Kickstarter games in 2014 are making less than half what they did last year
With a 20 per cent drop in the number of games funded.
Pledges for games on Kickstarter are significantly on the decline with the amount of capital being poured into these projects expected to be less than half of what it was in 2013.
This new data comes from an analysis by consultancy firm ICO Partners.
Based on data from the first half of the year - extrapolated to estimate its remaining half - ICO estimated that we'll see $27,023,480 poured into gaming projects this year. That sounds all well and good, but is rather lackluster compared to 2013's record of $57,934,417.
There's a few reasons for this. One is high profile flops likes Yogventures and Clang, while last year saw a number of known brands and developers flooding the crowdfunding site. We had Torment, Mighty Number 9, Elite: Dangerous, Camelot Unchained, Dreamfall, and Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar all raking in dough from longtime fans.
As such, last year there were 21 games that raised over a half million dollars. Comparatively, this year we've had three games breach that barrier: Amplitude HD, Unsung Story, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
Furthermore, we've seen a roughly 20 per cent drop in successful gaming projects on the crowdfunding site. Last year we saw 446 successfully funded games on Kickstarter, while this year we're expected to only see around 350.
ICO analyst Thomas Bidaux suspects that Steam Early Access may be Kickstarter's biggest competitor these days and that could explain its decline in gaming-related funds. "The vast majority of the Kickstarter video game projects are PC-based and when you consider the amount of work required to get a project funded on Kickstarter, compare it to the relative ease to go to Early Access in comparison, and add to that the fact that on Early Access the funding doesn't stop after one month, I suspect a lot of Early Access successes skipped the crowd funding phase to go directly to alpha funding," he noted.
"I cannot fault them - Early Access is a great opportunity for developers as well. Not entirely incompatible with a crowd funding campaign, it can still prevail because the amount required is not as important."