Fear of missing out is pretty much my least favorite marketing tactic. Kickstarter exclusives, early birds, and any method that drives decisions based on fear (instead of curiosity, excitement, or anticipation) really does not resonate with me.
However, today I wanted to celebrate two current campaigns that are doing the exact opposite of FOMO. While these are far from the only projects/products/companies that don’t use FOMO as a marketing tactic, these two stand out because of the extent to which they reassure backers that they have nothing to fear. Plus, they’re doing so to the tune of over $1.3 million total raised so far.
Architects of the West Kingdom: Works of Wonder
This campaign is for an expansion to my favorite Garphill game, Architects of the West Kingdom. The core reward is $27 USD plus shipping, and so far the project has raised $499,165 USD from 5,111 backers.
The project doesn’t waste any time in telling backers that it’s okay if they want to wait. The second paragraph of the page says this:
I love that they’re so up front about reassuring backers that they’re welcome to act out of excitement, love, or support and that there’s nothing to fear. Honestly, when I read that, I felt safe, like the campaign was giving me a hug instead of making an urgent sales pitch. It also sets the tone for the project from the very beginning–they’re structuring the product/rewards for long-term success, not a quick buck.
Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread
This campaign for an open-world adventure launched last week on Kickstarter. The core reward is $165 USD plus shipping, and so far the campaign has raised $806,040 from 5,753 backers.
A significant portion of the project page focuses on just how big this game is–it’s massive. As a result, some potential backers may wonder if they really need to spend the extra $25 for the Epic Hunt add-on. But never fear, as Far Off Games says this:
This is an audacious thing to say on a project page in the best of ways. Cody and his team are reassuring you that they’ve put everything you’ll ever need in the core game. They’ve given backers the freedom to say no, and while some backers (821) have done so, the majority have said yes (3,498 backers at the $190 USD level).
In full transparency, Epic Hunt is a Kickstarter exclusive, so it isn’t entirely in line with avoiding FOMO. Far Off could have said that they might consider releasing it via retail as an expansion in some distant future if demand is there (or made it a “Far Off exclusive” instead of something they can only sell on Kickstarter). But my feeling is that they just wanted to offer backers something special out of appreciation, and while it’s “completely unnecessary,” it’s also too big to include as a stretch goal.
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I have a lot of respect for the lack of fear and the level of reassurance and trust offered by project pages like this, and I’d love to hear other examples in the comments below.
At Stonemaier Games, this is our approach, though I think I could learn from these methods. Yes, it’s really helpful for us when people preorder or buy directly from our webstore, and I like to offer special preorder pricing and perks when possible, but I want to reassure people that they can get our products from their preferred retailer (or wait until the time is right to buy it from their preferred source, whether its us or a retailer).
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Also read: 10 Better Reasons than KS Exclusives to Back a Kickstarter Project
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24 Comments on “The Opposite of FOMO”
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I’ve said this before and I will continue saying it, gameplay Kickstarter Exclusives are cancerous to the gaming community. Alt art? Great. Timed exclusive? Fine. Free expansion for backers? Wonderful. There are so many different ways you can engage and show your appreciation and support for your backers than to give them gameplay components that no one else will get. Some companies even go so far as to lock entire factions or expansions behind KSE, which is just bizarre to me. So many games are discovered months or years after they hit shelves, when people are playing them with friends and they go “I like this! I’ll buy it myself!” But if they can only get 70-80% of the game, why bother?
Sorry, I know I’m replying to my own comment, but I just realized after I hit send how detrimental to a game company it is to lock gameplay material behind KSE. It limits future sales of a game and requires you to continuously make a new product instead of being able to build a solid foundation and catalogue of complete and well-made games. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot in the hopes that the hole will make you go faster.
This was a really informative read, nice to see companies not pressuring people to back.
I’m a way off from launching my game, but does anyone have any tips for a one person small company with which Kickstarter is the only means of making the game a reality avoiding creating this pressure if your game isn’t going to retail?
I’d recommend checking out the Legend Academy page on Gamefound for how they do it, as they make it clear that they have no plans of going to retail with their product (but they leave various doors open, like getting the game directly from them and maybe even via retail if it’s a huge hit).
There’s a difference, at least to my mind, between a natural limitation – “we have no way of getting this into distribution other than through this Kickstarter” – and artificially exploiting FOMO – “these super deluxe components and this gameplay expansion will never, under any circumstances, ever be available again”.
Being clear and realistic about what’s going to have limited availability, and why, and whether there will be a difference between the Kickstarter version and any future versions goes a long way.
As with so many things, it comes down to communicating honestly and openly with your audience – after all, people genuinely will be missing out if they don’t back, and not letting them know would be doing them a disservice too.
Thanks to you both, It looks the message is to be honest and clear whatever you choose to do,
Well this has definitely made me edit my in-progress Kickstarter page for my next campaign. With my business I am for the time being taking on a Kickstarter-exclusive model in that I always want to focus on direct to consumer sales and not get tied up in the retail / distribution cycle, and I want backers to know that so they genuinely don’t miss out! BUT I also don’t want them to back my project out of fear. So I’m going to find a way to rephrase it which, as you suggest, encourages support, not preys on fear. I think I made that mistake in my past campaigns and I’m not going to do it again. Thanks Jamey
Malachi: I appreciate you trying to balance Kickstarter-only model without fearmongering! :) I look forward to seeing how you do that–feel free to share it here when you’re ready.
If there are no crowdfunding exclusives, then why should people give the creators their money 1 year in advance AND pay more than retail when considering shipping costs.
Yes, some gamers like creators so much they don’t mind paying extra just to show them support… But that’s just the minority.
For Americans, shipping cost isn’t much of a concern for most campaigns. Backing a game without any exclusives won’t result in a significant financial loss.
