Only A Third of Kickstarted Video Games Deliver To Backers

Only one third of the Kickstarted video game projects actually ends up in the hands of backers? That's not a very good percentage.

Let’s cut to the chase: having spent a long time manually scraping Kickstarter video game project data and following up each and every of the 366 successfully funded projects between 2009 and 2012, the data indicates that only around 1 in 3 have fully delivered their promised title to their backers.

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such terrible visualization of data

I am actually surprised it is that many.

There are people out there that look at kickstarter as free money to do nothing. People like that one card game (I think that is what it was) where they got money, guy used it to move from one city to another, and to live off of for a few months while between jobs. Then ran out of money and said that the project was dead. Then there are the people like Ouya that made promises to give backers systems first or other gifts and then once they are complete go back on what they promised the people to not be out the lose of the free items.

A better set of data should be a weighted average, i.e. a game that manages to pull in $1,000,000 should count for more than a game that raised $10,000. Plus what does this say about games taking actual time to complete? Simply getting money doesn't mean the game will be released in a couple weeks.

When you think of success rate of newborn companies or projects, getting one third of them in finished state... I can`t rightfully call that a bad percentage.

What could be more interesting is how many of the actually well-funded projects get finished? Such as meeting funding goals and then some, by at least 3 times the sum originally sought for? There are many projects where originators of the project underestimate their monetary needs a lot and are caught with their pants down at later state of their project and cannot find more funding quickly.

After all, people might not be very tolerant towards you if you already promised you could deliver them the product with their original donations and then come back begging for more...

Whats the typical success rate for other types of ventures?

I think people forget that Kickstarter is an INVESTMENT ie if you lose your money then too bad, you took the risk.

You don't hear so many complaints from people who fund start ups that fail.

That's just normal for small businesses. In fact, usually only about 1 in 8 small businesses overall stays in business in five years.

I am pretty sure you all heard about STAR CITIZEN. They have raised 37,449,012 million Dollars as of today. If this fails there is no hope left in KS.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen

Holy 37 mil... wow.

Yep, the analysis is a bit screwy.

On the OVERALL graph, the numbers don't add up to 100%
37 + 8 + 3 + 2 = 50%

The author doesn't state if "late" is considered incomplete, partial, or part of the magic 50% that's missing.

Broken Age is both late and incomplete. So did it deliver? It truly depends on who you ask. But right now it's definitely a "partial", but will it stay that way?... Probably not.

How long before "late" becomes "failed"? Dude's analysis is completely lacking in details, and as such can be manipulated to deliver wildly differing conclusions based on what assumptions are made.

Star Citizen gives me an EV Nova boner.

I think Star Citizen is too big to fail but we shall see...

ljbade said:

I think people forget that Kickstarter is an INVESTMENT ie if you lose your money then too bad, you took the risk.

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I think of it more like a charity/lottery. An investment means you could profit from it, and that's not going to happen. I wish you could buy shares, instead of just products. It would be nice if you could profit from a Kickstarter project if it was a huge success.

They need some additional clause, for people who screw the pooch with the money, like the guy who moved and lived off of it, i would be taking their ass to court if one could.

bbf said:

Yep, the analysis is a bit screwy.

On the OVERALL graph, the numbers don't add up to 100%
37 + 8 + 3 + 2 = 50%

The author doesn't state if "late" is considered incomplete, partial, or part of the magic 50% that's missing.

Broken Age is both late and incomplete. So did it deliver? It truly depends on who you ask. But right now it's definitely a "partial", but will it stay that way?... Probably not.

How long before "late" becomes "failed"? Dude's analysis is completely lacking in details, and as such can be manipulated to deliver wildly differing conclusions based on what assumptions are made.

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This is how I took the article. He is ignoring still in progress projects. He is looking at 3 categories. Projects that are complete, projects that the team has said that they have given up and ones that the teams say that they are taking a break but will start back up in future again. For the ones that are complete there are two groups. The group that said we are going to take your money and make project X and give out these are rewards and actually did what they said. Then the group that said we are going to make X and give out these rewards and in the end only completed part of what they said before they called the project done. So either they said they would make something for all mobile platforms or all OSs and only made it for 1. Or said they would give out certain rewards then decided at the end to not give out anything.

So the missing 50ish percent is stuff still being worked on so it doesn't fall into one of the 3 work finished categories.

but as you stated different people could read into things a little differently.

MrGuvernment said:

They need some additional clause, for people who screw the pooch with the money, like the guy who moved and lived off of it, i would be taking their ass to court if one could.

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The problem would be wording it correctly to catch the causes of being just screwing people over. I could start a legit kickstarter to make a game and then quit my job, move somewhere that the cost of living is cheaper and I was closer to people that I wanted to work on the project with and live off the money for a few months and be devoting all my time to the project. Which would be what somebody needs money for, not for the cost of buying software but to pay for the time they need to take away from other lines of work to focus on the project. It isn't like game developers work for years making a game without getting paid to only get paid once the game goes gold. They get normal paychecks. So if somebody is quieting their job to focus on a game they would be using the money they get as a paycheck replacement to a point. You don't want to prevent people from doing something like that. At the same time, you don't want to punish those that just can't make the project that they thought they could for the cost they thought. Maybe they are just really horrible and while having the best intentions upfront in the end after 6 months to a year find things cost far more than they thought it would, they find the cheaper talent they hired can't produce and now have to hire another person and are out all the money they spent...

So you have to allow for people to use the funds as job replacement and have to allow for people to fail. The issue with that project was the level at which both happen. He just flat out didn't product anything while living off the money.

