Kickstarter has been internationally acclaimed and is getting massive coverage from fans and the media alike. But how do you use this site to make your gaming career a success?
We love Kickstarter here at Nerd Age, where else could all these independent developers get their start? In this guide we are going to give you some bullet points to help you out when you decide to get your game funded. While we will not be pointing out mistakes made by individuals, we will be pointing out good examples. While each of these tips can make your game, if you make a mistake on one it can be made up for by the other two.
- Your alpha and beta are valuable: 10$ should be the minimum you want to charge, unless you don’t care about your Kickstarter succeeding. From our research, people will pay up to $25 for a alpha or beta of a game they enjoy. A safe price is between $15 and $20.
- Success Story: Blade Symphony– set their game and testing at $20. Result? Overfunded.
- Interact well with the media: Be sure to let the media know about your game. We love covering Kickstarter candidates, but you can also try Gamesutra’s indie games site. You can also try with bigger sites like Kotaku, but that will mostly come down to luck. There are also tons of smaller blogs that will be interested in covering you.
- Success Story: Octodad 2– the Octodad staff loves giving high quality interviews to various sites, they do them often and well. Result? Overfunded.
- Get someone in the indie community to speak up for you: This can be relatively easy and extremely useful. The most common and effective person who does this is “Notch“. His endorsement can make your game a huge success, as he has well over 100,000 people who keep an eye on him. But don’t be shy on looking for other people in the industry. If you have an FPS, you might ask around at Tripwire for example.
- Success Story: Lords of the Uberdark– Aaron Bishop got his game mentioned by Notch on Notch’s twitter. This gave him a ton of funding, and even more funding every time he was mentioned again. Result? Overfunded.
That wraps up this edition of Kickstarter tips. We hope to bring you even more helpful information in later editions. We may even compile them all at some point and make an E-book for you.
