The Ultimate Guide To Successfully Crowdfunding A Game
Tips and insights for launching a game from Jamey Stegmaier and the TTS Blog!
Ask any board game developer, regardless of the size or level of company establishment, they will include crowdfunding as a key factor in game launch success. Sites like Kickstarter are more popular than ever and have quickly become a staple of the board game development process. And, with independent game production and tabletop-centered Kickstarter campaigns reaching all time highs, crowdfunding shows no signs of losing its importance. So, we thought it was about time that we here at the TTS blog take a look at this crucial method.
Everyone, from tabletop designers, developers, publishers and artists to gamers, both casual and enthusiasts, can take part in the unique space of crowdfunding. And these diverse groups will always play different yet equally pivotal roles in both the successes and failures of a game launch. To help examine the process of crowdfunding and make sure anyone reading this is set to run a winning Kickstarter, the TTS blog reached out to the board game icon, Jamey Stegmaier. Stegmaier is the mastermind behind such tabletop classics as Viticulture and Scythe (that are available as DLCs on Tabletop Simulator!). In addition to being the president and founding partner of Stonemaier Games, he is also a blogger and the author of the fantastic book, A Crowdfunders Strategy Guide (available on audible too!), a work that covers everything about crowdfunding, from idea to launch. So, without further ado let's dive into our talk with Jamey Stegmaier where he shares his thoughts, insights and suggestions for your next crowdfunding undertaking!
First, let's look at Jamey’s comprehensive guide, its big ideas, its most essential advice, and how you can use it to find success in your next crowdfunding venture.
The creation of A Crowdfunders Strategy Guide started with a subject that may be a little familiar to us, blogging! As the mastermind behind several successfully crowdfunded board game projects, Jamey turned his expertise towards others by blogging about his experiences and advice regarding Kickstarter. This online medium, with a little help from a literary agent, became the perfect springboard to write a crowdfunding guide book that balances practical advice with personal narratives from a seasoned Kickstarter veteran. This approach proved to be a winning one, as his book, A Crowdfunders Strategy Guide became a cornerstone to anyone looking to crowdfund victoriously. In many ways, Jamey’s journey to writing this book is not unlike the journey of a creator starting out on a crowdfunding campaign: it is a process and a series of steps that involves strategy, patience, advice from a community, packaged together with a unique and personal touch.
This multi-component game plan is key to successful crowdfunding. In fact, when we asked Jamey what the single most important piece of crowdfunding advice he could give was: he was quick to point out that, “if you’re looking for a single piece of crowdfunding advice instead of deeply researching and planning a project, try something other than crowdfunding.” A campaign’s foundation of in-depth, thorough research and thoughtful, intentional planning needs to be further broken down to ensure no crucial elements are missed along the road to launching. For example, one of the all too often overlooked components of successful crowdfunding is building a community. This is perhaps best exemplified by A Crowdfunders Strategy Guide’s subtitle: “Build a better business by building community.” While the importance of this may not be intuitive (Jamey himself only discovered this central theme through the writing process), crowdfunding is inherently built on some type of community of support. Especially in a hobby as community-heavy as board games, Kickstarting successfully will always rely on the smart and committed cultivation of the “crowd” in “crowdfunding”.
Building on Jamey’s early project key factors, research and community building, let's get into some specific crowdfunding advice, from both Jamey and his book!
Career and Crowdfunding:
People can enter the world of crowdfunding from a number of different places, and in a lot of ways, it is that very flexibility that makes places like Kickstarter revolutionary. In other words, crowdfunding can be for the risk averse as well as the leap-of-faith types, for those who are first broaching a career change, or those looking for a side hustle. Jamey personally advocates for the more reserved entry. He emphasized how safe a bet it can be, “I’d recommend keeping your day job while you try crowdfunding. If it works for you and the things you create become sustainable (you’re selling them consistently through multiple types of vendors, not just Kickstarter), then you could try to make it your full-time job.” Yet, despite the different entry philosophies, the ability to “get into” crowdfunding ultimately comes down to a few key factors, execution and outreach.
