Kicktraq

[Wayne]

Someone posted this in the Kickstarter comments, it's a pretty cool tool.

The Fantasy Trip

and for comparison:

Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, Powered by GURPS

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Wayne

Someone posted this in the Kickstarter comments, it's a pretty cool tool.

The Fantasy Trip

and for comparison:

Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, Powered by GURPS

It's certainly interesting although I understand Kicktraq is not a very effective means of predicting final KS numbers.

If you look at the two campaigns they're quite different.

Dungeon Fantasy was a brand new game (although I think it was based on GURPS) and the funding level was high at $100k. It ended up 176% funded but didn't reach its funding goal for a couple of weeks. I would guess the backers were GURPS players or at least those who had thought about GURPS at some point.

TFT is an existing (though long dormant) game with plenty of current and past players. To add to that ready made market there are the GURPS players above, who might want to try something simpler, and brand new gamers who fancy a simple game but have no connection to any of the other groups. That's a potentially huge market. The TFT KS had a very low funding goal at $20k and this was blown out of the water in less than an hour. As I write this, we're over $122k funded or 611% already, but of course the initial funding level was tiny.

It's very hard to predict how big this KS will get. How many old players can we get back? How many new players can we attract?

I would expect the campaign to be bigger than Dungeon Fantasy, but DF had a bigger buy-in as it didn't offer a PDF only option and I notice a lot of our backers are opting for PDF. I think this has something to do with postage costs. I'm in the UK and the postage, though it's been reduced, is still enormous. I'd like to buy several sets but the shipping makes that impossible.

I think if SJGames can work hard on reducing shipping we'd see more multiple orders and conversion of PDF to physical product. We'd also pull in more new backers.

[DarkPumpkin]

We should have a pool on how high the KS will go...I'm predicting $450k.

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by DarkPumpkin

We should have a pool on how high the KS will go...I'm predicting $450k.

Yes, I was thinking the same idea (but different amount).

Would be cool if there was a small motivation prize for the forum member coming closest to the final total; like getting their Legacy Edition autographed by SJ before it ships... something like that.

JK

[Terquem]

I would guess the low $300,000s

I might, maybe, revise that up a bit if a stretch goal or two is announced that really surprises everyone - something no one saw coming

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I would guess the backers were GURPS players or at least those who had thought about GURPS at some point.

I backed DF, even though I don't regularly play GURPS. I did so, frankly, because I thought the possibility of TFT ever coming back was nil, and I hoped that DF woud give me the same vibe and kind of game that TFT had always been (Narrator's Voice: It didn't.) Now that the real thing is here, I kind of wish I'd saved my money! ;-)

Ah well, hindsight is always 20/20...

Oh, and I'll go out on a limb here for the pool and guess somewhere between $450K and $500K. ;-)

[Chris Rice]

I want to make a complaint. Just over 24 hours ago, I was blissfully unaware of the existence of Kicktraq.

Now I can't stop looking at the ruddy thing 😳

[JLV]

Yeah. I discovered it during the second or third Kickstarter I ever backed (OGRE DE was my very first, btw), and it's been a pain in the bootie ever since! ;-)

BTW, it only refreshes about once per hour, so you do better keeping an eye on the main Kickstarter page between refreshes... (This one seems to be updating at about 10 minutes after the hour for this Kickstarter.)

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

It's certainly interesting although I understand Kicktraq is not a very effective means of predicting final KS numbers.

The "Trend" certainly isn't; it's a very simple mathematical formula that boils down to "if this Kickstarter continues exactly as it has up to now, how much would it make at the end?"

I mean, it's fun to look at, but even on the last day, I wouldn't call it accurate, given how many Kickstarters see a sharp FOMO spike that day.

[Jim Kane]

I too am addicted to watching the ticker go up, up, up... like watching the performance of a stock or the price of gold on a volatile trading day; I can't stop checking.

Thankfully, the TFT Kickstarter goes in the happy direction.

JK