More_Badass
Member
Past one million! Racial skills are in
Now thirty days to reach $2M
Now thirty days to reach $2M
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Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Kickstarter: Divinity: Original Sin 2 [Over, $2 million funded]
- Thread starter hemtae
- Start date
Crazy_maniac
Member
Did you manage to see how many viewers there were? I wonder how many people saw me fail at being a dwarf...
Also wooot 1 million!!!
Around 2500+ at the time.
charlequin
Banned
Yeah, stuff like day/night cycles can be very cool, but I don't think it's one of those features that just automatically makes games better. The naive implementation just makes things obnoxious because it's harder to find NPCs, without adding anything in particular to the gameplay.
Now that said, if anyone was going to do a good job, I'd believe it could be Larian. I can imagine a D:OS pretty easily where stealth changes at night, different quests have alternate ways of being completed only at night, etc. But I also believe them if they say it's too much work for not enough benefit.
Iced_Eagle
Member
Not sure if it was posted, but in a preview with Gamestop they mention that the game is more likely to get released in 2017 than the end of 2016 due to the success of their Kickstarter and needing to take the time to implement the stretch goals.
Source (@ 2:05): http://www.gamespot.com/videos/divinity-original-sin-ii-first-look/2300-6426761/
I'm perfectly okay with this since I'd rather have the time taken to do it right!
Source (@ 2:05): http://www.gamespot.com/videos/divinity-original-sin-ii-first-look/2300-6426761/
I'm perfectly okay with this since I'd rather have the time taken to do it right!
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
That's probably the single most memorable line in the entire game.
And no day/night and NPC cycles is confirmed? Disappointing, but I guess it should have been expected.
Amazon has the end of october.
ElectricThunder
Member
The issue, it seems to me, with the day-night/NPC thing has to do with the vocal minority "consumer" base being ignorantly cocksure, natch, with accepting nothing less than equivalent to or better than blasted Ultima VII with an endless, burning grudge of "scam" if their precious dollars didn't manifest just so---regardless of the many, many reasons why that was a special case within various special cases. I mean, where were all the champions of such a tremendously difficult, all-consuming feat back when the Balrum Kickstarter was afoot and now while they still slog necessarily slowly ahead? If Larian could just get away with starting from a saner, modest benchmark and taking it from there like, say, the older 2D Dragon Quest games...which should be plenty to satisfy the actual enthusiast playerbase that has made even a token effort to understand fundamentals of the art of sausage making---I'm sure they'd manage just fine.
Larian is doing their level best, and oft at greater risk to themselves than is sane, to put out some excellent RPGs in pursuit of the spirit of the thing---they learn and grow as they do, occasionally netting surprises, but aren't really a machine you can just put enough Consumer Coins into until they pop out nostalgia incarnate and then some while thanking folks for badgering them with a money stick afterwards.
Larian is doing their level best, and oft at greater risk to themselves than is sane, to put out some excellent RPGs in pursuit of the spirit of the thing---they learn and grow as they do, occasionally netting surprises, but aren't really a machine you can just put enough Consumer Coins into until they pop out nostalgia incarnate and then some while thanking folks for badgering them with a money stick afterwards.
LurkerPrime
Member
Yeah, don't listen to the money or mere vocal minorities. Listen to the people.
Have some faith in Larian. As I recall they narrowly missed the Day/Night stretch goal, technically could have hit it with extra funding or something, but ended up deciding against including it at all due to the huge feature creep and extra dev time it would entail. And ultimately we ended up with one of the freshest and best RPGs in well over a decade. More than anything else, Larian has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're capable and level-headed developers; their Kickstarter, Early Access, and now post-release handling are all showing these qualities in spades.
Will be interesting to see how it's ratio compares to the other high funded games of this year.
Considering the picture above, the worst case scenario (biggest, fastest drop) is probably Bard's Tale IV, while Pillars had the most balanced campaign (as Durante pointed out lol ) along with Bloodstained.
D:OS II made ~975k in it's first 3 days, so worst case scenario they make ~$1,477,000.
Best case scenario is Mighty No.9 (lowest percentage in the first 3 days), which is nothing like this game, but for the sake of testing: $3,250,000.
But then again, this is an established franchised and a sequel to a successful (the most successful KS RPG so far), highly praised game with plenty of content and media exposure already. I don't think there's a similar case with a CRPG on Kickstarter, so it's hard to tell. The exposure probably means it won't gain as much traction in the middle days because a lot of people know about it already.
Assuming none of the upcoming stretch goals blow people's minds (although they're pretty good so far), I'd say it'd be closer to Torment than Pillars, so basically more like Wasteland 2, which had ~43% of its funding in the first 3 days.
