This seems to be the closest thing we have to an active “Kickstarter” discussion topic so I’ll drop this here:
Really interesting post mortem of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Hopefully the INovae team are reading as many of these types of articles as they can find.
Very nice, obviously a very well thought out campaign there. Over the past week I’ve been wondering if there is much that we (the community) can do to help promote the kickstarter launch, beyond helping spread the word through whatever other communities we are members of. Obviously almost all the heavy lifting has to be done by the I-Novae team, contacting press, producing the video(s), writing the updates posts etc. but if there is anything that I can do to help then I am going to want to do it.
So the most pertinent part of the article for me was the fact that day 1 backers can have a significant impact on the rest of the campaign and is when an existing fan base can probably make the most difference. If we all pledge high and early that should help generate confidence in the campaign and give a new audience more reason to pledge too.
Is there anything else I can do to help make the KS a success?
some kickstarter related stats and tips.
For a video that’s supposed to be informative all it did was annoy me. Just a bunch of pre canned state the obvious “facts” thrown in your face with no actual analysis… bleh.
They are still facts and not always known. The aim is only to make a quick presentation and give a warning: even small projects can heavily fail.
As to analysis / statistics, it would take a long video to show anything of interest. The KS context can have a great importance as well ; so it’s better to pick the successful examples and study them yourselves, as there can be no “miraculous magic trick”.
I can understand that for someone who knows nothing about kickstarter it will give you the gist of it, but it’s not all that useful for this audience. Also half my problem with the video was just the irritating narrator, could not stand him or the music.
I’m glad I didn’t watch it with sound then.
Why would you think it’s supposed to be informative? It says “Infographics” right there in the title.
Edit: Put some update messages in to give some more information.
Oh neat… That means Strafe is officially the first thing on kicstarter I’ve helped fund. (thanks to you for posting about it yesterday). That last minute release of a playable level made all the difference it seems.
Something happened there just after your “We’re gonna make it” tag, by the looks of the daily data, that is when a lot of pledgers increased their pledge level. Could have even been the staff and family members putting their savings on the line. I would say that was the turning point.
A very close KS that followed the OP pattern in any case…
A though occurred to me regarding the I:B Kickstarter, long time followers of Infinity should try to skip early bird tiers. I think I-Novae even should do some persuasion not to take them in the first newsletter email at least until the middle of the campaign. Since the early bird tiers are best to be left for people that haven’t heard of Infinity.
More so if when people pledge enough for the limited “early bird” tier, but later raise the pledge beyond that tier, does the early pledge count or will it free up even sold out? This isn’t mentioned on the Kickstarter FAQ.
I think they become available as people change tiers and it’s even possible to add new tiers during the campaign, however changing or removing existing tiers is not allowed.
If all you contribute to I-Novae and the Kickstarter is awareness and helping to grow the community then you’ve already done a great service.
As you identified in your post, day one backers have a huge impact on the campaign. It makes sense then that the more backers there are on day one the greater the chances of successful funding. How do we get more day one backers? By growing the community.
So your contribution looks like this:
The_Sane + promotion/community building = more day one backers = successful KS funding.
In other words, TheSane = successful KS funding, or something like that. 
The pledge level has actually gone down, which to me indicates that you’re probably right. Now that the goal is met its safe for them to withdraw the extra funding they used to bump confidence in the project.
Edit: Or maybe that’s usual for a project? Do some backers decided to cancel a pledge once its reached its goal… knowing that they can buy it when its finished without risking any money now.
There is a loophole in KS that can be exploited to bump a project into a success. You can pledge $1k while only having $100 on your card and as KS only bills you upon a successful project completion, the pledge is still counted, yet the money is never recovered. KS doesn’t reserve/check the funds on the pledger’s account.
A “honest” way of manipulating the KS is for devs or family members to pledge very high amounts and after the project is funded they get paid back their money by the company, directly or indirectly.
Of course this kind of manipulation is no good if these “fake” contributions make up a large proportion of your KS goal, as you just won’t get the money to make the game, it can be useful for bumping the project into a success though.
They would still lose a chunk of that money from the cut Kickstarter takes, so if the goal is met it would be more efficient to reduce the pledge first. In the case of Strafe if they do need to repay any ‘artificial bump’ money after the fact they probably won’t be left short themselves as they will be running a PayPal campaign (same rewards) for stretch goals.
When there is a choice of failing a KS and getting nothing or manipulating $50k worth of pledges to get $450k from the total of $500k. The question becomes more a moral one than logical.
Oh, you are talking about post decision to manipulate, yes there are ways to make it cleaner 
That would kind of defeat the purpose of asking for money in the first place. Even you said, it wouldn’t bring in money needed to make the game.
[quote=“cybercritic, post:38, topic:688”]
When there is a choice of failing a KS and getting nothing or manipulating $50k worth of pledges to get $450k from the total of $500k.
[/quote] Point well taken except the numbers you provide as an example. I could see placing up to a couple percent but not 10% of what’s needed.
It would bring in most of the money needed to make the game as opposed to nothing.
We are talking about crooked behavior here, what about 25% or 50%. Guys might have a strategy that will enable them to work for less or maybe failing the KS is not an option and anything is on the table…