The importance of execution is perhaps best summed up by Jamey’s response to our question, “Is it possible to know if you have a “winning idea/project?” He pointed out that this might not be the right question to ask, saying, “I think the key is that the quality of an idea is completely irrelevant. It’s your ability to execute that idea and make it a reality that matters. Then you have something real you can share and discuss (or try to raise funds for) to see if it’s something other people want.” In other words, effectively using the crowdfunding space matters far more than what you are using it for. At the end of the day, strategy, community, and connection far outweighs content. This brings us to another key component of successful crowdfunding. Jamey told us about the early tension between the idea of a “passion project” and running a successful Kickstarter campaign, “I was really focused on bringing my passion project to life—it was all about me. But when I actually launched Viticulture in 2012 and random people started backing it, I realized that the project wasn’t about me at all. It was about creating something awesome for those other people.” Outreach, an external focus, ultimately helps bring success to a crowdfunding project. While it seems intuitive to say that prioritizing the very people whose investment you need is essential, this crowdfunding pillar can be overshadowed by the ideas of a single creative mind and a passion for a product. At the end of the day, the very term “crowdfunding” bears out this essential strategy. You are not operating in a vacuum, you are operating in a crowd, and you need to ensure that your campaign reflects that.
With those key lessons laid out, let's take a look at the state of crowdfunding today, especially for board games!
The State of Play of Play
Without a doubt, the crowdfunding landscape has shifted since Jamey Stegmaier published A Crowdfunders Strategy Guide in 2015. In addition to the simple year-over-year increase of Kickstarter campaigns as well as the rise in tabletop game projects, last year’s pandemic shifted the landscape radically and irreversibly. As people moved inside and apart, board game creation began to rely more on digital alternatives like Tabletop Simulator. Our deep dive on covid driving board game digitalization in addition to the pandemic’s impact on the larger board game industry can be found here- One Year Later Later: Covid and The Future of Virtual Gaming. In our last edition of Beyond The Board, we discussed how the past few years have grown the space that board games take in our lives and in the media. But, tabletop games’ expansion is not limited to just these two spaces, in fact, their business models and strategies have also evolved steadily and then rapidly in 2020 as well. This can partially be attributed to the high concentration of board games in the crowdfunding space. The spike in independent, crowdfunded games has added volume and diversity to the community of a hobby that relies on in-person interactions.
Speaking about crowdfunding broadly, Jamey shared how, despite outside factors, the key components he teaches in his book stand the test of time and circumstance and have become more relevant than ever. Even with a more crowded yet more visible and far-reaching crowdfunding landscape, “the core philosophies all still work for me today just as they did when the book was released.” Even in the face of a global pandemic and the resultant spike in tabletop gaming-focused Kickstarter campaigns, “the core principles of putting your backers/customers first and focusing on the value you’re adding to other people are relevant just as much—if not more.”
Scythe on Tabletop Simulator
A Great Example
The final and perhaps most important thing to recognize about the world of crowdfunding is its potential. Though this form of financing is relatively new, it has already shown the ability to disrupt industries, create opportunities for the independent creator, and change lives. And, while we like to focus on how it enables wonderful board game innovation and accessibility, sites like Kickstarter are becoming a go-to tool for anyone looking for a little creative funding, from those looking for a quick side hustle to those striving for a career pivot. Perhaps no one represents this potential more than Jamey himself. Despite being an undisputed crowdfunding expert, he hasn’t used Kickstarter since completing his campaign for Scythe in 2015. I’ll let him explain why:
“I actually stopped using crowdfunding back in 2015 (Scythe was my final project)...The method we’ve switched to is that we create a new product, manufacture enough for us to sell directly and to sell to distributors/retailers, ship it to fulfillment centers, announce it to the world, and then accept pre-orders and start shipping the product a few weeks later.”
In this way, his business model changed from the traditional Kickstarter-first startup to that of a standard game developer. He went on:
“The result is over $50 million in revenue since 2015 compared to $3.2 million raised on Kickstarter over 7 projects. I say that not to boast, but rather to show that crowdfunding really can launch a company.”
And that is what is fundamentally game-changing about crowdfunding, it's flexible. It can be anything from financing small ideas to launching a massively successful company. And while there is no “right way” to crowdfund, we hope this analysis will give you a few pointers on how to make your next project-whatever the size, whatever the goal-a success!