Anyway, my guess would be $2,400,000.
[More stats]
Average pledge per backer:
Torment: $56
Project Eternity: $54
Wasteland 2: $48
Divinity OS: $48
Divinity OS II: $45
I'll compare Torment: Tides of Numenera and Project Eternity's campaigns to explain what I think Larian should do.
The two projects had basically the same number of backers: 73,986 backers from Project Eternity x 74,405 backers for Torment, the pitch was very similar, the genre was the same and the context for each developer was basically the same, except PoE had a dream team in its description (in theory, at least) and the big names for Torment came as stretch goals.
Torment had merely 84 backers at $1000 and above, while Project Eternity had 183.
Torment earned $186k with them, while Eternity made $274k.
Why? Because the big donor stuff was more interesting, simple as that. With $1k on Eternity you had the backer NPCs. With 5k you could get an inn, tavern or enemy company. The same $5000 pledge to Torment gave you an obelisk. Boring.
Ok, so PoE beat TToN among big donors by almost 100k, how come Torment made 200k more overall?
The B league: $100-1000?
Actually, no:
(I included the $95 tier because that's where it started for TToN and it's just 5 bucks)
That's only a $29,325 advantage for Torment. That means what made the difference for Torment was actually the little guy, who paid less than $95 for it:
Eternity actually had a few more backers there, but Torment made $315,487 more. This is what made the difference in the end.
Eternity had more than 2 times as many "whales" as Torment, made only $30k less than Torment in the $100-1000 range, but lost in the little league.
I think Larian should focus on making the $20-30 folks increase their pledges rather than the more expensive tiers. It doesn't hurt to get more big donors, of course, and they should go after them as well, but in the big picture they don't make that as much of a difference.
One problem with D:OS2 is that people don't have many options below $100. With the early bird $25 pledge gone, Divinity: OS II has only 5 options below $90. Torment had 11 and Eternity had 7. Not to mention the $90 pledge itself doesn't have a lot of value. It's basically a 4-pack with a $10 discount. Each player would have only a $2.50 discount compared to backing the project themselves, yet one person would hold all the keys and pay the money upfront. It's not exactly that easy to get 4 people to commit so long before the game's release either.
They should keep in mind that - according to Steam - only 6.1% of D:OS players have finished the game. How many will finish the sequel in 4-player co-op mode? It's a limited group.
The pledges between $51-80 are also very important, not just the mid $40-50 ones. As is shown above, Torment made 19% of their sub-$100 funding there, at $429k. Eternity, however, made only 16% and $310k.
Considering the difference in the end was $315k, the extra $119k is more than a third of Torment's advantage.
I was looking at the most requested features on uservoice; some of them have been included in the game already, while adult mode and day/night cycle seem to be off the table.
Out of the stretch goals that could make people increase their pledges, I'd say a mod tool and MCA would be the best stretch goals they could add (out of the top suggestions, that is).
Anyway, so what is my conclusion, if I had to give Larian advice?
- Add at least 2 new tiers between $60 and $80.
- Add 1 tier between $30 and $50, if possible.
- Digital soundtrack for every pledge of $50 or more.
- Free copies of the first game in some of these tiers. Even some people who have already played the game would be interested in giving it away, potentially creating another new customer for the sequel. This was very successful for Torment, which gave you Wasteland 2 for $45 or more. 10,271 people, almost 14% of Torment's backers, chose that option.
- MCA as stretch goal. Obvious reasons.
- Mod tool. Good RPG with cool mods, it's hard to think of someone as universally liked as that. I mean, if you don't want them, don't use them, so it doesn't make a difference to people who don't like them, but a lot of people do, and they're a big portion of the players that keeps playing and talking about the game over the years. It adds longevity, more content, happier customers, and so forth. It's a no-brainer. EDIT: As sinatar said, the first game already had it, but I wanted to reinforce its importance. I double checked the KS page and it does mention an improved version of the tool, but I missed it the first couple of times I read the page. It's something pretty rare nowadays, and it's a great feature, deserves more exposure.
- Better expensive tiers for big donors. Yeah, I said above that they didn't make a huge difference, but any extra money is good, right? Eternity got that right and they made almost $100k more than Torment among the big donors. Larian has 20/20 hindsight, they can strive for the best of both worlds.
People like in-game content. At $1k you could get a character in the game. With D:OS 2, gets you a painting of your likeness in-game and a physical copy of it. Cool, I guess, but not nearly as interesting as your own NPC. Not to mention you can already get that in-game painting with the $500 tier. They do have the "all Larian games for 10 years thing", which is really cool, but not your permanent mark in the game. Plus that means what, 4 games, best case scenario? It's not a lot.
