. I had no idea that Kickstarter collects feedback on the reason why. I really wish I had access to that.

    I do want to stress that I think it’s never OK to contact someone and ask why they cancelled. I’ve had a few people contact me, and I’ve been grateful for the feedback, but I think it crosses the line to ask.

    1. Tesh–I really like this: ” When I’m honest with people and do my best not to lay guilt on anyone, even implied guilt, it pays off in goodwill.” Absolutely. I would hope that no project creators guilt their backers or their cancelled backers in any way, but I like that you put a positive spin on it.

  29. I’vw backed over 240 projects and I’ve had to cancel a few times.
    1. We’ve blown the budget somehow. Kids, layoffs, open-heart surgery, car needs brakes…. board games do have to take a backseat to the crap in life. (Sad-but-true trivia: I have picked up freelance editing work on Craigslist just to be able to afford Kickstarter Games I REALLY want (I’m looking at you, Jamey!! We did ourselves in for a few weeks with Euphoria.)
    2. A project creator has done something that I think is slimy. Can only think of two in this category, but my cancellation was sure and swift. One time, the project creator misrepresented what would be in the box, and the other time, the project creator slammed a backer in the comments for asking a perfectly reasonable question. In both cases, I messaged the creator AND commented before I left the project. Public shaming has its place.
    3. Project was looking great and had awesome stretch goals but wasn’t going to hit the goals that would make it worth it for me. Can think of two of these, and one I broke down and re-pledged even though I felt like the project represented a crappy value because I sincerely liked the project creator and wanted the stuff.
    4. The impulse pledge… project creators should watch out for me if I pledge in the first few hours of their campaign and it’s late at night. I swear, I get Project Goggles, because they ALL look hot to me, and I really can’t stand missing out on the early bird levels. LOL By the light of day, often they have some warts, or the project creators have a bad or unknown reputation (back some projects before you create one, people!!), or something else just doesn’t seem right.
    5. Someone else in my family has already pledged, pledged at a better/early bird level, or someone in our gaming group made a group pledge, all without my knowledge. I usually message the creator in these cases to let them know it *looks* like they’re losing a backer, but not really; and in these cases, I usually stay in for $1 anyway because I love reading project updates.
    This brings me to an important point; there are probably 10-15 projects now in two years that I’ve backed for $1 just for updates after one or more of the issues above caused me to *almost* cancel. So project creators, watch your $1 backers, and if you can see that they backed down to that level, maybe ask them why.

  30. Wow, thanks for this. I have a project on Kickstarter that is 250% funded and around the midway point the cancellations froze our progress. It is around 3% but a few were high number backers which really hurt. This post really helped me to know it is normal and I should get used to it. I was just shocked as the first 15 days I only had 1 or 2.

  31. my wife was told by kickstarter that she had reached her target of £1200 and they congratulated her. when they transferred the money the figure was £909 because somehow one backer had withdrawn £200. This must be illegal: the terms and conditions clearly state that one cannot withdraw backing after the deadline. Kickstarter themselves sent an official email notifying my wife that her project was successful and so have a moral and legal obligation to cough up the correct amount.

    Charles Turber

    1. Charles–I’m sorry to hear your wife had a negative experience with Kickstarter. It is possible that a backer can prevent a payment by changing their credit card to a bad number before they are charged (a backer can’t actually withdraw money unless the campaign is still active, in which case it’s a withdrawn pledge–no transaction has been made at that point). Hopefully you told Kickstarter who the backer was so Kickstarter can take any appropriate action against them.

  32. And you got to love backers who cancel and bring a project below 100% after everyone is celebrating. An extreme example: $30,000 was cancelled from the Kickstarted Movie project by 3 backers in the 25th hour, probably a vengeance ploy for the Kobe Beef scandal uncovering. Thanks goodness for the last 24 hour rule.

  33. One thing Kickstarter really needs to fix is the cancellation messaging. Most think their message is going to the backer. They write long explanations and feedback, thinking they are going to get to the project creator, but they don’t.

  34. Well, I feel pretty guilty, but I have 4 cancellations in my backer history:
    Numenera – I’m still interested in this one, but I had to admit to myself that I didn’t need it. While I do occasional do roleplaying games with friends, it’s a rare occasion and I have 3 systems to run things already that will take years before they’re touched.
    The Grande Temple of Jing – Very similar reason…I don’t need a pathfinder adventure when I have Rise of the Runelords AE sitting untouched…
    Euphoria – Well, obviously I re-pledged. I had a bit of a monetary hiccup and there was a few games I was interested in, so I cancelled this and:
    Epic Death – Same as above.

    Fortunately the situation got a bit better so I was able to put a pledge back for Euphoria (HOORAY!), I do think it’s a shame that I have those other cancellations though, I’d generally rather not and it’s never been something against the creator or wrong with the game, it’s just circumstance. Oh well, learning from my mistakes now and being very careful what I back =)

    1. Oh, please don’t feel guilty! (about Euphoria or any other project) Cancellations are just part of Kickstarter. As someone else noted above, I don’t think Kickstarter would be nearly as popular if you didn’t have the ability to cancel your pledge during the campaign. That flexibility lets people feel good about pledging in the first place.

  35. I also cancelled once. I had two pledges running and one had many pledge levels, each one looking even better than the previous (cheaper) one. I was on an early bird for the lowest level and was hoping for the earliest bird of the next level to open up. So did many other people. On the final day my dream pledge did once again pop open and this time the next screen went green instead of red. To make sure my bank account did the same I had no choice but to cancel my other pledge. I had that other one for about two weeks, and they did everything right, but the chosen one was really my dream game.

