At one point in time, Kickstarter was the “hot spot” for would-be developers to flourish funds for an upcoming game project, with companies like Farsight Studios, Double Fine and others jumping in to get their products up and running. However, as of late, it appears that some of the polish is coming off the site.

A report from consultant firm ICO Partners indicates that both the number of projects and the amount of money pledged to Kickstarter’s crowdfunding site have dropped for 2014. The number of projects launched on the site is down by 20 percent, while the amount of money raised by game projects has dropped by 50 percent compared to the same time period in the previous year.

As you can see from the chart, ICO Partners feels that this is the first year that gaming’s portion of Kickstarter projects doesn’t meet the usual average. A drop of roughly 20 percent from the previous year is easily indicated, with only 350 successful campaigns compared to 2013’s 446. Analyst Thomas Bidaux feels that this is “a decline certainly, but not a terrible collapse.” Still, there is cause for concern, and that’s mainly due to the amount being contributed for each project.

During the first half of 2014, $13,511,740.36 was given in pledges for game projects, a small portion compared to the $57,934,417.74. Even though there’s still three months to go in 2014, that’s still an awful lot of catch up to even come close to matching those numbers.

A lot of high-profile failures may have scared off potential users on the site, as well as various alternatives to crowdfunding, including Indiegogo, which has seen its own fair share of popularity. “If you consider that there have been 21 projects getting more than $500,00 in funding in 2013 and only 3 in 2014 so far, you might feel that Kickstarter is done for large projects,” says Bidaux. “But looking at the projects profiles, a lot of those big hits in 2013 were banking on strong ‘brands’: Torment, Mighty Number 9, Elite, Camelot Unchained, Dreamfall, Richard Garriott’s Shroud of the Avatar, etc. The three projects that raised over $500,000 in 2014 are Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Amplitude and Unsung Story. Hardly the wave of known brands that flooded Kickstarter last year.”

What do you think Should Kickstarter be concerned over its lack of gaming projects for this year Or do you think the crowdfunding site is due for a bounce-back

Source: GamesIndustry International