[More stats]
Average pledge per backer:
Torment: $56
Project Eternity: $54
Wasteland 2: $48
Divinity OS: $48
Divinity OS II: $45
I'll compare Torment: Tides of Numenera and Project Eternity's campaigns to explain what I think Larian should do.
The two projects had basically the same number of backers: 73,986 backers from Project Eternity x 74,405 backers for Torment, the pitch was very similar, the genre was the same and the context for each developer was basically the same, except PoE had a dream team in its description (in theory, at least) and the big names for Torment came as stretch goals.
Torment had merely 84 backers at $1000 and above, while Project Eternity had 183.
Torment earned $186k with them, while Eternity made $274k.
Why? Because the big donor stuff was more interesting, simple as that. With $1k on Eternity you had the backer NPCs. With 5k you could get an inn, tavern or enemy company. The same $5000 pledge to Torment gave you an obelisk. Boring.
Ok, so PoE beat TToN among big donors by almost 100k, how come Torment made 200k more overall?
The B league: $100-1000?
Actually, no:
(I included the $95 tier because that's where it started for TToN and it's just 5 bucks)
That's only a $29,325 advantage for Torment. That means what made the difference for Torment was actually the little guy, who paid less than $95 for it:
Eternity actually had a few more backers there, but Torment made $315,487 more. This is what made the difference in the end.
Eternity had more than 2 times as many "whales" as Torment, made only $30k less than Torment in the $100-1000 range, but lost in the little league.
I think Larian should focus on making the $20-30 folks increase their pledges rather than the more expensive tiers. It doesn't hurt to get more big donors, of course, and they should go after them as well, but in the big picture they don't make that as much of a difference.
One problem with D:OS2 is that people don't have many options below $100. Divinity: OS II has 6 options below $90. Torment had 11 and Eternity had 7. Not to mention the $90 pledge itself doesn't have a lot of value. It's basically a 4-pack with a $10 discount. Each player would have only a $2.50 discount compared to backing the project themselves, yet one person would hold all the keys and pay the money upfront. It's not exactly that easy to get 4 people to commit so long before the game's release either.
They should keep in mind that - according to Steam -
only 6.1% of D:OS players have finished the game. How many will finish the sequel in 4-player co-op mode? It's a limited group.
The pledges between $51-80 are also very important, not just the mid $40-50 ones. As is shown above, Torment made 19% of their sub-$100 funding there, at $429k. Eternity, however, made only 16% and $310k.
Considering the difference in the end was $315k, the extra $119k is more than a third of Torment's advantage.
I was looking at the most requested features on uservoice; some of them have been included in the game already, while adult mode and day/night cycle seem to be off the table.
Out of the stretch goals that could make people increase their pledges, I'd say a mod tool and MCA would be the best stretch goals they could add (out of the top suggestions, that is).
Anyway, so what is my conclusion, if I had to give Larian advice?
- Add
at least 2 new tiers between $60 and $80.
- Add 1 tier between $30 and $50, if possible.
- Digital soundtrack for every pledge of $50 or more.
- Free copies of the first game in some of these tiers. Even some people who have already played the game would be interested in giving it away, potentially creating another new customer for the sequel. This was very successful for Torment, which gave you Wasteland 2 for $45 or more. Almost 14% of Torment's backers chose that option.
- MCA as stretch goal. Obvious reasons.
- Mod tool. Good RPG with cool mods, it's hard to think of someone as universally liked as that. I mean, if you don't want them, don't use them, so it doesn't make a difference to people who don't like them, but a lot of people do, and they're a big portion of the players that keeps playing and talking about the game over the years. It adds longevity, more content, happier customers, and so forth. It's a no-brainer.
- Better expensive tiers for big donors. Yeah, I said above that they didn't make a huge difference, but any extra money is good, right? Eternity got that right and they made almost $100k more than Torment among the big donors. Larian has 20/20 hindsight, they can strive for the best of both worlds.
People like in-game content. At $1k you could get a character in the game. With D:OS 2, gets you a painting of your likeness in-game and a physical copy of it. Cool, I guess, but not nearly as interesting as your own NPC. Not to mention you can already get that in-game painting with the $500 tier. They do have the "all Larian games for 10 years thing", which is really cool, but not your permanent mark in the game. Plus that means what, 4 games, best case scenario? It's not a lot.
$2.5k has no extra in-game stuff, same for $5k. You only get something interesting at $10k, and it's only
one "high-ranking NPC". It's no wonder
they only have 4 backers paying $1000 or more at the moment. That's 3 at $1000 and 1 at $2500. Big donors need better incentives to pay top dollar. Eternity had NPCs, weapons, items, inns, taverns, enemy companies and so on. That's one thing they got absolutely right, and it's also much more attractive to communites to raise funds, just like the Codex, GameBanshee and NeoGAF did for Project Eternity.
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Anyway, this is just my two cents. I'm no game developer or crowdfunding expert, but I think many of the numbers speak for themselves. This took more research than I expected, but I really like Larian and what they're doing, and I wish them great success with the Kickstarter. Besides, who knows, maybe someone there stumbles upon this post and thinks at least some of what I said makes sense.
along with Bloodstained.
