Kickstarter: more than half of game projects fail - report
Getting your independent game on Kickstarter doesn't always guarantee success
A new infographic (below) shows that Kickstarter may not be the instant cure-all that some independent developers think it is. Appsblogger created the infographic after scraping 45,815 Kickstarter projects on the official site. As of June 2, 2012, $214,558,344 was pledged across 2,974, 842 backers. In the games category, only 43 percent of projects were successful, with $22.7 million being raised in total.
In terms of number of projects submitted, the Games category takes distant seventh place with 1,729 projects total. Film & Video lead here, with 13,502 projects submitted, followed by Music with 10,887 project, and a steep drop off in Publishing with only 4,761 projects submitted.
On the flip side, the Games category takes third place when it comes to total backers with 499,562, meaning the backer-to-project ratio is among the highest with 288 backers per project. Film & Video and Music take first and second once again, with 681,912 and 571,421 respectively.
Successful projects averaged $5,487 per pledge, while failed projects averaged $16,365 per pledge, meaning those looking to launch Kickstarter projects should aim for a larger number of small donations instead of hoping that a few large backers can save you. All told, only 8.5 percent of all funded projects exceeded their funding goal by more than double.
On the bright side, if you play your cards right, you'll have a fully-funded game. Not unlike the Two Guys from Andromeda SpaceVenture Kickstarter, which just passed its $500,000 funding goal with 17 hours to go.
