Why finance your board game through crowdfunding?
At last, your board game project has reached maturity and you think it’s time to bring it to market!
🥳 Congratulations!
But what’s the best way to do it? Today, you have two major solutions available to you:
- 🏪 an retail distribution channel,
- 💰 a crowdfunding campaign.
Each solution has its own advantages and disadvantages. In this article, I’ll explain the main reasons why a project of this kind would benefit from crowdfunding.
Of the many actors sharing the crowdfunding market, the two most important are Kickstarter and Gamefound.
- Kickstarter had $225M in revenues and over 834K backers in 2023 for the Board Games category alone.
- Gamefound has 1 million users as well as the largest funding for a board game in 2023 with $12M raised for Nemesis: Retaliation.
Such figures can quickly make your head spin 😵💫 … and I can already imagine you behind your keyboard dreaming about your game becoming the next big crowdfunding success.
Beware of the smoke and mirrors, though. For a project of this magnitude, how many don’t make it to funding? Spoiler Alert: many!
Let’s explore the main reasons why, in my opinion, you should put your board game up for crowdfunding.
💰 Financing
For first-time projects
Have you already produced your own board game? Then you already know: it costs a lot of money 💸
The creation of a first project often starts with your own funds. A publisher inspired by your ideas may also co-finance part of your development costs. However, it’s not unusual for these funds to run out BEFORE you have a completed game. Perhaps this is your case? If so, you may be looking for a complementary financing solution.
Crowdfunding can be a good solution to obtain the funds required to complete your game. Raising funds from your backers can provide a real boost. Not only will you be able to bring your game to fruition with peace of mind, but you’ll also have a comfortable cash flow. You’ll no longer need to pay in advance for the services of your suppliers, with your own funds!
For a reprint
You are a veteran in the creation of board games? Are you looking to reprint one of your previous gaming successes? Crowdfunding is THE solution! Whether or not you offer additional content (gameplay expansions, accessories, corrective features, etc.) to your game, a reprint is usually profitable.
Yes, it is! The game’s development has already been financed by your previous campaign. You now have marketing elements to recycle — more or less completely — for this new project. All you have to concern yourself with are marketing, production and logistics costs.
These advantages make it much easier to reach the minimum quantity needed to reprint your game.
This solution will often result in a higher profit margin for the project owner.
💸 The project costs
Let’s move on to some concepts of savings inherent to crowdfunding.
No doubt you’ve already heard that a project financed by crowdfunding costs less than a project for distribution in shops.
This statement is partly true. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be rolling in dough, taking it easy.
Here’s the reality of the fees… pardon me, the facts!
Savings from suppliers
Nowadays in France, distribution costs for a board game project are about 25%. Retailers, on the other hand, are aiming for a margin of about 40%.
⛔ NO, you’re not actually going to make 65% savings on your project!
In fact, the money liberated from these traditional collaborations must be reallocated to other activities. A number of expenses remain inevitable:
- marketing and advertising on a range of media
- campaign management,
- platform and pledge manager costs,
- production costs,
- logistics, delivery and storage costs.
Indeed, Distributor and Retailers often split these essential tasks between themselves. Without them, if you don’t have the appropriate resources in-house, you’ll have to turn to new suppliers.
The agency was set up to provide support for game creators who decide to embark on the crowdfunding adventure on their own. In short: we help them with tasks for which they have no expertise and insufficient human resources.
If you estimate correctly your rewards price, production costs, shipping costs and suppliers’ costs, you can expect to make a better profit.
Improving your end product
💰 Well, you’ve saved money thanks to crowdfunding. What can you do with it now?
Obviously you could leave for a month in the Bahamas, but… you can also improve the quality of your game!
Crowdfunding is an environment that encourages ambitious, high-quality projects.
Why not invest in better and more high-quality material, with more illustrations? Providing backers with this kind of attention to details generally results in a powerful marketing asset.
Indeed, a higher-quality game will generate greater interest and a higher rate of commitment from people watching your ads on social networks.
- Consider adding a single-player mode to your game,
- Improve the quality of your cards by offering your backers a linen finish,
- Upgrade your boards by making them double-layered.
There are many ways to give your backers a treat.
Economies of scale and inventory
Looking for even more savings? Here are a number of significant ones. These are economies of inventory and economies of scale!
When manufacturing for a traditional distribution channel, you estimate the number of units to be produced for the first sales run in the shops and for the first reordering. You produce a quantity of games based on a gamble. The gamble being the number of units you will sell. This approach offers no guarantee of sales or of your stock being sold quickly.
