Kickstarter have funded a lot of successful games. Independent and home-brew developers look to it for help when they have ideas. If the ideas are brilliant enough, it's not hard to obtain successful backing from members of the site.
The power of crowdfunding shows first and foremost on titles that receive adequate, if not above-target, funding. From "Pebble Time," Oatmeal's quirky card game "Exploding Kittens," and the most anticipated installment of the epic "Shenmue 3" — the site's successful projects speak for itself.
This is why when Dynamic Pixels had an idea for a video game, they turned onto the patrons of Kickstarter for help.
A crowdfunding flop
Dynamic Pixels is a small Game Developer based in Russia. The first game they pitched is called "Hello Neighbor" — a game about sneaking into suspicious a Neighbor's house and finding out what lies inside. Graphics-wise it's nothing revolutionary and has some 3D animation reminiscent of Pixar feature films.
Yet if the gameplay was something to write home about at all, no one seemed to notice. Most Kickstarter patrons dismissed it and did not think it was worth their money. The project flopped, raising a mere $13,000 of its $100,000 target budget.
Dynamic Pixels did not lose hope, however, and took a different approach. They turned to what seemed to be the next best thing: they created a working demo and distributed it to gamers who stream on Twitch and YouTube.
They then invited these gamers to upload or stream gameplay videos for their followers to see. Viewers who liked the game were free to try out the demo of "Hello Neighbor" themselves if they so desired.
The power of YouTube and other video streaming sites
What happened next surprised the developers. After a month of streaming, they reported having earned back the money they spent on development, through pre-orders of the game.
The New York Times reports that now Dynamic Pixels has earned triple that value.
This story is featured as a testament to how, even though sites like Kickstarter have dominated the crowdfunding scene, developers cannot ignore the power of video streaming sites. Popular YouTube personalities like PewDiePie and Markiplier could send a video game to popularity heaven just by playing a few minutes of the game.
On the other hand, there are people who think that streaming complete playthroughs of a game makes the game lose its narrative flavor. While there is this factor to consider, it is still nice to think that Kickstarter is not the be-all-end-all for indie success.
