I agree we have to spread the word more. Almost 5k backers is great but we should be pushing in at least 10k. Especially considering Titan Quest sold 1million.
On top of that what can be done to convince some of the 2.4k backers who only pledged 18 bucks into going into higher tiers. Even if we made a say 25 dollar tier that added a little something extra? The problem with a lot of the big projects is they offer things like Tshirts etc I think that stuff becomes to pricey.
I think that is because of the high competition inside the genre it has with Diablo III and Torchlight II, because you currently pay for all of them at the same time.
The other kickstarters did not have any competition, because the fact that there is no competition was the very reason to do the kickstarters.
So this one is the exception, being “just” another entry in the genre.
I think what would draw more people in is definitely a budget price.
Sure, there are a lot of people willing to pay more and so they’re pledge counts more if you look at the percentage of what they contributed, but if you look at the numbers of lowest tier backers alone, you have 32k for wasteland 2, 15k for Shadowrun Returns and 47k for Double Fine. For the first two that number is about as much as all other tiers combined and for double fine it was significantly more.
I think that’s where the potential is.
The abstraction of numbers - so malleable and flexible. Wasteland 2 had 53%, Double Fine 54% and Leisre Suit Larry 60% of their total backers at the $15 level. Shadowrun Returns is currently around 44% but that project has become so much about the money that I remain extremely close to removing my backing of it. Currently Grim Dawn has just less than 50% of all backers at the lowest $18 tier level. This reading suggests that we have no ‘problem’ at the $18 level at all other than that thousands more of them would be welcome.
Anecdotally, I would suggest that Grim Dawn has a different demographic from the other games mentioned. The game’s players/backers are likely to be younger and therefore is less likely to have large numbers of people able to afford the middling purchases or the higher tiers. I suggest the game is real time rather than turn based (including point and click as either extremely slow real time or very quick turn based) and fast reactions tend to be the province of the younger amongst us. However, if this is true Grim Dawn’s backers might also be more prepared to make personal sacrifices to pledge the most they possibly can being more willing to suffer privation (particularly having parents still able to minimise any suffering) as well as having fewer dependents for any cash shortfall to impact upon.
Titan Quest is not nearly as old as the progenitors of all the games mentioned above (Banner Saga being an exception) and therefore a larger proportion of the backers of those games will have had time to become wealthier and be able to donate at higher tiers. Aso, they are less likely to splash much of their cash on games generally as there are fewer games around that they might want to play - hence the excitement.
The analysis is guesswork and imagination as all such must be. I have relied largely on generalisms and could continue indefinitely with such sophistry had I but world enough and time. To paraphrase Eubulides (I’ve been replaying TQIT hence the Greek reference) I know only that I know nothing.
However, I think the fund-rasing efforts are going splendidly and that Crate are doing a good job of managing the process. I would encourage as many $18 dollar sells as possible - more people invested in the game and spreading the word about it. People will up their pledges if they can afford to when the time comes - the tier rewards as they stand seem pretty good and divert the smallest possible amount of money away form the game’s production which is might be regarded as the primary aim.
Hello everybody. I am an early buyer (Epic) and I wondered if I could fund with Kickstarter by buying a pack without upgrading my early Epic one. I.e. : have my two packs. Because I don’t want to lose my early buyer’s status and I would like to be a kickstarter too. Is it possible ?
You don’t have to “upgrade” on kickstarter, its really only if you want get a higher pledge without spending the x amount you spent earlier. Example if you have Epic already and you want to get another Epic just pledge the amount. Or if you want to upgrade it to legendary just pledge the deficit.
You can simply pledge on Kickstarter without sending an email to [email protected] (which you would need to do to ‘cash in’ you epic / legendary preorder for a KS preorder).
If you do not upgrade, you will have to pay full price, otherwise you will only need to pledge the difference between the KS amount and the preorder you already got.
Note that if you decide to upgrade, you will not lose your equipment from the epic preorder, you will only gain the Kickstarter items.
Medierra you might want to add in big bold red letters at the top of the page that there is no online all the time internet connection required to play Grim Dawn. 
Possibly… although with a million copies sold (not counting the number of pirated copies, which must have been phenomenal according to some things I’ve read…) you’d figure the KS project would appeal to more than 0.5% of all owners…
if you look at the numbers of lowest tier backers alone, you have 32k for wasteland 2, 15k for Shadowrun Returns and 47k for Double Fine. For the first two that number is about as much as all other tiers combined and for double fine it was significantly more.