On the other hand, a crowdfunding project has two important benefits. It acts as a kind of “pre-order” service, and the ordered quantities are often large. At the end of a campaign, you will be able to determine with some precision the number of games and addons to be produced. This leads to two important advantages:
- By ordering a larger volume of games and addons, you benefit from a better economy of scale.
- You produce on order rather than on estimate (except for units intended for after-sales service), which limits the quantity of surplus games costing you a lot in storage fees.
👥 The Community
Brilliant, thanks to your savings you’ve spiced up your project! Now let’s look at your main target: your community.
Traffic
It’s common knowledge among regular backers that “ good deals are found through crowdfunding”.
Backers get better-quality games, some of which are unavailable in retail outlets, or much cheaper than they would be if they were available there. Kickstarter and Gamefound attract a huge number of gamers. Showcasing your game there is a fabulous opportunity to contact a massive audience of potential customers. At least much more than in a bricks-and-mortar shop.
⛔ However, the traffic generated by these platforms is not enough to propel your project to the top.
We are adamant with our clients that a project should not be launched without having first built and nurtured a community.
So you’ve got the best game concept in the world, but you haven’t told anyone about it? Who will back it then? Building an enthusiastic community around your project is vital. Once established, it will spontaneously talk about your project. It is a valuable asset for communicating your message. It is one of the major cornerstones of your long-term success.
Communicate early and regularly on your game. As soon as you have visual key elements or a complete game presentation. The sooner the public hears about it, the faster it will generate interest among players and grow your community.
To learn more about this topic, check out Caroline’s excellent post : I don’t have a community: can I still launch my crowdfunding campaign?
Feedback on your project
Your community has other key assets! You’re not just gathering “potential customers”, but also players with varying degrees of experience.
By submitting your project for crowdfunding, you can confront it directly with your potential backers.
Their feedback both before and during the campaign is invaluable in many ways.
- Their comments help to confirm your marketing choices and their opinion of your game. In some cases, they may even prompt you to rethink its presentation, appearance or features. Launching a game that doesn’t meet the expectations of your customers will often result in it falling off the wagon.
- You’ll be saving time and money by addressing (positively or not) the expectations raised by your backers. It’s not unusual to have a backer suggest an intelligent feature that a publisher could add to their game.
⚠️ Be careful not to forget the nature of your project!
You will receive dozens of comments and suggestions every day. Your project belongs to you and reflects your vision of the game. You will NEVER be able to satisfy every single one of your backers’ expectations. Not acknowledging this could endanger your campaign.
- Crowdfunding websites offer fairly powerful tools and provide important data. Most of them help you determine the profile of your target customers and, more specifically, your backers’ location. This will enable you to adapt your future marketing strategies and even open up your next projects to new countries.
💍 Commitment
Evaluation and confirmation of your project
Managing a crowdfunding project is a costly, time-consuming and often stressful activity. However, the commitment involved in a crowdfunding project may be lower than for a traditional project.
Your study of the market and current trends may not have revealed the suitability or the viability of your project. You might therefore consider launching your project on crowdfunding to limit any potential financial losses. In fact, stopping a failing campaign only costs you the amount invested in the development and promotion of your campaign. Obviously, this is not insignificant. But it is still less severe than suffering a commercial failure after the production of your game.
The convenience of a one-shot project
Last but not least, crowdfunding limits your personal commitment to a specific aspects of the business.
- You won’t need to set up an online shop to sell off your stock.
- You can free yourself much more easily from the cost of storing your games.
- Perhaps all you wanted was to see your game published at all costs, even in small quantities?
- Perhaps you now want to focus on a less demanding game intended for retail outlets?
In which case, once you have produced and delivered the games ordered by your backers, you are free to move on to another project, with no obligation to ‘guarantee’ the ongoing development of a product line, as can be the case with a traditional publisher. You won’t be pushed into making an expansion to revive interest in your game. Nothing ties you to reprint your game to resupply shops if you don’t want to.
Whether you’re pursuing a compelling passion, or trying something out for yourself, the experience of crowdfunding is perceived very differently from one project owner to the next.
📧 Contact us
That concludes my presentation of the main reasons why, in my opinion, use crowdfunding to finance your board games. Obviously there are others, depending on the expectations and constraints of each project owner. Our team is ready to hear all your considerations and provide you with solutions tailored to your needs.
We remain at your disposal if you are looking for campaign management or consulting services for your project.
Tell us about your project using this form and we’ll be delighted to find out more so that we can support you in this fun adventure.
I hope you enjoy reading our other posts.
See you soon on a new topic.