$2.5k has no extra in-game stuff, same for $5k. You only get something interesting at $10k, and it's only one "high-ranking NPC". It's no wonder they only have 4 backers paying $1000 or more at the moment. That's 3 at $1000 and 1 at $2500. Big donors need better incentives to pay top dollar. Eternity had NPCs, weapons, items, inns, taverns, enemy companies and so on. That's one thing they got absolutely right, and it's also much more attractive to communites to raise funds, just like the Codex, GameBanshee and NeoGAF did for Project Eternity.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Anyway, this is just my two cents. I'm no game developer or crowdfunding expert, but I think many of the numbers speak for themselves. This took more research than I expected, but I really like Larian and what they're doing, and I wish them great success with the Kickstarter. Besides, who knows, maybe someone there stumbles upon this post and thinks at least some of what I said makes sense.
Average pledge per backer:
Torment: $56
Project Eternity: $54
Wasteland 2: $48
Divinity OS: $48
Divinity OS II: $45
I'll compare Torment: Tides of Numenera and Project Eternity's campaigns to explain what I think Larian should do.
The two projects had basically the same number of backers: 73,986 backers from Project Eternity x 74,405 backers for Torment, the pitch was very similar, the genre was the same and the context for each developer was basically the same, except PoE had a dream team in its description (in theory, at least) and the big names for Torment came as stretch goals.
Torment had merely 84 backers at $1000 and above, while Project Eternity had 183.
Torment earned $186k with them, while Eternity made $274k.
Why? Because the big donor stuff was more interesting, simple as that. With $1k on Eternity you had the backer NPCs. With 5k you could get an inn, tavern or enemy company. The same $5000 pledge to Torment gave you an obelisk. Boring.
Ok, so PoE beat TToN among big donors by almost 100k, how come Torment made 200k more overall?
The B league: $100-1000?
Actually, no:
(I included the $95 tier because that's where it started for TToN and it's just 5 bucks)
That's only a $29,325 advantage for Torment. That means what made the difference for Torment was actually the little guy, who paid less than $95 for it:
Eternity actually had a few more backers there, but Torment made $315,487 more. This is what made the difference in the end.
Eternity had more than 2 times as many "whales" as Torment, made only $30k less than Torment in the $100-1000 range, but lost in the little league.
I think Larian should focus on making the $20-30 folks increase their pledges rather than the more expensive tiers. It doesn't hurt to get more big donors, of course, and they should go after them as well, but in the big picture they don't make that as much of a difference.
One problem with D:OS2 is that people don't have many options below $100. With the early bird $25 pledge gone, Divinity: OS II has only 5 options below $90. Torment had 11 and Eternity had 7. Not to mention the $90 pledge itself doesn't have a lot of value. It's basically a 4-pack with a $10 discount. Each player would have only a $2.50 discount compared to backing the project themselves, yet one person would hold all the keys and pay the money upfront. It's not exactly that easy to get 4 people to commit so long before the game's release either.
They should keep in mind that - according to Steam - only 6.1% of D:OS players have finished the game. How many will finish the sequel in 4-player co-op mode? It's a limited group.
The pledges between $51-80 are also very important, not just the mid $40-50 ones. As is shown above, Torment made 19% of their sub-$100 funding there, at $429k. Eternity, however, made only 16% and $310k.
Considering the difference in the end was $315k, the extra $119k is more than a third of Torment's advantage.
I was looking at the most requested features on uservoice; some of them have been included in the game already, while adult mode and day/night cycle seem to be off the table.
Out of the stretch goals that could make people increase their pledges, I'd say a mod tool and MCA would be the best stretch goals they could add (out of the top suggestions, that is).
Anyway, so what is my conclusion, if I had to give Larian advice?
- Add at least 2 new tiers between $60 and $80.
- Add 1 tier between $30 and $50, if possible.
- Digital soundtrack for every pledge of $50 or more.
- Free copies of the first game in some of these tiers. Even some people who have already played the game would be interested in giving it away, potentially creating another new customer for the sequel. This was very successful for Torment, which gave you Wasteland 2 for $45 or more. 10,271 people, almost 14% of Torment's backers, chose that option.
- MCA as stretch goal. Obvious reasons.