I think that’s where the potential is.
A potential for numbers of backers perhaps, but in all three of these roughly 80% of the donated cash comes from higher tiers (almost 90% in Shadowrun’s case…). Those tiers just aren’t the make-it or break-it tiers. If those tiers weren’t there and say only half of the backers decided to pledge at the next level, you still haven’t lost anything towards your pledge total…
To me the benefit of the bottom tier is that it creates a larger number of backers which can help spread things by word of mouth (hopefully). If half your backers are at that level, theoretically half of the free press is coming from that level as well…
I too am baffled that out of the million plus potential fans that there are only 4,800 backers after 12 days. 
We mustn’t be doing a very good job spreading the word…
So true Numbers lie…
This reading suggests that we have no ‘problem’ at the $18 level at all other than that thousands more of them would be welcome.
Agreed, that seems to me the biggest surprise as well, that we have attracted a relatively small number so far although I haven’t really looked at the other projects to see when the bulk of their backers pledged during their campaigns… I can’t imagine it is too much different from this KS though…
Anecdotally, I would suggest that Grim Dawn has a different demographic from the other games mentioned. The game’s players/backers are likely to be younger
That’s an interesting possibility, but I’m not sure if it is true… We need an age survey of TQ/ARPG players!
(Banner Saga being an exception)
Which interestingly enough has 32% of its pledges at the $50 tier as compared to 15% for GD. This for a game that should have no fan base…
The analysis is guesswork and imagination as all such must be.
Can any analysis be anything but that?
However, I think the fund-rasing efforts are going splendidly and that Crate are doing a good job of managing the process. I would encourage as many $18 dollar sells as possible - more people invested in the game and spreading the word about it. People will up their pledges if they can afford to when the time comes - the tier rewards as they stand seem pretty good and divert the smallest possible amount of money away form the game’s production which is might be regarded as the primary aim.
Couldn’t agree more with you here. I think it is going exceedingly well and wouldn’t want a thing changed. I would only encourage people to continue talking things up, if you can’t raise your pledge, convincing someone else to join is just as good…
For Banner Saga, you have to notice the $50 pledge was the first that bring the full game ; below was just the first chapter. It’s like the $50 pledge of Grim Dawn would bring all further expansions of the game, which is not the case. So the 32% has an easy explanation, and it’s not just the “Banner Saga exception case”. 
Well i would be quite cautions with “This for a game that should have no fan base…”. Farmville is also a game which doesn’t attract me at all but still millions play it
well at least in Germany i saw on many gaming sites a news about it after googling “Grim Dawn”, though it is not top news of course. And i also think u only reach a small percentage of the buyers and even a smaller percentage is investing in the project
THe problem with those three is that there is not a real alternative. No Shadowrun, no Wasteland (old style rpg game) or MonkeyIsland games and fans desperately want it to happen.
On the other hand Diablo 3, TL2 are going to be released, Path of Exile is on being released, so i guess competition is a bit higher.
This in general for kickstarter not particular Grim Dawn:
And u need the lower tiers as u say for spreading the word but also u won’t get so many in higer tiers because people investing on Kickstarter into a game which isn’t released yet and maybe will fall short because the budget got out of control. So it is just a risk investment: If it is getting released i get a xheap nice game which i like to play and if it doesn’t get released well i just got a loss of 3-4 drinks at a bar.
Yeah, I’m trying to convince a friend of mine to pledge for GD, but in his mind GD is just an “inferior Diablo III clone”.
And I think the reason why the higher tiers are so popular in the other kickstarters is because those people are completely deprived of games of that genre for years, in addition to being fans of developers that have been around for 20 years.
I think the crowd of potential customers for the recent kickstarter and this one are just completely different, and a cheaper first tier could do the trick.
And after all, people who want to spent more, do so anyway and won’t be disturbed by a cheaper first tier.
I’m not trying to convince you that I’m definitely right, just trying to explain my train of thought
I still think saturation is a major part of the “problem” (I put that in quotes because the Kickstarter is still well on its way to meeting and exceeding its goal). I think that maybe the Grim Dawn Kickstarter went up a little bit too soon. It’s a tough balancing act because right now the whole Kickstarter thing is hot and has a lot of attention, which is definitely a positive, but on the other hand there have been so many high profile projects recently that it’s drained people’s funds. A lot of people just simply don’t have enough money to contribute to everything they want to contribute to or can only afford to contribute less to Grim Dawn since all those other projects started out earlier and ate up the majority of the available funding.
