When It Hits the Fan Kickstarter and Geek'd Con Post-Mortem
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/trueyomic/when-it-hits-the-fan
The When It Hits the Fan Kickstarter seemed to have many things going for it: Well organized information, a gameplay trailer, even a demo, something many game Kickstarters lack. So what went wrong?
These are just my opinions, so give your own opinions at the bottom for others to also take into consideration along with this article of how I think my Kickstarter project failed.
I will be the first to admit that When It Hits the Fan is not a very original concept. Top-down shooters with zombies are nothing new. That alone could have been a main contributing factor to the Kickstarter's failure.
I thought I had something unique to offer through the arcade machine, but a mixture of possible overpricing through not enough research and the machine costing too much to produce combined to turn off most who would be otherwise interested in a machine. That, and it's difficult to sell an arcade machine for a game that's not complete yet.
Lesson 1: Have something unique to market. It's no guarantee, but it helps.
According to google analytics almost all of the people who visited the Kickstarter were primarily 13-17 males and secondly 18-32 males. For the former case, most 13-17 year-olds don't have access to credit cards (and rightly so) so they were out as far as being donators to a crowdfunding project. It would have been better for this group to have shown it off completed as they DO have access to physical steam cards, paid with cash as I did with World of Warcraft game time cards when I was that age.
The second group I had more of a chance to talk with at the convention. Most of them seemed to have fun with the demo and proclaimed interest in old school games that were similar to those played in their childhood, but many did not follow up with a pledge, with a few (gracious) exceptions.
Most people who said they would support it, said they would do so during a Steam sale. This is common nowadays, and I can't blame them since I've fallen into the same trap myself. Having a huge backlog I haven't even gotten to, it's common for me to wait for a game to be on sale before buying it, just to add it to my to-play list.
Lesson 2: Although money isn't the primary purpose of making games for most indies, it takes money to make them sometimes. If you want to earn the money to make them, make sure the target audience is willing or able to pay.
Having no prior experience marketing, I tried venturing into this solo with nothing but the advice of those who have done this sort of thing previously. While their advice was invaluable for the success I did have, perhaps I should have hired someone to promote for me while I worked on other things like improving the game. Hiring a trailer-maker could have also been useful as I did get some complaints that the alpha gameplay trailer didn't stand out enough.
Lesson 3: If you don't have the experience, it is sometimes better to let someone else handle it.
Some Kickstarters just get lucky with articles from big names like Rock, Paper, Shotgun or Destructoid, but When It Hits the Fan had no such luck with a total of 4 articles from smaller websites. While grateful for any attention at all from those otherwise awesome niche sites, it would have been a great boon to grab the attention of bigger sites with more views.
Same goes for Youtubers and twitch streamers. I did get 3 or so youtubers’ attentions and a Twitch streamer, but in both cases the audiences were too small to have an impact on the Kickstarter. The playthroughs however were valuable in other ways such as the commentary and opinions expressed during the streams.
That being said, I want to give a huge thanks to all of my local Bossier / Shreveport, LA supporters. A vast majority of my donations came from locals, even before the local convention. All of this is supported by analytical data from Google and Kickstarter. Don't discount your local community nor Facebook (also where most referrals that paid came from).
Lesson 4: Be incredibly lucky or make the necessary connections you need before crowdfunding.
5. Geek'd Con Convention and Expectations
Towards the end of the campaign, the Kickstarter was nowhere near where it should have been to finish, but I held out hope that the convention would open up new doors when the players got their hands on the actual game. These expectations were assumed in error.
1000 flyers were handed out during the convention, and through those I received six $10 donations through the Kickstarter. Although I am grateful for each of those donations, my last hope for the Kickstarter was gone.
The convention did however provide very useful feedback and information through the hundreds of conversations I had those days. Through many suggestions and even quiet playthroughs from con-goers, I watched and gathered data on how they were playing, how often they were dying to what, what enemies and traps they were having trouble with, and more. From that, I have been able to determine what needs to be tuned in-game to provide maximum enjoyment while also providing appropriate difficulty for both casual and hardcore gamers.
Lesson 5: Conventions are not for selling your game. Conventions are for getting the word out, gathering opinions, and gameplay analytics.
I have learned a lot from this Kickstarter. "Every failure is a learning experience," so they say. In the future, if I decide take this sort of crowdfunding adventure again, I won't be doing it alone. I'll be taking all of what I learned from this project with me to improve how I present my games in the future.
And while I haven’t been able to raise all the funds I need, getting to hang out with fans while they played my game, watching let's plays of my game, and networking around has been absolutely worth the experience.
And if anyone wants to continue to support When It Hits the Fan and future games, please consider transferring your donation over to the new Patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/heartfeltgames
Thank you all for your support from the bottom of my heart! Hope to see you all again when the game is finished!
Bonus section - Articles and Let’s Plays from during the campaign:
Anomulus0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjW6QlC6xf0 (part 1)
Anomulus0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhgSSB5t5wM (part 2)
Jupiter_Hadley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEE4kgVG2_0
Port City Games Interview: https://twitter.com/PortCityGames/status/767538885740130304
http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2016/08/when-it-hits-the-fan-offers-classic-top-down-arcade-action/8691/
http://www.alteredconfusion.com/home/2016/8/3/nostalgia-is-sure-to-set-in-when-it-hits-the-fan.html
http://linuxgamenews.com/post/148555352158/when-it-hits-the-fan-arcade-action-on-kickstarter#_=_
https://www.bluesnews.com (August 1st archive - no direct links)
Special thanks to:
@ryunocore for advice given and music made so far.
Cryptic Hybrid: Who intended to have a let’s play, but instead helped me fix a crashing bug he was experiencing.