- Mod tool. Good RPG with cool mods, it's hard to think of someone as universally liked as that. I mean, if you don't want them, don't use them, so it doesn't make a difference to people who don't like them, but a lot of people do, and they're a big portion of the players that keeps playing and talking about the game over the years. It adds longevity, more content, happier customers, and so forth. It's a no-brainer. EDIT: As sinatar said, the first game already had it, but I wanted to reinforce its importance. I double checked the KS page and it does mention an improved version of the tool, but I missed it the first couple of times I read the page. It's something pretty rare nowadays, and it's a great feature, deserves more exposure.
- Better expensive tiers for big donors. Yeah, I said above that they didn't make a huge difference, but any extra money is good, right? Eternity got that right and they made almost $100k more than Torment among the big donors. Larian has 20/20 hindsight, they can strive for the best of both worlds.
People like in-game content. At $1k you could get a character in the game. With D:OS 2, gets you a painting of your likeness in-game and a physical copy of it. Cool, I guess, but not nearly as interesting as your own NPC. Not to mention you can already get that in-game painting with the $500 tier. They do have the "all Larian games for 10 years thing", which is really cool, but not your permanent mark in the game. Plus that means what, 4 games, best case scenario? It's not a lot.
$2.5k has no extra in-game stuff, same for $5k. You only get something interesting at $10k, and it's only one "high-ranking NPC". It's no wonder they only have 4 backers paying $1000 or more at the moment. That's 3 at $1000 and 1 at $2500. Big donors need better incentives to pay top dollar. Eternity had NPCs, weapons, items, inns, taverns, enemy companies and so on. That's one thing they got absolutely right, and it's also much more attractive to communites to raise funds, just like the Codex, GameBanshee and NeoGAF did for Project Eternity.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Anyway, this is just my two cents. I'm no game developer or crowdfunding expert, but I think many of the numbers speak for themselves. This took more research than I expected, but I really like Larian and what they're doing, and I wish them great success with the Kickstarter. Besides, who knows, maybe someone there stumbles upon this post and thinks at least some of what I said makes sense.
No chance. The alpha builds are promising but it feels like the game has a long way to go.
Well, that was in depth...good job? Hopefully Larian analyze that for great benefit.
Crazy_maniac
Member
That's just incredible. Straight to Swens inbox.
LurkerPrime
Member
Just wanna say, while Pillars' backer stuff was pretty good please avoid the PoE-style NPCs, the gold-plated ones with little stories attached. They're no fun for anyone who didn't back them.
It actually has this (as did the first game).
Agreed. The execution was poor. There was also a surreal amount of godlikes among them, which contradicts the lore a lot.
The best of example of PoE's backer stuff are the inns* the enemies (which blend in so well that people apparently only know one of the backer enemy groups so far) and the items. Some of the coolest gear was created by backers and the vast majority fits the lore well enough.
I know the first one does, they even created tutorials, which is great, just wanted to reinforce its importance, considering it's one of the top requests on uservoice.
*With the exception of the Dracogen Inn, which was basically in-game advertising. I hope steven dengler he doesn't try that again with this game.
Fairfax is good folk, there is substance there.
Been a member there for 5 years apparently, longer than Gaf. Lol.His Majesty
Banned
I hope that is a conscious decision by Larian to limit the amount of backer stuff in the game. In Pillars you couldn't walk five minutes without stumbling unto a backer tombstone, some meta reference or the backer-written NPC backgrounds. It did the game no good.
LurkerPrime
Member
Oh yeah I forgot about those tombstones...
As to Pillars backer content done right? The enemy adventuring parties are probably the best example in my eyes. They fit into the game very naturally, and it was some time before I even learned they were backer-related. Probably due to their limited nature, but still it was very well done overall; it allowed backers' crazy ideas to be unleashed without spoiling the rest of the game.
As to Pillars backer content done right? The enemy adventuring parties are probably the best example in my eyes. They fit into the game very naturally, and it was some time before I even learned they were backer-related. Probably due to their limited nature, but still it was very well done overall; it allowed backers' crazy ideas to be unleashed without spoiling the rest of the game.
Thanks again!
That's also because, by making it "cheap", a lot of people were able to take buy it and not give a lot of thought. A 5k pledge with funds raised by a community is a different matter, and the execution was great.
The tombstones sucked, but I'm talking more about the more expensive content, which was pretty great. 3 backers chose the enemy company and I think only one of them is known.
I think most people don't even know the Celestial Sapling was created by a backer, for example, and I have no idea what enemy groups were created by backers (I even forgot the one people do know).