His analysis doesn't seem complete as it doesn't take into account the experience (and size) of the teams doing the projects ... he also admits that he is not a kickstarter supporter and went into the analysis with the opinion that kickstarter was not a good idea for games (that will color his data and his analysis)

- late projects are not a default ... software projects have always had problems with schedules (except where publishers forced launches regardless of whether the project was ready

- kickstarter is still relatively new and there are going to be growing pains on this publisher free model

- small companies or amateurs seem more susceptible to these types of problems than professionals ... if anything his analysis indicates you should support larger developers and not individual or amateur projects

I think a more detailed analysis of actual deliverables vs team experience would be more useful in determining the risk vs reward of kickstarter

I backer Banner Saga and the Double Fine title. Both have delivered and the Banner Saga is pretty cool.

BladeVenom said:

I think of it more like a charity/lottery. An investment means you could profit from it, and that's not going to happen. I wish you could buy shares, instead of just products. It would be nice if you could profit from a Kickstarter project if it was a huge success.

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I nevered view investment as like that. But just looked up the definition, and indeed that is the case.

I think of it as an investment though. Basically giving money for a potential return.

I backed 2 games , Castle Story and 7 days to die.

7 days to die is updated VERY often , and is shaping up very good!
Castle story wasnt updated in quite a while...

temujin987 said:

such terrible visualization of data

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agreed, I think this chart shows the most embarrassing data:
(but maybe it's because of such long development time)

weebling1 said:

agreed, I think this chart shows the most embarrassing data:
(but maybe it's because of such long development time)

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One still has to be careful of the "Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" effect though ... he was breaking the definition of successfully launched into some very narrow distinctions ... late isn't necessarily bad if it was late for a reason ... a much more comprehensive analysis is needed than just a little simple web mining (like he did):

- did projects expand in scope during the case of their KS campaign due to stretch goals
- how experienced was the project team
- was this a first major project
- was this a first KS project
- was this money to supplement financials from other sources
- was the project realistic to begin with
etc

Some of these questions are objective but require more research and some are subjective and require research to accurately assign a value to them.

I have only supported three KS projects to date (and all three remain in development). The potential of KS to breakout of the publisher and VC funding models is beneficial. There is certainly risk and we need better ways to monitor what teams do (especially the small or inexperienced ones). If you want to find data to support an assertion that KS is bad then you probably can do that (as this data indicates). If you want to find data to support an assertion that KS is a work in progress (then that is what I would expect). If you like mass market titles then the publishers are still the best game in town. If you like more niche genres and titles then KS still has lots of potential to offer.

onetwenty8k said:

Star Citizen gives me an EV Nova boner.

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hehe. yeah, me too. I actually installed Nova again last fall and played it for a few weeks.

Star Citizen is going to be a pretty good game I am thinking, but it is going to crush the souls of so many people when it does not live up to the unprecedented amount of hype.

Well, that's a whole lot who did better than that piece of shit Curt Schilling.

It's almost like investing carries risk, wow.

Star Citizen is going to be a pretty good game I am thinking, but it is going to crush the souls of so many people when it does not live up to the unprecedented amount of hype.

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If the damn thing even comes out, it has a release date of 2015 still doesn't it?

People have poured hundreds in just to get access to hangars and look at starships.

The hype will be tough to overcome.

I would like to see a Kickstarter funded game where the only reward for backers was profit sharing from retail sales on the finished project. I know it is a bad pun, but could be game changing IMO.

Zorlag said:

When you think of success rate of newborn companies or projects, getting one third of them in finished state... I can`t rightfully call that a bad percentage.

What could be more interesting is how many of the actually well-funded projects get finished? Such as meeting funding goals and then some, by at least 3 times the sum originally sought for? There are many projects where originators of the project underestimate their monetary needs a lot and are caught with their pants down at later state of their project and cannot find more funding quickly.

After all, people might not be very tolerant towards you if you already promised you could deliver them the product with their original donations and then come back begging for more...

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Except when you invest in a new company you have an investment that can actually get an ROI and as such the risk should be higher. In this case you are giving money with no pay back other than delivering a product. And the worst part is you may be giving a lot more than the value of the actual product in various cases. Kickstarter is not venture capital its literally charity. And would you be happy if you knew that 60% of your charity money was not going to help?

rudy said:

Except when you invest in a new company you have an investment that can actually get an ROI and as such the risk should be higher. In this case you are giving money with no pay back other than delivering a product. And the worst part is you may be giving a lot more than the value of the actual product in various cases. Kickstarter is not venture capital its literally charity. And would you be happy if you knew that 60% of your charity money was not going to help?

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If you were to buy Battlefield or CoD from KS then that rationale would be true, but most games are from genre's that are not as popular or ideas that are more niche in nature ... when you buy into a KS title you are requesting that one of these publisher unfriendly titles be made ... if you give money to every KS project possible then that is certainly ripe for abuse, but if you give money to only those projects you actually want to be made then you are encouraging a genre you like

This certainly isn't a model for everyone but I have never understood the objections of the people who don't give money to KS ... how does it threaten the publisher model (or underfunded Indie developer model) which still exist (if that is what the people who don't want to give money to KS want to perpetuate) ... KS is far from perfect but so far I see few of the opponents offering an alternative ... if folks really want an alternative, here is what I would propose:

Amazon or Steam start a competitor to KS specifically for games ... they would manage the pledge period and process the final payments at the end, issuing the money to the developer (or company) ... they should allow ratings of the developer and require traceable accounts to use their store ... they should get a 12 month exclusive to any projects funded through their store ... any developer who defaults is banned from the store for 12 months (first time) and lifetime (second time) ... in the case of Steam they could provide developer support through Valve (if needed) ... the key thing missing from KS is the traceability and ability to review the programming teams/developers (in my opinion)

rudy said:

And would you be happy if you knew that 60% of your charity money was not going to help?

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Wait, you actually think majority of charities actually give most of their money to help who they say they will help?