  36. I wonder if you could look at your attrition rate based on the date that the backer signed up. In other words, is a backer who backs you at the start more likely to defect (reduce their pledge or cancel it altogether) than a backer who backs you in the final 48 hours?

    I hate to say it that I have cancelled a few. One was because, while I initially backed it, the product never seemed to get anywhere. Another was because, once more details were made known, I simply wasn’t comfortable with some of the game mechanics (there was much more violence towards characters than I had thought, which restricts the group with whom I could play). And a few were ones that I just didn’t think I’d be able to play.

    1. For the most part, it seemed like people who canceled did so within 24 hours of making their pledge. Almost like they made the pledge and very soon after thought differently.

  37. I’ve cancelled once, I got excited and pledged, but over the next day or so had time to think about whether I really had $150 for a board game and decided that I didn’t really. I didn’t message the creator with my reasons, the game was Zombicide and I doubt that they were too upset with how that kickstarter went, but I’m going to make sure I always let project creators know that it’s not their fault if I need to cancel something in the future.

  38. I must admit I have cancelled a number of pledges. Most of the time the projects look interesting but on a more critical look I decide it is something I am ultimately not that interested in backing, or I have exceeded my budget. This happens especially when newer projects pop up. A number of projects I have cancelled, re-evaluated, and re-pledged. Even if I do cancel a pledge I will usually Star the project to keep an eye on it.

    Kickstarter’s ability to let a backer cancel I think is an essential feature of the site. It gives backers the security that they can re-evaluate a project up until the project has funded, and be more forgiving of impluse pledges.

  39. I’ve cancelled out on a few games, mainly because I felt the game was interesting, and wanted to support it, but then a severe lack of updates/communication throughout the campaign from the creator causes me to have doubts about the creator’s commitment to the project, so I back out.

    I’ve also backed out when creators communicate, but avoid certain categories of questions while immediately answering others… especially when the category of questions is about if a physical part of the game has actually had a model built to see if it will WORK, much less work CORRECTLY… thus making the game playable or not!

    Finally, I’ve backed out for financial reasons… unexpected car repairs and the like, and heck, I even backed out of Euphoria (and then re-pledged minutes later) because of needing to cancel a credit card and use a different one to back, and for some reason Amazon wouldn’t let me do it in the “change pledge” options that day (still don’t know why)… sorry to cause you that little sting, Jamey!

  40. I really appreciate you all sharing these reasons. I hope project creators can see that most of the time, you’ve done nothing wrong when someone cancels their pledge. It’s just part of Kickstarter.

    Thanasis, I didn’t know that about the last 48 hours and the funding goal. Thanks for sharing that!

  41. The only reason I have cancelled funding was funding it on impulse, mainly because I have more money then brains, then going back and looking hard at it later and remember thinking… I really don’t need this, or know what to do with it.

  42. Many people sign up for a KS campaign, in order to secure an Early Bird or otherwise limited spot. In the course of the campaign, they learn more about the game and for various reasons decide to abandon it.
    Also, I revently found out that the “you can cancel your pledge any time during the campaign” is not true for KS. In the last 48 hours of a campaign, should your cancelled pledge bring the project to a “not funded” total, you’re not allowed to cancel. It’s a rare occasion, but a rule nonetheless.

    Keep up the great posts Jamey. Excellent work!

  43. I’ve cancelled on a few now, for various reasons. One I really liked, but had overextended myself and needed to make a choice between two projects I really liked. Another I backed out of because the campaign was unresponsive and sparse in its updates. The last was just plain old fashioned waffling- I’d been interested in the project at the start, but then lost interest as the campaign wore on. It was a good project, but just not for me.

  44. I’ve cancelled once. I had to cancel because I didn’t have a credit card to honour the pledge with (mine had been cancelled and a new one was being sent to me, but it wouldn’t arrive until after the KS went through). It was only a 1$ pledge, but I contacted the creator and let them know (they had a post-KS pre-porder system with all the KS bells and whistles so I can still ‘buy in’ if finances pan out).

  45. I cancelled a pledge once because I joined a group buy. I think I messaged the creator my reason, but it would be helpful if Kickstarter sent a message to the creator as you cancelled, even if it was just a reason picked from a list. I’m told that the message you fill in when you cancel goes to Kickstarter, not the creator, so I think a lot of people think that they have cancelled politely not knowing that the creator is in the dark.

  46. I’ve canceled a couple pledges for games because I sign up on impulse. If a kickstarter looks cool I’ll often back it only to consider it a couple days later and think that I’m unlikely to actually make use of the reward. If the project does well I can always pick it up some time later, even if I miss out on the backer-only rewards. I need to rate limit myself or I’ll simply hoard a ton of mostly unused games.

  47. Although it’s a small percentage, I’ve seen some people cancel because they don’t know how to use “Manage Your Pledge” to change their pledge levels.

    I’ve cancelled a few pledges myself. I’ve mainly done it when, after thinking about it, I wouldn’t get to play in my gaming group. A couple of times I’ve done it because I felt it was too expensive and wasn’t worth paying before retail (since I’m from Canada, shipping and VAT is a real concern). I think if I was in the US, things wouldn’t feel as expensive for me and I’d be more willing to back.

  48. I once backed a project early, and then learned some things about the creator a week later that made me feel like I no longer wanted to give him my money (issues about the way he had handled gaming business partners a few years before). I canceled that pledge, and that’s the only cancellation I can recall making (out of 42 backed).

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