MisterShine
Member
Yeah I would definitely up my pledge if there was a good 'digital rewards' tier that was 60+. I hopped on Hong Kong for 75$ because of the exclusive extra backer portraits + a PnP style guidebook for the HK campaign to read. And because I felt bad about only backing the original game for 15 bucks and got two amazing games out of it :-X
I'm the kind of person who can't drop more than 100$ on something, and more importantly I just don't have room in my apartment to keep all this physical rewards junk the higher tiers give out. But anything in the 60-90 range that had digital fluff (Extra cosmetics like armor or spells? Different polymorph skins? Guidebook or short stories? Previous Larian Games? Extra wallpapers/avatars/ringers etc., stuff like this) will get me to up my pledge.
edit:
It was also entirely ignored by the community though. There are essentially no mods of note other than a 4 player mod.
I'm the kind of person who can't drop more than 100$ on something, and more importantly I just don't have room in my apartment to keep all this physical rewards junk the higher tiers give out. But anything in the 60-90 range that had digital fluff (Extra cosmetics like armor or spells? Different polymorph skins? Guidebook or short stories? Previous Larian Games? Extra wallpapers/avatars/ringers etc., stuff like this) will get me to up my pledge.
edit:
It was also entirely ignored by the community though. There are essentially no mods of note other than a 4 player mod.
Yea, sadly it's a little too hard to use, so the community never glommed onto it. A shame as the engine has a lot of potential.
LurkerPrime
Member
I truly believe that modding tools need ease-of-use before anything else. Just look at what the communities of Starcraft: Brood War, Warcraft III, and Neverwinter Nights achieved with their rather humble editing tools--huge and varied, with long-lived communities that revolved around the mods as much as the game itself. Meanwhile, there's been a host of high profile RPGs that have offered hugely powered, dev-quality editing tools that end up largely ignored... Neverwinter Nights 2, Starcraft 2, Dragon Age: Origins, the Witcher series, Divinity: Original Sin... all of them no match for the games I name above, and all with one thing in common: incredibly freeform modding tools. In stark contrast, take Starcraft: an old game with a very rudimentry map editor that was used or outright hacked to the sky and back, creating whole new genres with it, in spite of all the limitations in place.
For modding tools, the ability to make something fun needs to be there from day one. It either needs to be simple enough to dive in from the get-go, or it needs tutorials, creation wizards, user-friendly interfaces, and integrated tools to assist in all aspects of creation for the game in question. And, in both cases, some easy method for distributing everything. This may lead to some restrictions in what you can do with the modding tools, but that's ok... because the ultimate modding restriction is having no community to make something for in the first place.
Of course, I can't really explain the Bethesda games' popularity in regards to modding so maybe I'm out of my mind.
For modding tools, the ability to make something fun needs to be there from day one. It either needs to be simple enough to dive in from the get-go, or it needs tutorials, creation wizards, user-friendly interfaces, and integrated tools to assist in all aspects of creation for the game in question. And, in both cases, some easy method for distributing everything. This may lead to some restrictions in what you can do with the modding tools, but that's ok... because the ultimate modding restriction is having no community to make something for in the first place.
Of course, I can't really explain the Bethesda games' popularity in regards to modding so maybe I'm out of my mind.
Looking at all these games on Kicktraq, Bloodstained is the only one to crack a million on its final day. I think bloodstained had the best campaign, with youtube videos, streams, stretch goals being unlocked through twitter/facebook/youtube/tumblr/vine/instagram, as well as through fan art, photos, and cosplay. They also did a twitch livestream the final day to generate more hype.
I've backed half a dozen games on KS, and Bloodstained is the only one that had me actually going back to the KS page every few days because it seemed like things were happening. There was a constant flow of information and teases on possible features.
I've backed half a dozen games on KS, and Bloodstained is the only one that had me actually going back to the KS page every few days because it seemed like things were happening. There was a constant flow of information and teases on possible features.
Social media stretch goals do work in the sense that increase exposure and keeps the community engaged, but in D:OS2 case I think a huge portion of its audience already knows about it. Bard's Tale IV had a dozen and it didn't do much. Hard to say how much it could boost pledges, if at all.The original game actually had some of these, by the way, so maybe they're still planning it.
Bloodstained was much closer to a Shenmue situation than this. Both games had a different audience, a well loved celebrity creator (deservedly so), a passionate fanbase with their only chance of bringing the series/genre back, etc.
The numbers speak for themselves: Bloodstained had an average pledge of $85 and Shenmue's was $91. That's how passionate people were about them. The rest of the crowdfunded games don't even come close. Torment is the most successful CRPG KS and the average there was $56.
Nikodemos
Member
I think having too many stretch goals is just as detrimental to a campaign as having too few. Then there's the granularity of said stretch goals, as well as their actual content.
[More stats again]
Percentage of total funding in the "B League":
$90-800:
The B league seems to be consistent across all three, so Divinity is doing pretty well there, however, out of the 12 original tiers only 6 are still available: $90, $100, $125, $200, $700 and $800.