I’m Canadian and shipping to Canada is really expensive. If I back a Garphill game, I’ll probably pay 30$ CAD more than retail when exchange and shipping are taken into account. I love Shem and his crew, but that is just too much.
That’s why Shem and his crew are ok with you waiting until retail. With the nature of popular game runs, this is a way to (hopefully) get a place in line for the first run rather than wait for a potential second run. I’ve run into more than one occasion where I wish I would’ve kickstarted something that took months if not a year for a second run.
1st day specials are, to me, possibly the worst example of this. And yeah, I do hate missing out, but committing in under 24 hours … urgh.
Whenever I see I missed the 24 hour deals I close the page. I feel like if I missed out on a deal then I’m ready to move on to something else where I can get a deal. It also makes the other pledge levels look like bad deals.
This is why Garphill continues to impress in the crowdfunding space. By keeping their formula exactly the same – fair, honest, and without cringe sales pitches and overloaded games – they have built a massive following. And yet, so few publishers try their formula.
I’m backing off crowdfunding, mainly because there are so many interesting projects and tying up my money in pledges for a year or more often leads me to missing out on something that comes along that is a better fit for me. (Plus, I can read the reviews later once a game is on the general market.)
Along with that, I’m finding that FOMO marketing increasingly gives me a negative feeling about a project and pushes me more to not supporting support it or consider buying the game if it’s widely released in the future. I can appreciate what the publishers are trying to do and am okay with the instances that you mention but any much more than that, I really have begun to dislike the sense of being manipulated.
Besides, a missed FOMO opportunity today often leads to a better opportunity in the future.
I 100% agree with this. One of the things I love about this hobby is getting to share time and games I love with friends, and it really doesn’t feel good to be on either side (sharing / teaching or playing / learning) of a new game that you actually really enjoy only to find out (or have to say) “oh, you actually can’t buy *this* version of the game”. I have avoided Kickstarter exclusives ever since I learned that lesson. In the end, it just seems quite anti-customer to me, because isn’t (or shouldn’t) the best case scenario for a publisher be that the game comes out and people really love it, word spreads, and a lot more people want to buy it? It seems like this practice is really doing a disservice to all those potential future customers who may not have even heard of Kickstarter at the time just for the sake of a one-time boost to that particular campaign.
“One of the things I love about this hobby is getting to share time and games I love with friends”. I completely agree! Well said, Jared.
For me, Rising Sun is a specific example of a game that I would probably own if not for the Kickstarter exclusives. The Fox Clan player faction and particularly the plastic components (mandate tiles, strongholds, alliance tokens,etc) are such a huge part of what would give the game value for me that buying the retail version is just entirely unappealing.
On the other hand, there are examples of Kickstarter exclusives that I am entirely okay with – for example the Dungeon Lords Happy Anniversary Kickstarter has a small number of cards in the game that make direct reference to the concept of crowdfunding, which are a very minor part of the game even in the few cases where they do appear, rather than being something that everyone playing the Kickstarter version of the game will experience. Even there, I would be as happy, maybe even happier, if they had planned to make the Kickstarter exclusives available for direct purchase later.
Thank you so much for this generous mention, Jamey! Cody 100% agrees with your principle here. I remember talking to him before the Arydia campaign launched, suggesting things to help drive initial pledges, like the first player coin you mentioned here (https://stonemaiergames.com/is-return-to-dark-tower-a-perfect-kickstarter-project/). But Cody said something like: I want to ensure the person discovering the game later has just as good an experience as the person who discovers it first.
And as a note about the Epic Hunt mini-expansion, while we do want to offer something special for Kickstarter backers, we wrote: Like the Sellsword mini-expansion from the first XIA campaign, Epic Hunt is a Kickstarter exclusive. We will never offer this version again, but in future campaigns, we may offer it with a different color scheme.
So even if someone doesn’t get it now, they can get it later if they want (but in a different color scheme). At least for me, this feels like a fair balance between welcoming players who find the game later vs. offering something special to Kickstarter backers who are showing a lot of faith in us now.
Lots of people say this to you, but it’s worth repeating: Your blog is an inspiration to me, and an incredible source of information for creators around the world. I’m proud to be a Stonemaier Champion and support the work you do. Thank you!
Thanks for chiming in, Ira! I really like the philosophy you paraphrased from Cody.
That’s a fair point about the exclusive. I probably would have gone with a “Far Off exclusive,” giving you the flexibility to sell extra units directly from your webstore. But the idea is similar.
I wonder if a better option for this is what SM does where games bought in the first run are numbered, so early buyers can feel special and late buyers can get the same game later, without missing anything significant. To me that numbered box will feel more special that knowing that my color scheme was the “original”. Something you might think for the future!
Great post Jamey, this also chimes with our current project Dragonbond: Lords of Vaala
We even changed the concept of Early Bird to Early Dragon Supporter for everyone joining in the 1st print run, even retailers and distributors or anyone who decides to wait to buy afterwards because they all help make the game a reality. Even a Money-back guarantee inspired from your campaigns.
Backers have asked for Kickstarter exclusives but we are not doing that, and we believe all backers should get the same benefits (in our case the free Stretch Goals box and 1st printing promos) regardless of when they heard about the campaign (the first day or the last day).
Also, Arydia is such a very well planned campaign!!
I’m glad this resonates with you and your campaign, William! I admire that approach.
Jamie, Thank you for continuing to send out your great blog. I try to keep all of this in mind as I look a possible kickstarter in the future, but I haven’t read all of your kickstarter blogs which I know is a prerequisite to doing so. Just wanted to say thank you.
Thank you! I wouldn’t say it’s a prerequisite, but the information is there to help for those who want it. :)