A report from Tabletop Analytics shows that Kickstarter has had another bad year

Tabletop analysis reports that funding for tabletop gaming projects on Kickstarter has declined in 2023. If these figures are correct, this will be the second consecutive year of decline for the crowdfunding giant in the tabletop category. As a result, the data shows that individual tabletop makers earned an average of 30% less for their campaigns compared to 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The provenance of this year’s financial data is striking: after sharing the data publicly and with Polygon for almost a decade, Kickstarter declined to do so this year. “We are not disclosing details of the total dollars raised at this time,” Nikki Kria, chief communications officer for the public organization, said in an email. Instead, Polygon extracted data a third party, Tabletop Analytics, which it says comes from the crowdfunding company’s own public website. When asked to verify this data, Kickstarter declined to do so.

In our analysis of Tabletop Analytics’ historical data, we found that it closely matches what Kickstarter has shared publicly in the past. The company says any discrepancies are likely due to currency conversions and/or the start and end dates of some campaigns, which may extend into the new year.

Tabletop Analytics’ 2023 data shows that Kickstarter earned $10.2 million less from tabletop projects than the previous year, representing a 4.3% decline from the data Kickstarter shared with Polygon in 2022. That’s far less than 2022, when Kickstarter data showed a drop of $33.6 million, or 12.4%, compared to 2021.

Aside from the spike in 2020 and 2021, which Polygon attributes to pandemic lockdowns that kept homebound players focused on their tabletops, Tabletop Analytics’ 2023 data actually shows a significant increase. increase in revenue going to tabletop campaigns on Kickstarter in 2019 – an increase of approximately $50 million, representing a 28% increase from before the pandemic. But at the same time, the data shows that the average tabletop maker saw its share of those sales fall sharply compared to the same period – a drop of 31%, from an average of €67,350 in 2019 to just €45,982 in 2023. That would mean that the the average creator earns almost a third less with the average campaign.

Looking at it from another perspective, Tabletop Analytics data shows that there were almost 900 more successful campaigns than the previous year: an increase of almost 22% from 2022. Tabletop Analytics data shows that Kickstarter is hosting many more tabletop campaigns on its platform compared to 2022, and making significantly less money for each campaign.

While Kickstarter has chosen not to comment on this data, many of the Kickstarter customers we contacted did.

“If the data here is accurate, there are so many factors that could be contributing to this,” says Adam Poots, creator of Kingdom Death: Monster, the second most funded board game in Kickstarter history. “Crowdfunding fatigue, multiple crowdfunding platforms, people not spending like they did during the first part of the pandemic, etc. It seems natural rather than alarming to me.”

Poots called the company’s permissive attitude toward artificial intelligence a worrying sign.

“I would like to see Kickstarter slow down and focus on developing more much-needed community management tools and take an extremely hard line against the use of AI generative art in Kickstarter projects,” said Poots. “For me, the trust of the users and potential users is more important than ensuring that the numbers just keep increasing.”

When Polygon spoke to Kickstarter this time last year, the message emphasized the focus on helping more and more creatives find a place on the platform. These efforts are clearly paying off, with initiatives such as make/100 and its annual Zine Quest first, often with fantastic results. But consumer interest in crowdfunding in general may be waning.

“More creators are entering or returning to crowdfunding for the first time, giving backers a wealth of choices,” said Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games.Scythe, Wingspan, Apiary, Wyrmspan). “But the total number of financiers willing to make commitments is not increasing. There is much more competition for each financier’s attention. I think this is important data for creators when planning different financing scenarios, especially for budgeting sunk costs like art, graphic design, and advertising, and for estimating minimum order quantities for production (if the output is some form of mass production). ).”

Suzanne Sheldon of Restoration Games (Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar, Unmatched) notes that this massive growth in the tabletop space on Kickstarter has expanded the category in recent years to include things like small tabletop role-playing adventures, 3D printing files, furniture, and more. That diversity, she said, may require more granularity to attract and inform potential backers.

“I would especially like to see Kickstarter break down the tabletop category on their platform to better highlight niches and more meaningfully reflect the industry and help creators and backers with discoverability,” Sheldon said. “After all, the category is a leading segment for their service and I think that warrants detailed care.”

Communication with Kickstarter remains a top priority for many of the creators Polygon spoke to for this article. Connor Alexander, creator of the native TTRPG Coyote & Crowwas indicative of this call for more transparency.

“I suspect this is not a complete picture,” Alexander said of the Tabletop Analytics data. “I would like to know the number of failed Kickstarters, or the number of people who tried to fund once and failed, but succeeded on the second try. I’m sure there are a lot of other interesting metrics within each Kickstarter category, like growth or shrinkage.

“Based on conversations with people in the gaming community, I suspect this data points to what I see as a broadening of Kickstarter’s overall market,” Alexander added. “Speaking of board games, there used to be a lot of upstarts releasing very expensive 4X-style titles with miniatures and higher-end experiences, or established companies using Kickstarter more as a marketing tool and as a way to gauge broader retail interest. Those apparently still exist. But I think the last five or six years have proven that smaller games, smaller publishers, and a broader range of games and accessories can do well on Kickstarter too. This is largely speculation on my part. But overall, I see crowdfunding in general as a tool that will only gain in breadth and depth in the coming years. In terms of what I consider healthy for the hobby, I’d rather see dozens of publishers raise thirty to forty thousand dollars than one publisher raise a million dollars.”

Although Kickstarter did not contribute its key financial information for the tabletop category, Kickstarter did make available a list of the most funded tabletop projects for 2023. Eight of the ten projects on the list came from companies that have launched multiple Kickstarter campaigns. in the past. In the case of CMON the two top 10 campaigns were 54th and 55thout of a total of 57 campaigns, running on Kickstarter since 2012.