That means it has exhausted all funding between $200 and $700. If you want to get something better than the $200 pledge, you have to increase your pledge to $700. That means even if they add some incredible stretch goals, a lot of these guys at $90-200 (2222 backers so far) cannot increase their pledges in a small upgrade, they can only spend more than 3 times the original price.
Between $200 and $700:
As for Divinity: OS II, I don't know what kind of backer content they could add in that range, but Larian knows their lore, their tone and they have other games to learn from. They're doing well in this range for now, but in practice that percentage can't stay there anymore.
The fact half of the pledges there are gone means the total funding could suffer for it and the percentage of total funding from this group will decrease, and for a very simple reason: people can't pledge in the $200-700 range even if they wanted to.
Now the other groups:
$5-80:
D:OS2 is at $1,029,916. If it had Torment's ratio, it'd be at $1,172,309, a 13.8% increase.
Torment didn't have a perfect campaign, as I mentioned in the first post. They could've had Eternity's level of funding among big donors, but the rewards were not nearly as interesting. Larian could use their experience and go for the best of both worlds.
The logic behind stretch goals, new rewards and new tiers is that backers might be willing to upgrade their pledges to help the creators reach them. However, the excitement depends on the stretch goals: not just the content, but how close they are as well. The other thing to consider, and the most important one, is how much they can increase without having to double or triple their original pledge. This affects mostly the sub-$90 pledges rather than the $100-800 ones, for obvious reasons: they're more price sensitive.
Even if there's a stretch goal they'd like to help or a new tier they'd like to purchase, there's only so much they can add on top of their current pledge.
Right now for D:OS II we have:
$5 - These are symbolic and 99% of times the next pledge is the base game one. They're rarely more than a few hundred and don't really affect much, but they still want to help, so kudos to them. There's not much anyone can do here.
$25/26 - Minimum pledge to get the game. This is the "core" group, usually half of total backers, and they can make the biggest difference if they decide to upgrade their pledges.
$30 - Slightly above the minimum pledge, with one or two digital extras in the mix.
$50 - When speaking of the most successful KS games, this is usually the one closest to the average pledge, and it's as high as a lot of people are willing to go.
After that we have $90, which is the 4-pack, and then $100 and above. This might be a problem, and Torment and Eternity are good examples again:
Percentage of total backers at minimum pledges ($20-28):
Again, Eternity had a great campaign, great promises, great pitch, great stretch goals, but Torment did a better job all around in the sense that it made it easier for the people at the lowest pledges to upgrade. Like I said, Torment had 10 options below $95 (11 shown, but the $20 one was gone after a while). Eternity had 5, D:OS2 had only 3. 4 if you include the four pack at $90, which is more like four $22.50 pledges.
So even if Larian adds amazing stretch goals, a person at the $25 tier with a limited budget has 3 options:
Numbers speak volumes:
Percentage of total backers in $30-45 range:
Add them up and it's 73.3% for Eternity, 74,95% for Torment and 70,9% for Divinity: Original Sin II in the $20-45 group. I also checked other Kickstarter RPGs: Wasteland 2 (67,88%), Shadowrun: Hong Kong (80,58%), The Bard's Tale IV (73.34%), Kingdom Come (72.38%), Divinity: Original Sin (73,95%), The Banner Saga (68,55%).
It's a clear pattern there, the average being 72.87%.
Worth reminding that the percentages above are based on the number of backers, not total funds raised. As an RPG developer on Kickstarter, chances are at least 70% of backers will spend less than $50, so the goal should be to make them move closer and closer to the $50 pledge, but not force them to pay that much if they want to upgrade. Eternity had a lot more backers at the exact $50 than Torment (5727 x 2987), for instance, but not enough to compensante the difference below that. Torment had 10,271 on $45 alone.
It might be tempting to think "That's 5 bucks, with enough incentive in the campaign they'll upgrade to 50, it'd be bad to have them move to $40 or $45 and just stop there". It might be true in some cases, maybe some people will not spend $50 because the pledge right before was good enough, but that's without considering the people who would've spent just $20 or $25 otherwise.
A lot of the backers at $30-45 are people who would've paid the minimum to get the game if that was the only option under $50. And a lot of the $60, $65, $75 and $80 backers are people who would've kept their $50 pledge if not given these choices.
Percentage of total funding in the "B League":
$90-800:
The B league seems to be consistent across all three, so Divinity is doing pretty well there, however, out of the 12 original tiers only 6 are still available: $90, $100, $125, $200, $700 and $800.
