1 – People have less money!
Formicarium failed to convince people to part with the little expendable income they had left in the holidays.
This is short and sweet (and quite frankly: obvious!) During the holidays, people are spending their cash on gifts, outfits, travel, and heck, candy. Because of that, potential backers lack expendable cash. This brings me to my next point—
2 – “Quick” does NOT equal “instant.”
Let’s say people DO buy the occasional thing for themselves while shopping. I do it! Who can resist all those deals? But what comes with that is a yearning for the now. When we buy some cool goodie, we want to enjoy it as soon as possible. Crowdfunding campaigns aren’t about that. They are promises for the future. Even if you can get a quick turn-around, chances are, if you can’t get your game out to backers before the holidays, you’re better off avoiding that promise.
3 – High competition for visibility.
When I say this, I don’t mean on crowdfunding sites, but rather, the Internet at large. There are lots of things competing for people’s attention during this time. Cyber sales, charity campaigns, clever holiday products—so much is out there pulling people away from your campaign. Spending too much money on ads is sort of counterintuitive to the whole “raising money” thing, and even when you have influential sources singing your praises you can still get lost in the noise.
Johnny Rocketfingers failed despite good press due in part to a large funding goal.
4 – “Large funding goals” take on new meaning.
Okay, okay. So you have to fund during the holidays. Well guess what? You don’t have to do it all at once! I’ve seen several holiday campaigns attempt to do an all-or-nothing style, and usually they end up with nothing at all. We have stated it before here on Cliqist, but multiple campaigns are effective. It isn’t as if holiday campaigns don’t get any backers. They do. But you’re far more likely to get things going if you keep your funding goals modest and realistic during the holidays. And remember—what might have been manageable during spring and summer might be harder to do during the end of the year.
Now there are often other reasons that campaigns fail. Sometimes, it can be a game developer’s reputation (or lack thereof). It could be because of lackluster backer rewards, a poor game concept, or an incoherent campaign write-up. But campaigns like Kriophobia, Formicarum, and Johnny Rocketfingers failed primarily for the reasons listed above. Heed our warning! Avoid campaigning during the holidays.
It’s amazing how much common sense should go into timing for a campaign, but the developers do it anyway. Not everybody can pull off a successful campaign during the last quarter of the year.
This is true! Some developers feel they have no choice, which was part of the reason we wanted this to go up earlier in the year–so that maybe indie devs can be reminded to plan ahead.