How not to launch a Kickstarter

A post mortem of a Kickstarter that failed in less than 20 hours

Written By: Christian Sparks

This is an excerpt from a blog post that I wrote detailing why I cancelled a Kickstarter for my game after a little less than a day. I’m sharing it here in the hopes that someone else considering launching a crowdfunding campaign of their own may find my experience informational and help them to make better choices leading to a successful funding.

Yesterday I launched a Kickstarter project for Woodbound. Today I am cancelling it. This will be hilarious to some, expected from others, and disappointing to the few who backed the project. To that last demographic, I want to give you my most sincere thanks. To the others, I want to thank you for the feedback and comments, which have been almost universally kind, even when they have been suggestions and criticisms.

Why did I try Kickstarter?

Someone asked me this and then immediately inferred that I, “need to be ready and expect to make real, genuine, heartbreaking sacrifices if [I] want to do this.” While the rest of their comment was very constructive and seemed to be coming from a place of attempting to steer me in the right direction, I fear I may have failed to communicate something that was one of the main reasons I tried Kickstarter.

I am working on Woodbound in the off-hours of my day job, something that many developers do. Working 40 hours a week, and then finding time to work on a game, is very difficult. In addition to my full time job, I have two young children and a wife who need my time and attention, and I will not cut away from that in pursuit of releasing a game, it’s just something I refuse to do. If the real and heartbreaking sacrifices I should be required to make in order to fund my project include neglecting my wife and children, then the expectations of potential backers and buyers and supporters of indie developers are far too high and have failed the industry as a whole. I don’t think that this was what the person was referring to when they made their comment, I believe they were thinking more along the lines of self-sacrifice, mainly monetary, which is an entirely different story. However, my main reason for searching for funding was to be able to work on Woodbound in place of my day job (same for my partner) and so I’d have had to have replaced my income for a year in order to safely quit my job and not destitute myself and my family and my partner and his family.

In addition to my full time job, my kids, and my wife, I’ve taken on several technical art jobs in order to try and save money towards a full time development campaign without Kickstarter. This leaves me having to meet numerous deadlines around a packed schedule as it is, and erases any time I’d normally have to actually work on getting Woodbound closer to completion. So in trying to raise money to have more time to work on Woodbound, I’ve robbed myself of time to work on Woodbound. Funding from Kickstarter that I’ve been trying to save on my own would have allowed me to get Woodbound done that much faster, and also alleviated a tremendous amount of stress that I’ve taken on in pursuit of this. This is, to me, the kind of sacrifice that I’ve made so far in pursuit of Woodbound, and whether or not that should be deemed, “fitting for funding,” seems too subjective for me to safely comment on, but I feel it’s worth noting as an explanation.

Why am I cancelling the Kickstarter so soon?

It’s been less than 24 hours since I’ve launched my Kickstarter, so it probably looks pretty shitty that I’m cancelling it already. My thought process behind it goes further than, “I’m not tracking to make enough donations in time.” (Which is true and does play a part.)

I have, again, received a lot of criticism, largely constructive, on my Kickstarter page, the trailer, and the project itself. All in all, it is too early for me to be approaching this avenue for funding, and I’m doing more harm than good for my project and my reputation by having it up. Many of the features outlined in the game’s description are not featured in the trailer, because they’re not finished, as finishing takes time and resources that I don’t have because I’m trying to get funding to be able to work on them which takes time away from working on them. Showing the vision and mood of the game was my intention, with the hopes that people would see where I want to take the game, and why I need the funding that I need. However, based on the response that I’ve gotten, I’ve failed to convey that in a meaningful enough way to have people feel comfortable donating their money to this cause. I have no resentment towards the people who didn’t want to donate, and I greatly appreciate those who have taken the time out of their lives to list out why they weren’t. This feedback is invaluable to me, as it is helping me to understand more what potential supporters would prefer to see in a project. Overall, though, it seems that I’m hurting myself and Woodbound by keeping the Kickstarter active.

Is Woodbound cancelled?

No, absolutely not. We will continue to work on Woodbound as hard as we can, and you will see it again. I’ve learned a lot in the last 19ish hours, but the main thing that stands out is that I need to focus more on my passion for Woodbound before presenting it, instead of focusing on how I can afford to make it. Building it out through all the stress and bills and obligations so that it can be finished, rather than funded, will yield the best result that people will (hopefully) respond to the most, and will help me to better convey what I want Woodbound to be.

Will there be another Kickstarter?

I don’t know. I don’t have any plan outlined for when another Kickstarter will be launched. My main plans include iterating on and adding more features so that I can showcase the game for what I want it to be, rather than as a bargaining chip for funding. Kickstarter is a cool platform, but it has this way of skewing priorities (at least it did for me) away from funneling passions into a tangible item and more towards funneling passions towards money. It’s clear to me that the people who run successful Kickstarters are (for the most part) the ones who don’t fall into that trap, and maintain their artistic integrity and vision throughout the process. Sadly, in my race to get to the race, so to speak, I lost sight of that, and have failed in my attempt to present Woodbound to the world for what it should be.

Parting words

I just want to give a round of thanks again to everyone who donated, retweeted, liked, shared, subscribed, and commented on/for/to Woodbound’s Kickstarter and the trailer for it. It is a very thick silver lining to a fairly large failure on my part, and it helps me to see where I can improve in the future, and use this as a lesson instead of a source of stress or regret.

Cheers,

-C