That means it has exhausted all funding between $200 and $700. If you want to get something better than the $200 pledge, you have to increase your pledge to $700. That means even if they add some incredible stretch goals, a lot of these guys at $90-200 (2222 backers so far) cannot increase their pledges in a small upgrade, they can only spend more than 3 times the original price.
Between $200 and $700:
That's a considerable number. I understand that the in-game painting of the backer's likeness cannot be mass produced, but they can still add multiple tiers in that range that don't put a lot of strain on the company's artists. The tombstones and backer NPCs in Pillars of Eternity were poorly implemented, and we have both backers and Obsidian to blame, but as a reward they were ideal. By making the players write the stuff for the backers and the tombstones, all they had to do was include the text and use the character creator to make the backer NPCs. That doesn't require a lot of resources and gives players an in-game presence.
As for Divinity: OS II, I don't know what kind of backer content they could add in that range, but Larian knows their lore, their tone and they have other games to learn from. They're doing well in this range for now, but in practice that percentage can't stay there anymore.
The fact half of the pledges there are gone means the total funding could suffer for it and the percentage of total funding from this group will decrease, and for a very simple reason: people can't pledge in the $200-700 range even if they wanted to.
Now the other groups:
$5-80:
$1000+
D:OS2 is at $1,029,916. If it had Torment's ratio, it'd be at $1,172,309, a 13.8% increase.
Torment didn't have a perfect campaign, as I mentioned in the first post. They could've had Eternity's level of funding among big donors, but the rewards were not nearly as interesting. Larian could use their experience and go for the best of both worlds.
- Another thing InXile did really well in the campaigns: they kept upgrading the pledges, adding more stuff to the cheaper pledges over time. One thing I forgot is that Divinity has plenty of other games. Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Dragon Commander and Divinity II could be included in multiple tiers, adding great value to all pledges.
- Hoodies are cool, but they're limited to cold weather and they're more expensive. At $100 you also got a Pillars of Eternity T-Shirt, which can be used anywhere, any time of the year and cost less to manufacture.
- Stretch goal: in-game developer commentary. I don't think it'll increase funding significantly or anything, but it was a nice touch to PoE and with Swen on the team the game practically begs for it.
- A digital novella could definitelly make people upgrade their pledges, but it does put a lot of strain on whoever's going to write it, and there's always the risk it'll be like the PoE novella that has yet to be released (although MCA has finished it and is waiting for editing). It'd be up to you guys to decide, but as far as digital extras go, it's probably among the best.
- Stretch goal: live orchestra recording for the soundtrack. Sort of related, but I really support this suggestion ;(
- More languages as stretch goals. According to the SteamSpy guy, data shows games sell a lot more in some regions when localized (Germany and Russia being notorious examples, but you've got that covered in subtitles at least). I don't have special access to SteamSpy to provide some numbers on the original game and similar ones, but Polish, Spanish, French and Italian can't hurt. It is said that it increases sales in China dramatically, but without specific numbers on CRPGs it's hard to say.
- Playing cards for physical reward tiers at ~$125+ or optional upgrades on a backer portal or something. In large quantities a deck can cost ~$1.5 or less to manufacture. PoE had that as a $10 upgrade IIRC. Maybe if you guys approach Obsidian they might tell you how many they've sold and whether it was worth it or not.
- Second big town as stretch goal. Cyseal was one of my favourite parts, and it's one upgrade that did wonders to PoE. It's hard to imagine it without Twin Elms, so that's another successful example to analyze.
- High quality physical goods for the $200-$800 range. The demand for video game merchandise is increasing every year. The beer mug was great, for instance. High quality figurines, books and practical items are also something early backers could upgrade to later on.
The logic behind stretch goals, new rewards and new tiers is that backers might be willing to upgrade their pledges to help the creators reach them. However, the excitement depends on the stretch goals: not just the content, but how close they are as well. The other thing to consider, and the most important one, is how much they can increase without having to double or triple their original pledge. This affects mostly the sub-$90 pledges rather than the $100-800 ones, for obvious reasons: they're more price sensitive.
Even if there's a stretch goal they'd like to help or a new tier they'd like to purchase, there's only so much they can add on top of their current pledge.
Right now for D:OS II we have:
$5 - These are symbolic and 99% of times the next pledge is the base game one. They're rarely more than a few hundred and don't really affect much, but they still want to help, so kudos to them. There's not much anyone can do here.
$25/26 - Minimum pledge to get the game. This is the "core" group, usually half of total backers, and they can make the biggest difference if they decide to upgrade their pledges.
$30 - Slightly above the minimum pledge, with one or two digital extras in the mix.
