Crowdfund your App or Game

[Therealtrebitsch]

I thought, I make a topic about crowdfunding, because I was reading the net about it the last days and maybe there are others, who want to know more about it too.

I was looking for websites and communities, which seem to be big enough to be worth the try in the first place and which are available for computer and mobile game developers and their projects.

I have found dozens of websites which were country restricted, only for charity or artistic projects etc. I skipped them immediatelly (except a few, because I thought, they are worth to be there).

Now I have a small list, which I want to share with you. I will link the sites and make a short explanation next to them.

Most of them follow the same rules:

1. you create a project and tell, how much money you need.
2. You tell the timeframe (mostly around 90 days) your project is running
3. You promise different rewards for your backers based on the ammount of money they spend
4. if your goal has been reached, you get the money.

There are a few others, which have another approach, but I will explain them later.

So here it goes:

Sponsume | Fund your project through social networks

• UK based.
• Realtively small ammounts of money flow.
• Only € and £.
• Only one game project is present without any funding.
• 4% fee if goal met.
• PR 2, Alexa 329.000

Peerbackers | crowdfunding big ideas

• Small ammounts of money.
• No game project present.
• 5% fee if goal met.
• PR 3, Alexa 183.000

http://fansnextdoor.com

• France based.
• Small ammounts of money.
• Only one game project present.
• 3% fee if goal met.
• PR 3, Alexa 881.000

Cofundos.org - community innovation and funding

• Open Source Projects only.
• Confusing, like everything that is made by geeks.
• No money flow.
• No fees.
• PR 4, Alexa 1.107.000

https://www.profounder.com

• US ONLY.
• Not really a crowdfunding site, rather some unclear Investor-Enterpreneur connecting platform.
• PR N/A, Alexa N/A

Helping to raise business investment for UK entrepreneurs

• UK ONLY
• High ammounts of money.
• 5% fee if goal met.
• Additionally £1750 fee for legal costs if goal met.
• Equity share and reward in return
• Only one internet/media project
• PR 6, Alexa 172.000

Symbid

• Dutch based. Most projects in Dutch, but anybody is allowed.
• Mostly for internet projects.
• Small ammounts of money.
• No money flow.
• 2,5% + taxes if goal met.
• PR2, Alexa 576.000

ChipIn

• Only a widget
• You have to put it onto your websites and ask your own community for donation.
• 0% fee

Kickstarter

• US ONLY
• Most famous
• High ammounts of money
• Many game projects
• 5% fee if goal met
• PR 7, Alexa 5000

And here come the bests in my opinion:

IndieGoGo

• You always get the money! No waiting for reaching the goal.
• Relatively small ammounts of money flow.
• You must offer rewards in return for the backers
• 4% fee if goal met
• 9% fee if goal not met

Make good things happen - Ulule

• small ammounts of money, but even overfunding happens
• A few game projects
• 5% fee if goal met
• You must offer rewards in return for the backers
• PR 4, Alexa 81.000

Make money with apps | App Wholesale Marketplace for App Developers | appbackr

• Specialized on Mobile games and apps
• High ammounts of money
• iTunes Connect access needed (maybe they consider AppFigures)
• 3% + 10% fee if goal met
• initial invetment + 26% or 54% of the initial investment as revenue share in return (based on the project)
• PR 5, Alexa 99.000

So my conclusion is, that for iphone apps Appbackr would be the best choice even if it has a very high return cost. Only if they would skip the iTunes Connect part and they would watch you through AppFigures.

IndieGoGo is famous and seems to be a low risk opportunity for smaller investments, but has high costs.

Ulule seems to be a fine community and absolutely my favourite.

It seems, that there is money in crowdfunding, but if you need much money, you also have to do something for it. All websites have projects funded even with tens of thousands of dollars, but most projects never get funded.

If you need just a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to finish your project, IndieGoGo and Ulule are the best choices, I think.

I tried to list the best websites, which can be used by a game developer. As I said, there are dozens of others, but they seemed to be irrelevant for my needs.

I tried to comment the sites to get a general picture about them, but if you are interested in crowdfunding, I advice to visit them and make your own opinion and your own decision.

I hope, I could help.

If you found this useful, you can thank me by clicking my signature

EDIT:

I hesitated very long (at least in my terms ), but now I decided to go live with our crowdfunding project on IndieGoGo instead of Ulule or Appbackr.

I still wait for Appbackr on the Appfigures vs iTunes Connect thing and Ulule lost due to less popularity.

So if you want, you can check our crowdfunding project here: Battle Mage Academy on IndieGoGo

If you even contribute, we are very thankful.

[jonathanleek]

Thanks, I've been looking for something like this for awhile. Very useful.

