Kickstarter - How to handle finished product/IAP as a reward

[lazypeon]

Just curious if anyone has tried offering the finished product or free IAP on Kickstarter for your backers.

I'm thinking of trying a Kickstarter campaign, but can't quite figure out how I'd offer the app as a reward. I'd considered 'gifting' the app, but there's a thread on here (I think from Imangi) that talked about some gotchas, like that you can only do a few emails at once and/or having your credit card blocked for what appears to be fraudulent activity.

As for free IAP, not sure if you can gift IAP or not? You might get around this by having the user enter some code to 'redeem' their reward in-game, and just unlock the IAP that way -- not sure. It seems like it'd be a pain to manage.

Has anyone done something similar, or have some insight into how you might do it? I feel like for Kickstarter, getting the final product is usually the most popular backing level, so I'm wracking my brain to figure out how you could do it.

[drelbs]

I am not a developer but memory...

1) I've seen a dev gift HUNDREDS of codes before (Catacombs)

2) I've seen devs give out THOUSANDS of one-use codes (Blokoban) and general passwords (Letris2, Dungeon Solitaire)

If you poke around and search here and/or Google you should be able to find the relevant threads.

[lazypeon]

Thanks for the leads! I'll check out Blokoban in particular. AFAIK, Apple only gives you 50 free 'promo' codes and that you can't get more, but maybe there is a way.

[drelbs]

Originally Posted by lazypeon

Thanks for the leads! I'll check out Blokoban in particular. AFAIK, Apple only gives you 50 free 'promo' codes and that you can't get more, but maybe there is a way.

You get 50 per version release, the rest you'd have to purchase. (Keep in mind that you'll get part of your purchase back as income from Apple. )

EDIT: I forgot about limitations - the only purchasing limitations I've seen is $100 in gift cards per month, gifting apps does not count towards that total. (I got that directly from Apple support - I have purchases gift cards for people here on TA for PayPal $$$ and have run into that limit a few times.

[lazypeon]

Here's the post I was talking about for gifting 'gotchas'. I think I might have to go this same route, but hopefully some of the issues have been smoothed out: http://www.imangistudios.com/2010/03...-tool-for.html

[PodCubed]

Hey Lazypeon thanks for the link to that Imangi article. I was always curious about Kickstarter and how people were giving out their game beyond 50. Nonetheless I imagine it's still a cost effective method if you are going for crowdfunding albeit you lose reviews.

I've followed Kickstarter quite a bit, I agree with you in that people prefer the whole product as one.

I read here that you can't gift it, so I imagine you would need to ship the product as a whole (however I don't know what you are intending). The ingame promotion code would be a way but that's quiet a hassle.

I wish you the best for your Kickstarter project, sorry I couldn't find a better way but if you got some details on your kickstarter project send me a PM!

[EssentialParadox]

Maybe this information I got from an iTunes rep is useful...

I understand that you are interested on sending gift to 10,000 iTunes users. We actually call that "volume purchase". First, I would like to thank you for your interest. The following resources are the best way to find out more info about this program:

Volume Purchase Program FAQ
http://volume.itunes.apple.com/faq

http://www.apple.com/itunes/education

Thank you for choosing iTunes. Have a great day Luke.

Sincerely,

Rodney
iTunes Store Customer Support/ Mac App Store

[mr.Ugly]

did you asked further? because that program says educational in every second sentence.. and promotions are hardly educational .. and devs hardly such institutions..

[EssentialParadox]

Originally Posted by mr.Ugly

did you asked further? because that program says educational in every second sentence.. and promotions are hardly educational .. and devs hardly such institutions..

I did specifically mention what I was after, and that it was for a crowdfunding campaign. I haven't encountered any limitations on the process that means it cannot be used in this way, other than the fact it's country-specific. So any countries you need to issue deliveries to would require you to sign up for the VPP in that country (but it probably makes sense to use smaller denomination gift cards if it's just a few hundred in those other countries).

As far as I know, it's still not possible to gift an app using a US gift card to someone in a different country. I'm curious how Imangi dealt with that.

[MightyRabbitJosh]

For Saturday Morning RPG we actually made a separate "Deluxe" version of the game with all of the IAPs unlocked. We then set the release date for 2013. We were able to get promo codes without that version being on the App Store. The caveat to this is that apparently users can't update an app that isn't released yet - even if they've got the app on their device. If I'd known that when I launched my Kickstarter, I probably wouldn't have chosen the route I took.