A Tale of Two Games

A tale of two games.

Earlier this year I supported a game design on Kickstarter. I’m not going to name names, my purpose isn’t to trash or anger. Let’s call it Alpha Game. The project didn’t go well, and I wasn’t surprised. The updates were minimal, and the game lacked basic social media support. When the money didn’t roll in, the creators cancelled the project well short of the funding date. Cancelled, with plenty of days left for people to pledge.

By comparison I recently backed a nifty game project on Kickstarter. Titled Golem Arcana, the game mixes the best of miniatures gaming with digital enhancements. Great idea, but that alone isn’t what caught my attention. What struck me was Jordan Weisman (FASA, Whiz Kids) and Harebrained Studios’ approach to pushing the project over the top. With four days left in the funding effort, Harebrained Schemes was just over 125,000 dollars short of their $500,000 goal. Now I’m experienced in most things Kickstarter, and pulling in $125K in 86 hours seemed like an insurmountable feat. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Weisman asked backers to spread the word, granted interviews, and posted positive, exciting updates stressing how optimistic he felt about the outcome. Guess what? With only a handful of hours remaining the project funded.

Certainly you could argue that Harebrained Schemes had more resources to promote a project than Alpha Game, but that isn’t what funded Golem Arcana. Resources aren’t what kept the updates coming, the positive blog posts posting, or the never-say-die attitude attituding. On the other hand, the Alpha Game did none of that, and it failed.

Is having a big name and lots of money before you create a Kickstarter project the lesson to be learned? Maybe not. Maybe it is something smaller, something like what the great Babe Ruth once said, “It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.”