$50 - When speaking of the most successful KS games, this is usually the one closest to the average pledge, and it's as high as a lot of people are willing to go.
After that we have $90, which is the 4-pack, and then $100 and above. This might be a problem, and Torment and Eternity are good examples again:
Percentage of total backers at minimum pledges ($20-28):
Again, Eternity had a great campaign, great promises, great pitch, great stretch goals, but Torment did a better job all around in the sense that it made it easier for the people at the lowest pledges to upgrade. Like I said, Torment had 10 options below $95 (11 shown, but the $20 one was gone after a while). Eternity had 5, D:OS2 had only 3. 4 if you include the four pack at $90, which is more like four $22.50 pledges.
So even if Larian adds amazing stretch goals, a person at the $25 tier with a limited budget has 3 options:
- Add another $5.
- Double their original pledge.
- Go for the 4-pack: that doesn't increase funding because the 4 people sharing it are only saving $2.50 and might be interested in a better individual pledge.
- Spend 4x as much and get the collector's edition.
Numbers speak volumes:
Percentage of total backers in $30-45 range:
Add them up and it's 73.3% for Eternity, 74,95% for Torment and 70,9% for Divinity: Original Sin II in the $20-45 group. I also checked other Kickstarter RPGs: Wasteland 2 (67,88%), Shadowrun: Hong Kong (80,58%), The Bard's Tale IV (73.34%), Kingdom Come (72.38%), Divinity: Original Sin (73,95%), The Banner Saga (68,55%).
It's a clear pattern there, the average being 72.87%.
Worth reminding that the percentages above are based on the number of backers, not total funds raised. As an RPG developer on Kickstarter, chances are at least 70% of backers will spend less than $50, so the goal should be to make them move closer and closer to the $50 pledge, but not force them to pay that much if they want to upgrade. Eternity had a lot more backers at the exact $50 than Torment (5727 x 2987), for instance, but not enough to compensante the difference below that. Torment had 10,271 on $45 alone.
It might be tempting to think "That's 5 bucks, with enough incentive in the campaign they'll upgrade to 50, it'd be bad to have them move to $40 or $45 and just stop there". It might be true in some cases, maybe some people will not spend $50 because the pledge right before was good enough, but that's without considering the people who would've spent just $20 or $25 otherwise.
A lot of the backers at $30-45 are people who would've paid the minimum to get the game if that was the only option under $50. And a lot of the $60, $65, $75 and $80 backers are people who would've kept their $50 pledge if not given these choices.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Yeah, packing Dragon Commader into those tiers would probably make a few people upgrade.
Tye The Czar
Member
Just pledged 50 for Original Sin 1 & 2 bundle.
Can't wait to get the director's cut.
Can't wait to get the director's cut.
Shake Appeal
Member
In-game rewards are my least favorite thing about kickstarter.
Even with the drop-offs, I think it's going to be close even if just for the fact that Larian has put consistently some of the best status updates I've seen on Kickstarter and as Fairfax pointed out, there is still untapped potential within the Kickstarter campaign tier setup (in both mid and high end tier design and rewards) and possible stretch goal design. Leveraging the idea tracker for stretch goals might not be a bad idea, even though you always have to consider how well those ideas meet the vision of the game. Polish localization might be a very valuable addition from some of the data I've seen when it comes to Polish players and CRPGs (not just W3).
charlequin
Banned
There's zero chance that the Undead origin is not met. There's very, very little chance that the Hall of Echoes goal isn't met -- they only need to average $16k a day from here on out to achieve that, which they will easily do.
Excellent analysis.
The point about having step-up tiers is CRUCIAL. As your existing backers get more hyped, they will want to raise their pledges, and you need to give them somewhere to go. They are MUCH more likely to raise their pledge if it's a 10-50% bump rather than doubling or tripling the original amount. Larian's projects have some of the best communication of any KS, so they would benefit more than most.
Another way to solve the "missing tier" problem is add-ons, which PoE used to great effect. Having some $5-$50 add-ons would give backers more options to increase their pledge at any level. You could restrict physical add-ons to backers who already pledged at a physical tier ($125 and above). Add-ons aren't the perfect solution because they're a bit less discoverable than tiers and a pain to manage, but the flexibility can't be beat.
Putting yourself in the backer's shoes is absolutely critical when structuring the tiers, and I think this is really undervalued by some Kickstarters.
Finally, I would love to hear what you think about Bloodstained, which managed a whopping $85 average pledge by having only three pledge levels below $100 ($5, $28, and $60). Was that the right move? Would it work for other campaigns, or was that a special case?