Keynote the Defense Grid 2 Kickstarter

The Defense Grid 2 kickstarter was a good way to start the conference. Many high profile funding ventures have been funded through kickstarter such as Double Fine Adventure, Planetary Annihilation, Wasteland 2, even the Ouya android game console. This has created a lot of wonder and skepticism through the game development community. The presentation denoted a bunch of interesting points about kickstarters from the Defense Grid 2 ‘s more modest experience.

Word of Warning
The first major point was that KickStarter is not in any way easier than getting funding from a publisher. Most Kickstarters are not successful, like 97% are not successful. However, your odds double to a 6% chance of meeting your funding goal if you try to get less than 20K $.

Pledges
However, there are ways to improve your odds. A good pitch video (with good audio), multiple pledge tiers, limited pledge tiers (ie an early bird special) pledges that get you something instantly.
Be specific with what people get with your pledges. Decimals and commas mean different things in different countries. People will not read your FAQ.

So shipping merchandise and items to people who pledged also costs money. The suggestion is that this should be around 10-20% of the price of a pledge (Kickstarter take 10% of your pledges, so you lose 20-30% of this pledge).

Kickstarter is a service that handles donations, not shipping, not distribution, not getting your stuff to the people who pledge. There are “Pick and Pack” groups that will handle this for a price. (from other panels on kickstarter I know there are stories of people who do this themselves. this is a good way to alienate your friends)

Defense Grid 2 team actually wrote a program that parsed the website to give out beta keys to their previous game (and Kickstarter was ok with this).

While this seems like a lot of work it is necessary; Giving pledges some sort of instant gratification was noted as a reason for success. Also donations of hardware and a PR firm also helped.

Getting the word out
Marketing and getting the word out about your game isn't easy! Contacted EEDAR regarding when they should try to run this Kickstarter for maximum press. Basically the 2 weeks on either side of E3 is a bad time to release new stuff.

The press also do not want to do a story on a Kickstarter, they want to do a story on a game. Remember it’s not about the Kickstarter it’s about the game.

A news story will energize your kickstarter for Hours. A big article can bring in a several thousand dollars into your kickstarter.

Did you know that if you pay people a salary you are a rich developer? This is what people think, so unless you are living on a ramen budget in the room above your parents garage you are going to be seen as rich.

Keep things simple. People don't want to hear your complex funding strategy or get a 101 course in running a business. have a simple strategy people can see.

Part 2 
This blog post is finished up here:
http://tommyhanusagames.blogspot.com/2012/09/keynote-defense-grid-2-kickstarter-pt2.html
Comment if you have any ideas about how you want to see my notes!