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My (positive!) experience with KickStarter

... and Global GameSpace is live on KickStarter! (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/468008685/global-gamespace - please check it out!)

The KickStarter approval process has changed a bit since I last looked into it about six months ago though, and I think it's worth posting a couple of things that I stumbled over that I'd like to share:

1. You actually need to have everything for your page in order before you can submit your application. This includes your video (Everyone says you don't need one, but it's really fairly standard anymore), reward plan, and backing levels.

2. After submission, I spent about a week of back and forth with my reviewer regarding my "how I'll spend the funds" section (which you will note is now absent). My project is a software based one, and I assume that most of my potential backers won't really be familiar with the actual cost breakdown of developing such things. While KickStarter makes a point about encouraging "transparency" in projects, some categories of cost (notably "taxes" and "hosting") were deemed confusing, and I was encouraged to group everything into three groups: KickStarter/Amazon fees, rewards fulfillment, and development costs. In a project like mine which will create a free software package and service, the lion's share ends up being in that last category. This would probably be a smaller issue for anyone making a physical object for sale.

3. Once your project is approved, you're pretty much given free reign - this I really like. You can generate a temporary "preview" link to pass around to your friends, and deactivate that link by generating a new one at any time. Also, launching your project really takes only a few seconds once you click "launch", and you can start receiving backers immediately.

4. The nit I have with the actual launch process is that you can't really start advertising IMMEDIATELY. To create an online ad, you'll need to know the URL the ad should link to, and it wasn't clear to me what my final project address was going to be until I actually launched it. If you do your online advertising through a completely automated system like Project Wonderful or Google Ads, this doesn't delay you all that much, but I like to have everything set up in advance. Also, there could be a delay if you have to work through an actual person (though Chad here at BGG was awesome, and jumped on my stuff immediately).

Well, those are my thoughts on the process. Pretty painless, I'd say. Except for the part where the internet judges me, I suppose. I hope it helps give someone else confidence to try their own thing!

(Oh, and please check out Global GameSpace: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/468008685/global-gamespace - whether you're a player, designer, or marketer, I think you'll like this!)

Comments

Heya Curtis! 45k seems high

Heya Curtis!

45k seems high to me especially as people aren't getting anything tangible in their hands.

But your license seems fantastic, and lord knows it will be used when it comes out :)

Perhaps you could try and rally some support by waving the "creative commons license" (or whatever it is) to some gaming news sites around the internet.

Hope it goes well for you buddy!

sam

I'm very interested in this

I'm very interested in this because I was considering building it myself for my site, Avalaunch.

However, someone else recently posted this:
http://www.bgdf.com/node/6405

Apparently Table Top Studios is going into beta with a product that sounds really similar to what you're hoping to build.

Here's a video showcasing the playtesting of one game using their system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMhExbLtkNQ&feature=relmfu

I know it's a lot...

Hi Sam! The license is a slightly modified version of the "MIT License", and while I wish I could claim credit for it, it's not really all that new. It's by far my favorite open source license because it really encapsulates the "here, I hope you like this, do what you like" mentality that I feel like really encourages innovation.

As for the cost, I've got a complete spending breakdown on my blog: http://www.globalgamespace.org/index.php/blog/ggs-on-kickstarter/

I originally had it in the project page and my Kickstarter reviewer felt it was confusing. I'm really thinking of putting it back in, though.

curtis.lacy wrote:I

curtis.lacy wrote:
I originally had it in the project page and my Kickstarter reviewer felt it was confusing. I'm really thinking of putting it back in, though.

45K will be a hard goal to reach. Knowing where the money is going to will help.

Not to be a naysayer, but

Not to be a naysayer, but those costs seem way out of whack. 16% of 45k= 7200 for hosting? Seriously? Do you anticipate the need for a 68 GB cache database or what am I missing? That seems insane.

Also, 33% tax? It seems you're forgetting that you get to subtract your costs and only pay tax on the difference. Income = 45k. Costs = 7200 hosting + 4050 ks/amazon fees + 6750 rewards + couple hundred in miscellaneous developer expenses = a little over 18k. 45k-18k= 27k max taxable amount. assuming 33% to taxes, that's only 9k, not the 15k you're setting aside for taxes.

They're pessimistic estimates, and may be high

I've tried to be pretty pessimistic as far as cost estimates go, and any extra money just means I can put more time into the project and add features and refinement. I'd much rather aim high and fail to fund than aim low and not be able to deliver what I promised.

The hosting costs are for both development, and a year+ of live service to keep things up.
If usage is low, especially at the beginning, then a lot of things these things may not be necessary, but a the hosting costs can add up quickly;

Heroku monthly costs:
2 Web Dynos/2 Worker Dynos: $122/mo
Shared DB, 5MB: free, 20GB: $20/mo.
If a dedicated DB is needed, $200/mo (1.6GB cache)
WebSocket support (for realtime data pushing during games): $19-$50+/mo (Or more depending on usage).

That's potentially $4464 for a year of hosting for the app itself.

The rest of the hosting is actually the cost of large-scale webinar support for the live status telecons. I want to include as many backers in those as possible, and services like GoToWebinar get much more expensive once you pass a hundred attendees. Probably that many people won't actually want to attend live status presentations, in which case it's either more features I can add (integration with Google Hangouts for video chat?) or just a longer period of time to keep the service up after it's finished.

Also, the tax rate ends up being considerably higher, since as an LLC I'll need to retain social security tax as well. Given the legal risk associated with allowing users to upload things they've scanned themselves, doing this as an unincorporated entity (and thus being elgible for a 33% income tax rate) seems imprudent. Nonetheless, there's some excess in there. What doesn't get spent at tax time will go into sustaining the live service.

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blog | by Dr. Radut