This is incredibly significant. To me, it feels much like a repeat of the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter of 2012. Sound like a preposterous statement? I’ll admit it almost seems unbelievable. After all, I was a participant in the Double Fine fervor. No, I didn’t back the campaign myself, but most of my friends did, and I excitedly watched the numbers tick up all the same. And although it had not been my first introduction to Kickstarter (that was thanks to Octodad 2), it was that pivotal moment where people suddenly discovered crowdfunding. Had such a momentous campaign not appeared on the service we would have probably needed to wait even longer to see the crowdfunding field really open up.
But, ever since then, I’ve perceived a greater acceptance of crowdfunding but also a lack of media attention. Sure, some campaigns still get articles on all the big sites – but they’re usually just the big projects themselves! As a member of the gaming press I see my inbox filled daily with Kickstarter and Indiegogo related posts and announcements. From my perspective, it just seems that there is way too much “clutter” for writers to go through, so they basically ignore all but the most notable projects anymore. It was just a brief period of time where they were happy to post about all the cool new games appearing.
Although I don’t believe many people still didn’t know about Kickstarter, Yooka-Laylee has certainly ushered in a new era of crowdfunding fan. Prior to it, many of these individuals probably knew of crowdfunding but chose to ignore it for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they feared drama or failure, such as a few high-profile campaigns have had. After all, as of late I think the majority of news articles big sites post about Kickstarter circle around drama. Or, folks may have believed that funding projects just wasn’t for them — there was no campaign they’d be interested in. That was before Yooka-Laylee, of course. Then, a bit later came Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night to provide the perfect double whammy. Even if someone wasn’t into platformers, the classic Metroidvania audience is similarly massive.
So far, the Yooka-Laylee Kickstarter has accumulated over 56,000 backers and there’s still room for more before it comes to a close. That is a higher backer concentration than any other campaign launched this year. It is also more backers than participated in every successful campaign in April and May combined. This is simply outrageous! Obviously, many of these backers are not brand new, but if you just take a look at the backer listings for Yooka-Laylee you’ll see that many are. It’s a mix of serious backers who added this to their 30+ backer history. Others appear to have completely forgotten about Kickstarter after Double Fine Adventure and only now returned. Many others joined this May, which fit my perspective.
Pair this campaign with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and you’ve got the mix for an amazing crowdfunding revival all around. Also, for added fun, if you combine Bloodstained’s current 36,000 backers with Yooka-Laylee’s count, you exceed the total number of backers of successful campaigns for February and March too. Just TWO campaigns have completely dominated Kickstarter!
What is the result of a massive wave of brand new Kickstarter users (and folks recently reminded of the site’s existence)? Well, you’ll need to look at my May Kickstarter analysis to get a deeper look at the data, but the basic trend is that campaigns are beginning to succeed at a healthy rate again. No longer are Kickstarters fighting just to raise 100% on the dot. Now many are succeeding early instead of languishing to the last minute. Campaigns that in the past seemed very unlikely to be funded are now making it without a sweat! It’s a very confusing time for someone like me, but also immensely exciting. Nothing is “certain” on Kickstarter. Not that it ever is, but the upswing is one that was immensely needed in 2015.
All crowdfunding fans, whether or not they personally care about Yooka-Laylee, should be thankful for this platforming revival coming when it did. As is evidenced by the rest of my 2015 analysis posts, the trend of the year was incredibly dour. Many cool looking campaigns failed to get anywhere near their goals, and many more got upsettingly close before failure. It felt like Kickstarter was dragging itself along as a relic of previous years. The issue? No other shiny new website was receiving press. Kickstarter still remains king, but was close to losing its “court” so to speak.
Of course, it’s not just enough to celebrate Yooka-Laylee and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night as saviors of crowdfunding. Nothing is ever that simple. We will continue to provide analysis posts monthly to see what effect, if any, there is on monthly trends. May certainly looks brighter – but might this be the flash in the pan before we return back the way things were pre-May? I certainly hope not, but the thought will remain in mind until the data proves otherwise is true. As an optimist and crowdfunding fan I’m just of the mindset that things will definitely pick up in much the same regard (if a bit lesser) than they did in post-Double Fine Adventure.
Those are my opinions on the subject matter, so now let’s hear yours! Do you agree that the massive success and attention of Yooka-Laylee has ushered in a huge new group of crowdfunders? Or is this just a “one time” thing where folks have backed a few choice campaigns and then will retreat back into the woodwork in a month or so?
I don’t completely agree Marcus! xD
Those backers were probably attracted by those 2 projects BUT i think the success that was Divine Divinity OS; WA2; Pillars of Eternity played a HUGE part in it. That’s just what KS was missing. Games being out, being good and make the crowdfunding system looking as a credible alternative. You could add Hand of Fate and Darkest Dungeon to that list as well as Dead State. All those games are just being released those last months.
They increased the awareness and people that bought those games might have thought “OK next time i’ll pledge on KS too for their next game! Or for the next big game!” What is sure is that without this good publicity..the system would have died.
We certainly don’t have to agree on everything! Thanks for sharing your take on the matter, as it always helps to see other perspectives.
I remember for a while a lot of general gamers would say stuff like “Kickstarter games never come out” even though some were available. It was that all those BIG campaigns people knew about were still being developed, and only recently have we finally seen many come to fruition (Pillars of Eternity, Broken Age finally complete, etc) as you suggest.
It’s going to be fun to watch how Kickstarter continues to grow in these coming years. Will we go through all the same things again? Or will people be more aware this time around?
I think it will be a cycle. People will forget about it unless there is a big project or some nice release.Unless there is a steady stream of nice release every year but i doubt that. The game funded in 2014 will be out in 2016 mostly except Numenera. Which won’t be enough to maintain an interest. And the very late bloomers like hero-U will make a bad publicity for KS..so you cannot count on them (double dipping, late for years, mismanagement, ideas only on paper at launch..) the game will be nice but people will only remember the bad things about it except gamers.
Things like Star Citizen, Kingdom: Come are probably due to 2016 like Mighty 9..so you’ll probably see another pike next year. I magine we’ll have a slow winter that will make economist shout apocalyptic message though lol.
To be honest Marcus, It’s really difficult to base success on the number of returning backers. What Im more interested in, is how many new backers came in and how many plan to stay. At the end I feel that will be the deciding factor in success for any crowdfunding site.
I personally expect to see some retention of backers, but then again, we see that many of those who came for Double Fine Adventure promptly left for years afterward. There’s lots at play with Kickstarter and I will keep watching!
i always thought with crowdfunding it has to be a genre that was massively popular but not around as much now and couple that with a big name responsible for a game in that genre years ago and you have a recipe for success.
A game that is ambitious in its scope and has a really good video like kingdom come or umbra
However i will say they have one shot to get it right if they do not they have no chance of getting another shot (like with planetary annihalation there second project tanked)
I think brian fargo with wasteland 2 and obsidian with pillars of eternity because of how well the games turned out i believe they almost have a blank cheque now.