Reverse Kickstarter – shows real sales stats

by mrcharles • 13 years ago

91 34 13 years ago

I'm going to guess that KS will be sending a C&D. It's a cute site, and I like the idea, but the style is way too close to KS. They have to be concerned about people stumbling onto this and not getting the joke.

On the other hand, if it gets popular to the point that KS sends a C&D, then the site probably served its purpose. Overall, a neat marketing idea.

interpol_p7• 13 years ago

I tried to make it an obvious parody, but if it's too close for comfort I will change it even more.

It's more about showing players our sales data and giving faces to the developers of their games. The Kickstarter parody aspect of it is intended to be humorous more than anything.

coffeecheque• 13 years ago

I'm on my phone so couldn't see the URL. I thought it was a Kickstarter, for what it is worth.

Great to see you're from Adelaide too! Keep up the great work, and best of luck. Really imaginative campaign.

interpol_p7• 13 years ago

We set this site up for our new game Crabitron and decided to call it Crabstarter. It is intended to be a light-hearted parody of Kickstarter, while showing real sales.

One of the main reasons we set it up is because we wanted to have some hope of recouping our investment in this game. In order to do that, we felt that we couldn't go for rock-bottom pricing and hope for a mega-hit. That seemed crazy and unrealistic.

Instead we gave our game the price we thought it deserved — $5. In order to help App Store players get over the "sticker shock," we set up Crabstarter. When you see that five dollar price in this context, it suddenly doesn't seem so high.

We also wanted players to see that we were real human beings, and not a faceless company. So we tried to make an honest video in the format of a standard Kickstarter video.

Pxtl2• 13 years ago

It's good to educate the buying public about how much it really costs to make something like this and how hard it is to recoup that. I hear people grousing about $3 apps and it drives me nuts.

The new era of apps is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we've got these obscenely low prices... but on the other hand, people are actually buying software. That's a bigger deal than most folks realize. Before the iOS era, people basically just didn't buy software. I mean, geeks did if there was some specific tool they needed, and gamers bought games of course... but the run-of-the-mill normal person? At most they bought MS office and maybe got hoodwinked into picking up Norton when the trial expired on their computer.

Now? Jane Q. Soccermom buys programs and games. That's a huge shift.

peterkelly4• 13 years ago

I hear people grousing about $3 apps and it drives me nuts.

The Oatmeal did a great parody of these people a while back: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

rrreese• 13 years ago

While I agree that people didn't buy applications, they definitely bought games. Not just in store either as can be seen by the success of Steam.

AJ007• 13 years ago

Also, people who in the past would have pirated software can't be bothered. When your a high school student, $50-$60 per game means you buy a couple of games a year, pirate them, or just stick to shareware and demos. Hell, how many of us burned through 99 cents in minutes on one-shot arcade machines?

Quality apps can demand premium prices, Minecraft runs for $6.99. I think in the future we will see more of a divergence between premium, dirt cheap, free, and freemium. Certainly the more hardcore gamers will understand the models behind freemium games and lose interest in them.

prawn• 13 years ago

Good luck from a fellow Adelaidean. Have tweeted (@isaacforman) to plug the game and will buy it when I get home to the iPad tonight. Looks like a decent partner game to Ridiculous Fishing, which is my current time-waster.

Well done on the launch.

EGreg2• 13 years ago

I don't get it. How is this a reverse kickstarter?

hmottestad• 13 years ago

Because the product is done already and you can buy the product.

The goals seem to be different enhancements to the game, they start after their 100k has been covered.

peterkelly4• 13 years ago

Normally with kickstarter they ask people to contribute to the development of something before the development is done.

In this case, they've finished & released the game, and are encouraging people to contribute to recovery of their development costs after the development has been done. Hence it's in "reverse".

EGreg2• 13 years ago

But what do the people get for the donation? If it's the game, then are they selling it outside the app store? And if so, how?

peterkelly4• 13 years ago

Brilliant concept IMHO. A lot of people don't realise the amount of work that goes into creating this kind of stuff, and sadly the race to the bottom that's happened with games on the app store has meant in a lot of cases it's hard to for developers these days to justify the large development costs.

I also love that you've given it a price and not gone with a freemium model. I'd much rather pay $5 for a (good) game up front than be constantly annoyed with offers to "buy more coins" etc.

brandynwhite• 13 years ago

How much do they have to unlock before it becomes a real kickstarter for an android version of the game?

oneeyedpigeon2• 13 years ago

I like the idea of the top-up, in-app purchases. Makes me wonder how successful a much-loved, popular app would do if it adopted a 'get free, pay what you want via in-app' model, along the lines of Radiohead's In Rainbows sale. Think something like ... Monkey Island 3. Unfortunately, if my maths is correct, Crabitron has sold barely any (literally 1-3) top-ups :-(

fredleblanc2• 13 years ago

Keep in mind that some figures only will update once per day. It could be much more by the time tomorrow hits.

oneeyedpigeon2• 13 years ago

(Bear in mind that I don't know whether you're anything to do with the project, so I might be speaking out of turn!)

I'm assuming that the two figures in the top-right, being so closely related, are 'cached' in tandem: 732 backers, $2,569.56. 732 * 5 = 3660. 3660 - apple tax @ 30% = 2562. That gives $7.56 worth of 'top-ups' (no, I can't explain why that's such an odd number, unless the apple tax for in-app purchases isn't exactly 30%)

smalter• 13 years ago

The game looks really fun. I'm going to get it now.

One thing I looked for and didn't see was additional tiers of contribution a la Kickstarter. The post-game credits tier, the t-shirt tier, the poster tier, etc. The art and game looks so fun I would've tossed in an extra $20 to support you guys and get a shirt.

morganwilde3• 13 years ago

I feel as though a much more exciting thing you guys are doing is Codea - http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/. It looks so cool and something a lot of people could relate to, given the major shift to tablets.

mrcharles• 13 years ago

Codea rules and is pretty popular. As far as I know, Crabitron is just their side project.

morganwilde3• 13 years ago

Oh, I had no idea about it, but it's great to hear that it's doing well. One would definitely hope for such a project to gain traction.

interpol_p7• 13 years ago

Actually both Codea and Crabitron are our side projects — we work full time on iOS development... for clients :(

ryan-allen• 13 years ago

Incredible marketing!

Reverse Kickstarter – shows real sales stats

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