Things I Learned From Marketing 3 Funded Video Games on Kickstarter

Your Social Media Follower Count ≠ Interest in Your Kickstarter

TL;DR: Don’t rely on your social media following. Push people to follow your Kickstarter page. Get as many Kickstarter followers as possible, however you can.

Sounds obvious, right? But I’ve seen plenty of games launch with thousands of social media followers and still flop because they didn’t push hard enough to convert those followers into Kickstarter backers.

One campaign I worked on had over 14,000 social media followers but only a few hundred Kickstarter followers before I got involved. With paid marketing, we got that number up to around 3,000 before launching and raising $37k in 24 hours.

Most of your social media followers won’t back your Kickstarter. Some are fellow devs, some just liked one of your posts and are having a nosy to see more, and many are lurkers like me or are waiting to buy your game when it officially releases.

During your pre-launch phase (the awareness-building period before you hit the launch button), focus on converting social media followers into Kickstarter followers or email subscribers (Kickstarter followers tend to convert better).

The key difference between wishlists and Kickstarter followers:

Getting someone to wishlist your game is a simple, one-click action. They might buy it when it releases.

Getting someone to back your Kickstarter is a bigger ask: they need to sign up for Kickstarter, follow your campaign, wait for launch, decide if they like the game, consider the price, and then give you money—potentially waiting years before they see the final product.

Press Does… Okay

TL;DR: Press (IMO) hasn’t been great for Kickstarters. Save your money for ads and use PR when you launch your game.

PR for Kickstarter campaigns is a weird one. It works well if your game is already gaining traction and gets picked up by big outlets like IGN or GamesRadar with a huge funding amount and maybe a reputable name behind the game. But smaller outlets don’t seem to move the needle that much.

Bigger gaming sites don’t seem too interested in covering Kickstarters that much, probably because of the platform’s history with undelivered and scammy projects (out of the 20 games I’ve backed, 2 never delivered due to personal reasons or being scammed, and several others are delayed). That said, the overall quality of games on Kickstarter does seem to be improving with some decent names launching on there.

One game I worked on got picked up by GamesRadar organically, and we saw a small bump of around 50 backers from one article. But in terms of ROI, you’ll get more value from paid ads (for Kickstarter specifically—PR is still great for wishlists and full game launches).

From my experience, hiring a PR agency for a Kickstarter campaign doesn’t generate a lot of direct backers. Instead, you’re better off investing that money into ads (Meta, Reddit) to build up a following before launch and keeping a budget for launch day.

If you want to DIY your PR:

Research journalists who have written about similar games or covered Kickstarter projects. By research I basically just mean look around on sites to see who’s talking about who - use the search bar and type in a similar game to you or even ‘Kickstarter’ to see what comes up.

Reach out to them with your press kit.

Upload your press kit to gamespress.com to make it easier for outlets to find you.

Ending this one with my thought that PR, much like in music, is a game of who you know, not what you know. If you have a PR agency with strong connections, it might be worth it if they can pull a few favours and get your game out there. I must have emailed about 40 journalists, looking into each one for interest and potential for the game I was emailing them about, for one of the games and got nothing out of it. Unsure if it was just my timing or if they weren’t arsed.

Focus on Your Kickstarter—Only

TL;DR: Don’t split focus between Steam and Kickstarter.

I’ve seen too many devs trying to push both Kickstarter and Steam at the same time with posts like: “DON’T FORGET TO FOLLOW THE KICKSTARTER AND WISHLIST THE GAME!” This gives your followers too much choice; and they’ll likely go for the easiest option - wishlist. Just focus on Kickstarter.

If you’re launching a Kickstarter, I’d actually wait to release a Steam page until you can funnel Kickstarter traffic into wishlists. I’ve not tested this, but I’d love to see if this could trigger Steam’s algorithm, boosting your visibility with an influx of traffic when things are at an all time high for you.

Here’s a rough timeline I’d recommend:

Build your social following (BTS, gameplay clips, general social posts).

Announce your Kickstarter (4-6 weeks before the launch date).

Launch a teaser or main trailer.

Announce your launch date soon after.

Post more (keep engagement and visibility up).

Launch your Kickstarter.

Launch your Steam page + demo (if possible).

Research Other Kickstarter Games

TL;DR: Study successful Kickstarter campaigns to find what made them reach their goal.

Before launching, look at other Kickstarter games in your niche.

Pay attention to:

Their funding goals and how quickly they reached them. Chances are if they reached their goal super quick, they put in a lot of work before going live - or just have a super low goal to make it seem like they’re funded faster.

Their page layout, design, rewards and gifs. Whether they worked with a crowdfunding agency.

Check the creator tab or banners at the bottom of the page, you’ll see popular names like BackerKit, BackerCamp or Jellop - the big top 3 agencies that have run kickstarters for years (or me if you stumble across one of the games I worked on!)

A useful site for this is Kicktraq, which shows daily funding graphs and any press coverage a campaign received.

Most successful Kickstarters follow the same pattern:

A strong start (first 3-4 days).

A mid-campaign slump (15-20 days) - find ways to keep things going with ads, influencers, press, social posts etc.

A final boost in the last 2-3 days (Kickstarter’s “last chance” emails help).

Plan Your Social Media and Updates

TL;DR: Draft your posts ideas for both pre-launch and during the campaign.

I’m usually terrible at this, my organic social content is so dry, but when running a Kickstarter, having posts ready to go helps keep momentum.

Pre-launch post ideas:

Daily countdowns to launch.

Images of rewards.

GIFs of early bird offers.

Behind-the-scenes and gameplay content.

Concept art.

Kickstarter update ideas:

Day 1: Thank backers + ask them to share, maybe host a live stream.

Day 2: Another update + anything new to share.

Character/game lore deep dive.

Concept art & early designs.

Team introductions.

Q&A session.

Art competitions.

Community goal announcements (encourage backers to follow socials, wishlist, or join Discord in exchange for in-game rewards).

Plan Creative Rewards

TL;DR: Unique digital and physical rewards can boost average pledge amounts.

One of the best things about Kickstarter is that it lets you sell more than just a digital game.

Offer digital add-ons like exclusive skins, soundtracks, or digital art books to increase your average pledge. You could also offer some higher-priced rewards for designing a boss or weapons. While they don’t sell loads, they’re a nice increase to your average backer price.

Get creative with rewards—one of my campaigns let backers design an NPC or boss based on their pet. It worked great. We must have sold these for around £300, limited to 20 for early bird pricing.

Physical rewards sell well—vinyl soundtracks, figurines, art books, etc. My first Kickstarter had a synthwave soundtrack, and I pushed for a vinyl release. We sold over 150 copies, but I wish we had done some limited edition colorways and increased the price. Obviously here you have to consider the cost of production and shipping, so do some math before you commit.

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