Report Suggests Kickstarter Is In Decline

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Considering all the high profile scandals over the last two years, it wouldn't surprise me at all that people are shying away from Kickstarter.

New data shows less money going to fewer games projects. New data on games on Kickstarter has shown that both the number of projects and the amount of money pledged to them are falling, with Kickstarters in 2014 expected to raise less than half of the funds secured in 2013.
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Kickstarter would do itself a huge favor by not allowing games to be funded. However games are the most funded things so they likely can't afford the loss in revenues. Pretty much puts them in a position of being fucked no matter what they do.
 
figures. Glad to be one that never donated single dollar to the scam artists throughout. (yes i know there have been some very successful) few and far between tho.
 
Kickstarter had some clear issues to fix and plenty of time to do it. If they go down its their own fault.
 
So far, have backed 10 projects, all have delivered or are in process. The 2nd one I backed was Wasteland 2 on 4-17-2012, which delivered the downloadable portion a few days back. They are still working on the physical parts. One of the consistent problems is most of my projects have missed the original delivery date. Even well establish companies like Reaper or Steve Jackson Games have blown delivery dates and badly. Both of those companies did keep backers informed of what and why the dates were slipping. Both did deliver excellent product.

My guess is the drop off is due in part to the growing 'instant gratification' block of buyers being unwilling to pay today for something that won't be delivered until 2 or 3 years later. Plus failures tend to get a lot more press than the successes.
 
I think the people are just more picking when throwing money at the screen I mean we got a game from Richard Garriot and Mark Jacobs with Camelot Unchained so everything is covered =)
 
Backed some of the bigger projects on Kickstarter and lost quite a bit of money on that.
Lost 300 buck on the Radiate Athletics shirts: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/radiate/radiate-athletics-the-future-of-sports-apparel Look at the comment section! 8000 comments and its all angry people! The guy behind it bought a new Mercedes and take regular vacations to Jamaica now and its all for the backers money. This guy scored more than a million dollars and nobody can touch him.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/663909638/overweight-athletics-the-future-of-sports-apparel People even made a joke out of it on Kickstarters own site.

MURIKA & Kickstarter.
 
From what I've seen (not restricted to Kickstarter, but includes Early Access too), many game project ended up short of what was promised, or completely failed.

I don't think anyone can predict how the entire development process will go. Unexpected problems are bound to occur, and many of these dev are newcomer with little experience. This is normal. However, the problem is what happens when the dev runs out of money.
 
If you guys haven't seen the season premier of South Park from a week ago you really need to see it!
 
GOOD. Kickstarter is a fundamentally idiotic idea that does more harm than good.

Unlike traditional means of gaining venture capital, instead of large investors reviewing the idea and the capability of the business to actually deliver on the product and what not and invest significant effort corresponding with the size of the investment, you have tons of tiny investors that are only contributing a minuscule amount of their cash and will part with it on a whim with often no more research than the business having a catchy name or a 30 second promotion.

So you have complete strangers getting tons of money for stupid projects with no promise of delivery after getting the funds.

That is a lot of wasted capital that could otherwise have been invested more responsibly. Not to mention that as we've seen sometimes someone will take kickstarter funds, for which kickstarter takes 10% for doing jack squat, and then still end up selling out to a real investor making millions leaving the kickstarter investors (that get nothing out of the deal) wondering WTF they paid for.
 
Are you to say that giving people money to develop a harebrained product (or just jerk off with your $$$) before an actual deliverable or proof of mass production is a risky proposition? GASP
 
Divinity: Original Sin is badass, and thanks to kickstarter I get to play it ^_^

Also went to a jazz club last night with my dad because his friend's band was playing. I was surprised when at the end of the show he thanked his kickstarter backers for helping get the musicians together for a cd he was cutting.
 
Dead Parrot said:
So far, have backed 10 projects, all have delivered or are in process. The 2nd one I backed was Wasteland 2 on 4-17-2012, which delivered the downloadable portion a few days back. They are still working on the physical parts. One of the consistent problems is most of my projects have missed the original delivery date. Even well establish companies like Reaper or Steve Jackson Games have blown delivery dates and badly. Both of those companies did keep backers informed of what and why the dates were slipping. Both did deliver excellent product.

My guess is the drop off is due in part to the growing 'instant gratification' block of buyers being unwilling to pay today for something that won't be delivered until 2 or 3 years later. Plus failures tend to get a lot more press than the successes.
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I have a similar track record. I've backed more than you though, and many of them have been stuff other than games.

For games, I think a large part has been a rush of high profile kickstarters, and those riding on their coat tails. That made a nice bubble, and the environment has pulled back to more realistic levels as lots of the high profile people are tied up at the moment. Also, the donors are getting a better idea of how to tell good from bad. Harder to determine is that kickstarter may ACTUALLY be doing something about scammy kickstarters and keeping them out, thus reducing the number of kicstarters in the category.

As for missed deadlines, how the heck does anyone not expect that? It's been something that is the norm for well funded retail products forever, why would a low budget indie startup project fare significantly better?
 
Ducman69 said:
GOOD. Kickstarter is a fundamentally idiotic idea that does more harm than good.

Unlike traditional means of gaining venture capital, instead of large investors reviewing the idea and the capability of the business to actually deliver on the product and what not and invest significant effort corresponding with the size of the investment, you have tons of tiny investors that are only contributing a minuscule amount of their cash and will part with it on a whim with often no more research than the business having a catchy name or a 30 second promotion.

So you have complete strangers getting tons of money for stupid projects with no promise of delivery after getting the funds.

That is a lot of wasted capital that could otherwise have been invested more responsibly. Not to mention that as we've seen sometimes someone will take kickstarter funds, for which kickstarter takes 10% for doing jack squat, and then still end up selling out to a real investor making millions leaving the kickstarter investors (that get nothing out of the deal) wondering WTF they paid for.
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Your statement is contradictory. Yes, it would be great if all that money had gone towards more bonafide projects, and if people had done more due diligence before investing, but the answer IS NOT to completely get rid of kickstarter.

Crowdfunding is a great concept that can help fund niche/indy projects that would otherwise never see the light of day. It needs to be refined and tweaked so it's not as much of a crapshoot. Kickstarter shouldn't be scrapped, it just needs to be modified and improved.

And lets not forget that even in traditional VC investing, about 55% of deals are losers, and only about 30% make 2x or more return on investment: http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucebooth/2012/11/07/data-insight-venture-capital-returns-and-loss-rates/
 
I have only backed one project: Shroud of the Avatar, and have no regrets. The game is not finished yet, but I know what my money is being used for. The way these guys have kept in touch with the community could not have be better.
 
So far everything I've backed is either still in good looking development (Star Citizen for example) or has delivered something. I think the only one I've been disappointed with so far is Takedown, but I didn't put a whole lot of money into that so it's not a huge deal.
 
Dead Parrot said:
So far, have backed 10 projects, all have delivered or are in process. The 2nd one I backed was Wasteland 2 on 4-17-2012, which delivered the downloadable portion a few days back. They are still working on the physical parts. One of the consistent problems is most of my projects have missed the original delivery date. Even well establish companies like Reaper or Steve Jackson Games have blown delivery dates and badly. Both of those companies did keep backers informed of what and why the dates were slipping. Both did deliver excellent product.

My guess is the drop off is due in part to the growing 'instant gratification' block of buyers being unwilling to pay today for something that won't be delivered until 2 or 3 years later. Plus failures tend to get a lot more press than the successes.
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Yeah I have backed quite a few games and a couple of items, and for the most part I have got what I ordered. You just have to check out who you are backing, and understand that it is going to take awhile.
 
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