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

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by lazypeon, Apr 5, 2012.

  1. lazypeon

    lazypeon Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    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.
     
  2. drelbs

    drelbs Well-Known Member

    Jun 25, 2009
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    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.
     
  3. lazypeon

    lazypeon Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    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.
     
  4. drelbs

    drelbs Well-Known Member

    Jun 25, 2009
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    #4 drelbs, Apr 6, 2012
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2012
    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.
     
  5. lazypeon

    lazypeon Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

  6. PodCubed

    PodCubed Active Member

    Apr 2, 2012
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    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!
     
  7. EssentialParadox

    EssentialParadox Well-Known Member

    Sep 21, 2009
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    Maybe this information I got from an iTunes rep is useful...

     
  8. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    did you asked further? because that program says educational in every second sentence.. and promotions are hardly educational .. and devs hardly such institutions.. :D
     
  9. EssentialParadox

    EssentialParadox Well-Known Member

    Sep 21, 2009
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    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.
     
  10. MightyRabbitJosh

    MightyRabbitJosh Well-Known Member

    Nov 16, 2011
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    Programmer and Designer at Mighty Rabbit Studios
    Holly Springs, NC
    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.
     
  11. EssentialParadox

    EssentialParadox Well-Known Member

    Sep 21, 2009
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    Well Apple have already told me explicitly that I could use the iTunes volume purchase program for a Kickstarter campaign, so I'm going to go ahead with that. If for some reason I can't do it afterwards, the onus will be on Apple to remedy it.
     
  12. mr.Ugly

    mr.Ugly Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    the onus.. whatever it is.. will always be on your side.. not matter what "apple" said or not.. :)
     
  13. Kafu

    Kafu Well-Known Member

    You can avoid gifting the App implementing a custom IAP purchase scheme in addition to the standard one: keep a list of device UDIDs (or something similar!) on your server, then you check if a device can unlock the game for free if its id is in the list.

    It's free (no stupid auto-purchases) and simple to manage.
     
  14. jclardy

    jclardy Well-Known Member

    Dec 10, 2008
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    Well if it ends up you can't do it you could always go to a store and buy Apple gift cards with cash. Would take a while to enter codes, but it would keep your credit card from getting frozen.

    But with volume purchase you would get a discount as well as the 70% from the sale, so you would lose less to Apple that way. Plus it would take way less time.
     

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