The average campaign raised $65,418 compared to video games’ $48,184
Polygon managed to get some hard data from Kickstarter in the games sector, and it’s pretty illuminating.
After being burned in the past so many times by video game Kickstarters, fans seemingly started to get burnt out on the idea of over-zealously crowdfunding. Although the amount of average funding grew a bit from $45,360 in 2016 to $48,184 in 2017 (marginal gains), the average in 2015, arguably right before the fail-bubble burst, was $110,962.
The tabletop scene has avoided that dark cloud however, and is responsible for most of the 30% overall growth in the game category on Kickstarter. It was up to $65,418 this year from $59, 181 in 2016.
What’s the reason for this growth? Although there have been some snafus like late orders or shipments that have cleared retailers before backers, tabletop Kickstarters are in a better position to generally deliver what’s promised, especially if they show prototype designs in the campaign itself.
They also have decades of board game marketing, development, and expertise to draw upon — and don’t go overboard with backer rewards. Often times in the realm of video game crowdfunding studios will undertake their first ever big budget project and become completely overwhelmed, whereas board game development can operate at a more tempered pace, almost functioning like a pure pre-order mechanism.
Tabletop games are exploding on Kickstarter, video games are flat[Polygon]
