Chibig, a game studio based in Valencia, Spain, recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for their upcoming game, Mika and the Witch’s Mountain. The initial goal was to raise €40,000 to fund porting, localization, and quality assurance processes. However, the campaign ended up raising €1,300,368, an astounding 3,250% of the original goal.
The developers shared the success on Reddit with the complete postmortem of how they were able to raise such a huge amount of money.
Pre-Campaign
Before launching the campaign, the Chibig team conducted a scoping exercise to determine what it would take to create a minimum viable product (MVP) that delivers the project’s value proposition with as few elements as possible. They concluded that the project was about 80% complete and that they would need about €40,000 to finish it. However, they also identified additional features that would enhance the overall experience if they could be developed.
The team estimated that an ideal goal for the campaign would be €200,000, which would include a small portion of these additional features. They also identified the inclusion of a companion for Mika and the dungeons as two features that would have a huge impact on development but would only be possible if the campaign was overwhelmingly successful.
Campaign Structure
The campaign video is one of the most important elements of a Kickstarter campaign because it’s the first thing a backer sees when entering the page to evaluate and decide. For Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, the team produced a 1 minute 47 second trailer that followed certain guidelines:
- The beginning has to be impressive and fast.
- Introduce the player’s actions and mechanics.
- Show the game world and its variety.
- Lower the intensity and return to the cinematic scenes to introduce a call-to-action message to support the campaign.
The campaign itself prioritized balanced information, interspersing text and images in a pragmatic way and without saturation. The team also tried to generate trust by showing the final game content, prototypes, closeness, and solvency.
Reward Design for Backers
One of the key elements in designing rewards is the average contribution per backer (or average ticket), which can indicate the scalability of the campaign. For this campaign, the team wanted to get the highest average ticket they could without resorting to physical elements. They set it at €45.
The team conducted an analysis of campaigns similar to theirs to see what elements make up their rewards and which are the most popular, in order to identify patterns or trends. They found that digital items were quite popular, enough to motivate the target audience after observing an average ticket of $50.
The team decided to adapt and include 21 elements, 15 digital and 6 physical, in the reward design. An initial configuration of the reward scale, with a total of 11 different rewards, was designed using these elements. The strategy they had in mind to reach the €45 average ticket was mainly to attract backers with the early bird rewards.
The Success of the Campaign
The Mika and the Witch’s Mountain campaign was a clear success for the studio. They raised €1,300,368, which was 3,250% of the original goal. This success not only validated the new team at Chibig but also resulted in new hypotheses and design approaches that contributed to the campaign’s success.
During the course of the campaign, the team made changes to the reward scale and offered additional rewards based on the feedback they received from the community. They also provided regular updates to backers, which helped to generate excitement and maintain engagement.
In conclusion, the success of the Mika and the Witch’s Mountain campaign was due to the team’s careful planning and execution. The pre-campaign scoping exercise, the well-structured campaign, and the thoughtful reward design
