Ever since Double Fine raised millions of dollars for their Kickstarter campaign last year, the site has become a popular breeding ground for indie development crowdfunding. But Thomas Bidaux, CEO at ICO Partners, wanted to know just how successful Kickstarter is and has finally revealing his data analysis during the Independent Games Summit at 2013 Game Developers Conference.
The short answer? Only 30% of Kickstarter campaigns for video games reached their goal in 2012, which means that well more than half of the pending projects weren’t funded at all, with pledges promptly returned once their time limit was reached. And from among those successful 30%, only a fraction of them actually came out with a delivered product so far. So the true success rate will likely be even lower than that.
That said, Bidaux highlighted several factors that contribute to a fully funded Kickstarter campaign. First, it needs to set the right goal, not aiming so high that people become skeptical that the set price point will ever be reached. Having an existing fan base and PR reach helps tremendously, as most donators are impressed by campaigns that collect a substantial percetnage of their goal within the first three days. They want to invest in an ultimately successful campaign, after all.