Jon

[BulletDev]

Wow what an informative post. I've been interested in crowd funding a project but all I knew of was Kickstarter - which seems a like a tough battleground for visibility.

Appbackr is interesting I wonder how often people actually receive their investments back.

[Therealtrebitsch]

I am happy, you like it.

I added a few country restricted sites, because I thought, they are still worth to mention and because most of the devs are US and UK based.

I skipped spanish, czech, french and similar country restricted sites.

Appbackr seems to be a very serious "big brother", so if you make a commitment, be sure, that you also can deliver, because they will hunt you down and get the money back without mercy. At least that is what their FAQ suggests.

[BravadoWaffle]

Nice list! It's funny, a few months back we ran a kickstarter campaign and I posted our experiences here and most of what I got were people telling me it was a stupid idea and wouldn't ever work. In spite of the fact that indie game devs were raising serious money on those sites at the time.

It seems that finally developers are changing their tune and coming around to the idea. That's great!

[Therealtrebitsch]

I am absolutelly for crowdfunding. Congrats on raising the needed $1000 on Kickstarter!

I have set up a page on Ulule and Appbackr, but not yet released. I am waiting for Appbackr. If they accept the Appfigures approach of overwatching, then I will go with them.

If they stick with iTunes Connect, I probably try Ulule first, then Appbackr again, if Ulule fails.

BTW: is it allowed to post crowdfunding pages on TA in the other forums, so users can go there and participate, or is this also considered as "spam" here?

[headcaseGames]

Originally Posted by BravadoWaffle

Nice list! It's funny, a few months back we ran a kickstarter campaign and I posted our experiences here and most of what I got were people telling me it was a stupid idea and wouldn't ever work. In spite of the fact that indie game devs were raising serious money on those sites at the time.

It seems that finally developers are changing their tune and coming around to the idea. That's great!

I wouldn't say anyone would ever argue "it was stupid" to use Kickstarter. Around the same time you were posting, there was a pretty high-profile writeup on the TA front page about some other iOS game which was fairly successfully funded through the same service. I will assume that the flack you got (from people who actually did have a clue, anyway) was probably more about the presentation of the first version of your campaign - which was admittedly a difficult thing to do back then, and likely is even more tough now with all the extra competition.

I am not trying to knock you BW, presentation for a KS campaign falls in line with any other element of marketing, and stereotypically most of us small indie devs have a "trial by fire" approach to figuring that end of the business out, if we ever do!

I am planning to do a KS of my own in the near future, and have learned a lot by watching the campaigns other people have run. Honestly I am not too heavily expecting to get a large sum of money, but if it could get me some publicity that'd be a huge help..

thanks OP for this informative post!

[BravadoWaffle]

Originally Posted by headcaseGames

I wouldn't say anyone would ever argue "it was stupid" to use Kickstarter. Around the same time you were posting, there was a pretty high-profile writeup on the TA front page about some other iOS game which was fairly successfully funded through the same service. I will assume that the flack you got (from people who actually did have a clue, anyway) was probably more about the presentation of the first version of your campaign - which was admittedly a difficult thing to do back then, and likely is even more tough now with all the extra competition.

I am not trying to knock you BW, presentation for a KS campaign falls in line with any other element of marketing, and stereotypically most of us small indie devs have a "trial by fire" approach to figuring that end of the business out, if we ever do!

I am planning to do a KS of my own in the near future, and have learned a lot by watching the campaigns other people have run. Honestly I am not too heavily expecting to get a large sum of money, but if it could get me some publicity that'd be a huge help..

thanks OP for this informative post!

Yes, you have a good point about the trial by fire. It is a learning process for sure. My initial attempt and video was terrible. The second attempt that actually succeeded worked a good deal better, but still wasn't quite as successful as I'd hoped it would be.

Overall though, it was an amazing learning experience! I wholeheartedly recommend it to anybody looking to raise awareness and get a little development funding. You learn by doing!

[Photics]

http://rockethub.com/ is another crowdfunding site.

There are some ideas of mine that I think would make sense on such a site — but I don't think that my game projects are good match. If I'm making an iOS game, how do I reward the ones that "fuel" my project? I can't give them promo codes, as I think that is against the rules. Apple gets cranky when you try to work around their 30%... which I think they earn. While the app store is crowded, really good apps tend to be rewarded.

Not having to worry about risk is nice... so maybe I should consider the idea more thoroughly. There could be other rewards for kickstarters... like in-game recognition or PC/Mac versions of the game.

[Therealtrebitsch]

I didn't add Rockethub, because I didn't find categories to see if there are games on the site.

In their description they are rather mentioning artistic projects.

Now I have found a few games there (and the categories in a dropdown search menu), but I still have the feeling, that rockethub is not really for computer game projects.