1. Legend of Hart’s Hollow
Kickstarter Planning
Nina Park
Fall 2013

2. The Current Deliverable
• A Kickstarter preview url.
• The video has not been created and the
budget has not been finalized
• The in depth description, reward tiers, and
marketing plan have been figured out
• http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4512189
92/1285941583?token=96612566

3. Researching Successful
Kickstarters

4. Andrea Benjamin – Former Director of Communications at Activision
“Break It Down Into Pieces”
• What is my goal?
– To excite and inform potential backers about Hart’s Hollow and the
Polybot team. We need to present ourselves as fun and approachable
as well as competent and skillful. (i.e. Not only are we cool people,
we're cool people who can deliver what we're promising you.) We
need to sell backers on the feeling of adventure that is the main
emotion we want players to experience in the game. Everything from
marketing leading up to the Kickstarter campaign, the campaign itself,
and the upkeep of the campaign/community should support this goal
• Who is my target audience?
– 18 to 24 demographic = primary audience. Potential to bring in
secondary audience in the tween age group
• What are my strategies?
– Kickstarter and social media sites primarily
• What are my tactics?
– Breakdown in rest of presentation

5. Nicky Soh
• A current sequential arts
major at SCAD
• Has run 3 successful
Kickstarters
• Gave amazing advice on
how to research successful
Kickstarters and gather data
on any Kickstarter

6. How to Gather Data
on Any Kickstarter

7. Go to any Kickstarter page

8. Click on the Twitter link

9. Copy the bitly link

10. Paste it into a new browser window but add a “+” after the link

11. It will then take you to a page
that tracks the stats of that
link.
It tracks what percentage of
page views the bitly link
accounts for, clicks per day,
where those clicks are
coming from, etc.

12. • Knowing that, I started researching
Kickstarters that went very viral
• Trends between them
•Most link clicks came from
Facebook and Twitter
• Got most of their funding from the
first and last 48 hours in the
campaign
• Usually priced their games at $10
or $15 (that is the bare bones digital
game. No extra rewards included)

13. Also researched Kickstarters from lesser known developers who were
similar to us in some way (potentially launching on the same platform,
art style, similar target audience)

14. Telepath Tactics by Craig Stern
•Good Kickstarter to study because
the creator, Craig Stern, failed
initially and then was successfully
funded later on
• Wrote an article about his
experience
•http://indierpgs.com/2013/04/how
-to-not-fail-at-kickstarter-in-12-easysteps/
• Useful tip: You can still email
backers updates if your funding is
unsuccessful. Let them know you
are going to try again.

15. Hart’s Hollow Kickstarter
Marketing Plan
Because the ground work and upkeep are just
as important as the actual Kickstarter page (if
not more)

16. 2 Months Before Launch
Indie MEGABOOTH: Try and get into
it if the timeline allows
• What is it?
– Indie devs pool $ together to
buy floor space at PAX prime
and East
• Need to pitch game to the
organizers
• Potentially can reach out to Craig
Stern (Telepath Tactics) and Ryan
Green/Josh Larson (That Dragon,
Cancer) who we talked to a bit at
IndieCade for tips on getting in

17. 2 Months Before Launch
Company website and social media
accounts created and up to date
At launch, we need a place to funnel
people if they have more interest
in the game and the team
Have all team members start
reposting/sharing all FB updates

18. 2 Months Before Launch
Potential cross promotion w/ another indie dev (e.g. putting our characters in
their game)
Armillo: Did a cross promotion w/ Air Mech. Made their main character a
special pet available in Air Mech. Went from approx 120 likes to approx.
350 likes in 1.5 weeks

19. 1 Month Before Launch
• Go into forums and start
conversations there to
build hype. DO NOT just
spam a link and run
• Contact Podcasts. Do not
ask them to review your
game publicly. Ask for
their critique because
you value their opinion. If
they like us they may
feature us on their
podcast

20. 2 -3 Weeks Before Launch
• Contact big name gaming
news sites
• Sue Bohle’s advice
– Contact them 1st thing in
the morning and at the
beginning of the week
– Make it easy to read
(bullet the key features)
– Include 8 -10 pictures
– Thank the editor for their
consideration not their
coverage

21. 2 -3 Weeks Before Launch
Armless Octopus
• Contact niche gaming
news sites/sites that
are more specific to
our genre/sites that
focus on smaller
indie games
• Contact SCAD about
being on their
curated Kickstarter
page

22. Launch Day
• Goal: Get on Staff Picks/ the
newsletter/ Popular
– Popular is based on # of
backers. Not amt of $
– Staff Picks/newsletter bit
harder to get on because the
projects featured there
generally are doing something
radically diff in the medium
• Impt because: Telepath Tactics
(54% of funding came from
people just wandering around
the KS site. Not the pre-existing
fanbase.)
• Get all team members to share
the KS over all social media
accounts

23. Post-Launch Upkeep
• Stretch goals = only reveal after 50% funded
– Don’t flood backer with info
– Want to have a backlog of updates you can give as the
campaign runs
• Keep on engaging community with vids and
updates. Update every 3 – 4 days
• Send a short thank you message to each backer.
It will retain your audience and make them less
likely to withdraw their pledge. (May also make
them increase their pledge amount.)