Mint Tin Kickstarter: Applying what I’ve learned.

Hello! As of the time of this writing, I am 6 hours away from the conclusion of my current Kickstarter. It has raised $36,112 and gained 876 Backers. I don’t know where it will land by the time it wraps up, but it is already a massive success in my eyes. My first Kickstarter (the subject of the majority of these blog entries) for Super Snipers raised $17,236 and had 432 Backers. I have already more than doubled both the money and backer numbers (and spent about half as much). The focus of this blog entry is to explore some of the factors I believe has helped me do this.

Factor #1: The Games

This time around my offering is for 4 different Mint Tin sized games. They are all for 1 or 2 players, can be learned in 5 minutes, and play in 15-20 minutes. I think there are a number of reasons that these are finding a bigger audience than Super Snipers did:

1) Price. The games are $15 each, which is safely in the “impulse buy” category. Plus, I’m offering significant discounts for bundling the games together. The price “fits” the size and type of game experience people expect when they see a Mint Tin game, and the deals feel like deals. As anyone who has the game can vouch, Super Snipers is absolutely worth the $45 cost and I’ve gotten a lot of praise for the production quality. That said, the price didn’t match expectations for a 2 player polyomino game and this limited my audience / hurt my overall numbers.

2) Play style and difficulty. The promise of a 5 minute teach and 15-20 minute gameplay combined with the size of the game gives the (correct) impression that these games won’t overwhelm you and will be very easy to table with gamers and non-gamers. New gamers will have an easy time picking up on the rules while gamers will enjoy that there is depth to the gameplay. I love competitive “couple’s games” (doesn’t have to be a romantic couple, just a 2nd player that you enjoy being competitive with). Super Snipers is ultimately very niche with the combination of its theme, mechanics, player count and difficulty (it’s on the light side of medium, but it can feel like a lot when you first learn). That combination is also its magic; it just doesn’t cast nearly as wide of a spell. The mint tin games appeal to a MUCH wider demographic.

3) Form Factor. I managed to catch a bit of a wave with these, I think. Small games are “in” and people are very intrigued by Mint Tin Sized games. People want games that they can travel with and be able to play outside the home. These are pocket and purse friendly and an easy “yes” for a lot of gamers.

Factor #2: Pledge and Add-On Structure

1) Low entry price, high average pledge. In my initial conversations with Sean of Crowdfunding Nerds, there was some concern about how ads could be worthwhile for $15 games. The initial suggestion was to only offer the 2 and 4 game bundles. Ultimately, I didn’t want to turn away backers who just wanted 1 game so I instead made sure the incentives were good to buy more. 1 for $15 (as an add-on), 2 for $24, and 4 for $40 are the basic pledge levels and the one “exclusive” thing I have for the Kickstarter (price). The 4 for $40 has been, by far, the most popular level (495 backers), followed by the Battle Bundle of the 2 “fighting” games (97 backers), followed by the Strategy Bundle and Mix-and-Match bundles (50 Backers each). Obviously, the highest pledge level will be my best ROAS (return on ad spend), but having the other options sold an additional 394 games and brought in $9,456. The number of backers who pledged for a single game is very low!

2) Add-ons at a discount as Stretch Goals. The game content for this campaign was all “pre-stretched” (for many reasons). The value of stretch goals in keeping your audience engaged is still important though and I had a few add-ons in my pocket that I was willing to add if the campaign numbers justified the spend. Every time a stretch goal was reached and an add-on was made available at a discounted price, a large number of backers would immediately add it to their pledge, propelling us closer to the next stretch goal. Now, many pledges that started at $40 are increased to $90 with the add-ons.

Factor #3: Not my First Rodeo

1) Email list. I started with an email list of about 1500 from Super Snipers / Galen’s Games in general, and had collected around 100 organically from conventions specifically for the Mint Tin games. We were able to do 2 months pre-marketing instead of 3 (saving money) and gain 1,200 emails in that time (about 300 more than Super Snipers did with a month less in ads!).

2) Convention Presence. Having these to show at GenCon was huge. If I’d had them for sale, I would have made a killing (hopefully holds true for when I do!).

3) Super Snipers. While the Kickstarter for Super Snipers wasn’t the success that this one is, it has been doing well both critically and in terms of sales since, and this has widened my audience and reputation. Having it and the accessories available as an additional item to buy in the Kickstarter has added an additional $2,675 to the money total so far.

4) Advertising and Marketing. As I alluded to in the beginning, I spent way less up front on this campaign. Shorter pre-marketing, fewer prototypes, less paid previews, and fewer spends for non FB ads. I chose to focus on a few places with the biggest impact and I think it worked out. After my experience with Super Snipers, I was less fearful about “missing out” on advertising opportunities and stuck with a reasonable budget.

5) Spreading out the Media. I was very focused on a big Day 1 with the first campaign (it is important) and front loaded way too many previews before the project was live. With this one, I had a number ready to go on Day 1 when backers could actually back directly afterwards. I spread out and kept content coming throughout the campaign (something else may actually show up as I write this!). This, along with podcast and youtube interviews kept my games in front of people and - I believe - helped with the momentum.

Factor #4: Momentum

This one is tough, because I don’t think you can bottle it. If your campaign doesn’t already have momentum, there’s very little you can do to create it. If it has momentum, there are some things that can help it increase. The dreaded “mid-campaign slump” was not bad at all for this one. You can see the difference between the daily numbers for this campaign and Super Snipers’.

1) The all powerful Kickstarter Algorithm. While I never got the “Project we Love” designation (what more do they want!), Kickstarter was very kind to my project and my campaign showing up a lot of places as a recommendation made a huge impact on its overall success. The fact that I did well, pushed my project in the algorithm, which helped my project do well, and on , and on.

2) Add-ons and Stretch Goals. I already covered this, but the momentum gained in the middle of the campaign by unlocking add-ons and backers adding them was a big deal. Maybe I would have made that money up front if they were on offer from the start, but they made for some big money days when the backer influx was low and that was great both emotionally and in terms of the constant and consistent growth of the campaign (which contributes to its success)

Okay, that’s enough for now. Plenty more to dive into when I get the time. Thanks for reading! Please consider subscribing to the Blog if you aren’t already. And, of course, if you haven’t yet, please take a look at the Galen’s Games Mint Tin Series campaign! It ends at 4pm EST today!

Galen