There’s a couple interesting crowd funding postmortems over on Gamasutra. The first is for DwarfCorp from Completely Fair Games, while the other is for Gods Will Be Watching. The DwarfCorp postmortem is the lengthier of the two but it goes into a lot of detail, covering things that anyone considering crowdfunding should be aware of. The Gods Will Be Watching postmortem isn’t as in depth, but it still covers a lot of great detail, including what it was like to go through Indiegogo for their cowdfunding given that Kickstarter wasn’t an option for them.
There’s a number of consistent items that are covered in both pieces :
- Plan ahead. Don’t just jump into it
- Do a lot of pre-hype. Don’t expect your campaign to be the hype, it should be the payoff to your hype
- Get help from someone experienced in crowdfunding
- Maintain a constant stream of communication with your fans, backers, and the press
- Don’t underestimate the damage that bad rewards can cause, from confusion to financial ruin
Since both games were just recently funded we can’t see the long term impact of their decisions, but both postmortems are a good read none the less.