Luckily the Kickstarter still has almost 3 weeks left, which hopefully gives time for people to scrape together some money to contribute. I hope there are a lot of people out there like me who only contributed a small amount to the Kickstarter (though my total contribution when taking my previous Legendary Key into account is $85, which I would say is significant) because that’s all they could afford at the time, and are waiting to see if they can up their pledge later on in the Kickstarter. Maybe in a week or two we may see some of those $18 pledges go up to higher tiers? Well, that’s my hope anyway.
I agree with this entirely and wonder if it is not part of the reason why we have a lower percentage of backers at the initial price point - I really needed to think when making my initial purchase as it was slightly more expensive than the other projects I had backed. The differential is small but noticeable. I imagine that the lowest tier was fixed to be as close as possible to the pre-purchase orders already in place with the cheapest being $20. A tough decision for the guys to make but again, the quality of the contract between developers and customers is clearly paramount.
The good part is that once, like Doctor, I had made the initial purchase I was more inclined to raise my backing to the highest I have given (or will ever give) to any Kickstarter.
Now that’s a point I completely understand, tough call to set the lowest tier to 15$ in that case.
Unless of course, Looking Glass studios return 
Agreed completely - I think the reward tier makes a huge difference in this project… afterall, that’s the reason I pledged them $50…
I should have said pre-existant fanbase - one that is based on the work of the company or their former track record with games of this type… basically the point I was trying to make is that this company does not have the big name pull of a Tim Schafer, Brian Fargo, etc…
THe problem with those three is that there is not a real alternative. No Shadowrun, no Wasteland (old style rpg game) or MonkeyIsland games and fans desperately want it to happen.
Again… to me this is debatable… there was a Shadowrun game in 2007, the Fallout series is as much a descendent of Wasteland as GD is of Diablo, and Monkey Island has been re-made, expanded, and there have been other games even by Tim Schafer since which have been largely neglected (Psychonauts - which everyone should play and Stacked)… this doesn’t even address other games which have been inspired by the aforementioned games…
This in general for kickstarter not particular Grim Dawn:
And u need the lower tiers as u say for spreading the word but also u won’t get so many in higer tiers because people investing on Kickstarter into a game which isn’t released yet and maybe will fall short because the budget got out of control. So it is just a risk investment: If it is getting released i get a xheap nice game which i like to play and if it doesn’t get released well i just got a loss of 3-4 drinks at a bar.
But again, wouldn’t this be a case against other games rather than Grim Dawn? Double Fine has nothing done… Wasteland, concept art… Grim Dawn, well on the road to being complete… The pledges are there, and at higher tiers… The risk for GD seems almost negligible compared to other projects…
By the hostility seen from some Diablo communities, it seems like the diehard Diablo fan is going to be almost impossible to convert… strange… You would think they would enjoy more than one food, listen to more than one song, watch more than one show or movie, or read more than one book… I’ve played the D3 beta and enjoyed the game, I know I’ll enjoy this one as well. Why wouldn’t I support both?
And I think the reason why the higher tiers are so popular in the other kickstarters is because those people are completely deprived of games of that genre for years, in addition to being fans of developers that have been around for 20 years.
See earlier comments, but I do think the fanbase is a bigger factor than a lot of people are taking into account.
I’m not trying to convince you that I’m definitely right, just trying to explain my train of thought
And I certainly wouldn’t try to convince you otherwise - I’m just playing the Devil’s advocate… As I said earlier, I’m very happy with how the KS project is progressing, I think the tiers are well designed, and am positive of the success that will come.
Sadly a big par of their fanbase aren’t supporters, but fanatics. Even if Diablo end up being a total turd, these fanatics will still praise it, or at least continue to claim they like it, they can’t throw 60 bucks to it and not enjoy it. Anyway Diablo isn’t a bad game, just I think GD will be better and without these shitty DRM. (and also three time cheaper :P)
That’s the thing about fanboys, they’re so passionate about their obsession that they are blind to any fault. In fairness, Blizzard has sort of earned that because of their track record of amazing games.