Kickstarter - Asking for Less than You Need is Risky

Developer Katie Chironis wrote a highly interesting piece for Polygon analysing the Kickstarter bubble and the risks of asking only for a small part of your game's budget: 'Big indie' Kickstarters are killing actual indies.

Bloodstained isn't a story of the little guy triumphing over big publishers; it's the story of a campaign that had millions of dollars of funding before the Kickstarter began and the help of multiple companies handling the logistics of the campaign. They asked for $500,000 to prove a point, not fund a game. The issue is that campaigns like that cause members of the community to believe that $500,000 is all you need to create large-scale experiences.

When you ask for half a million dollars when you really need $5 million, it becomes impossible for games with realistic budgets to survive. It’s not that people don’t understand what a game costs, it’s more that Kickstarter is actively distorting people’s understanding of a sane budget. The ecosystem is being poisoned for projects that need to raise their actual, workable budget for a game.

If you are considering to back a Kickstarter or even launch your own campaign in the future, you should head over to Polygon to read Katie's article.