Until we start publishing our Kickstarter games data file to help non-believers see the light, all we can do is keep drawing attention to the times that things go well. Well, today I’ve got a great example; KING Art Games.
KING Art Games is an independent game studio that’s been around for over 15 years and has been making games the whole time. Narrowing our focus to just their Kickstarter history reveals that KING Art is great example how a Kickstarter should be run from start to finish.
KING Arts first campaign was for Battle Worlds: Kronos, a turn based strategy game that launched on Kickstarter in March 2013 with a $120k funding goal. The campaign itself featured a gameplay heavy funding video, plenty of screenshots, lots of game info, and a ton of backer engagement. Battle World: Kronos ended up getting funded for over $260k, a great showing for such a niche title. After the campaign was finished KING Art updated backers twice a month until the game was released that November, a full month before the date they promised during the campaign.
Battle Worlds: Kronos
Next up came The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, a classic style adventure with a $65k campaign that kicked off in February 2014. A great funding video, plenty of game info, and a level of engagement comparable to that found during the Battle World campaign ended with KING Art raising over $171k. Monthly backer updates after the campaign continued right up until the game was released in mid February 2015, a couple weeks after the originally intended date. The fact that chapters of the game started trickling out to backers of the game as early as September 2014 means that many backers had less than a 6 month time-span from backing to playing. That’s impressive.
Book of Unwritten Tales 2
Now KING Art is back with another Kickstarter. This time it’s for a beautiful looking action RPG called The Dwarves that we teased last week. All of the things you would expect from a KING Art Kickstarter are there: gameplay packed trailer, tons of game imagery, and plenty of info to review. I won’t get into a ton of details regarding the gameplay, lore, and technical whiz-bangs being promised in The Dwarves, you should check it out yourself.
We don’t officially endorse individual Kickstarter campaigns here on Cliqist, it’s more of an implied thing, so I’m not going to say anything like “back The Dwarves now!!!11!” You should know, though, that I’m putting my money on it. When I take a look at what’s being advertised, and given the past performance of KING Art, I feel comfortable dropping some cash on it.
I’m not rambling about KING Art because they’re perfect in every way, because they’re not. They also didn’t pay me to write this love letter. I’m singing their praises because they represent what I’d like to see in every Kickstarter: a developer that runs compelling and engaging campaigns for diverse games that has reasonable funding goals, values backers before and after they get their money, and delivers on their promises. If only everyone met those expectations as consistently as KING Art.
Track the progress of The Dwarves Kickstarter in our Campaign Calendar.
