Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

Dashie posted a video of Devastated Dreams demo today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaUtGiILOxU

It's already at 130k views, he's becoming a pretty big Youtube LPer. I heard about him when Neverending Nightmares was released and he did a video, nice to see he's bringing some eyeballs to the campaign, possibly.

Have there been any measurable increases in traffic from the Youtube videos that have been going up?
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

Post by LobsterSundew »

686 backers have currently pledged $25,216.

Saturday brought in 9 backers, even with the video from Dashie.

The average pledge amount has risen to $36.76 per backer. If it keeps going higher that generally means less smaller pledges are happening which often means a lower rate of new backers.

Since July 21st the momentum lost about three fourths of what it was. It went from averaging 39 new backers per day for a stretch then down to averaging 8.5 new backers per day. If the campaign had kept averaging 39 new backers per day with days like 32, 54 or 42 backers it would be slow but eventually get close enough to the goal for a final surge to reach it. I wouldn't be worrying very much. Averaging 8.5 new backers per day is going to make the gap going into the last 48 hours even larger.

If Devastated Dreams has to do an additional $60,428 in the last 48 hours it would have to be a massive coordinated surge by backers to work. While possible, the chances wouldn't be good. If the backers gave up hope and grew apathetic then the push would quickly collapse. The campaign needs some short-term burst of activity or milestones to celebrate in the trough period.

$9,553 more to go until 30% funded. Hopefully it will have reached that by the start of August. The campaign looks like it could do $9,820 and just barely sneak by the 30%-funded-before-halfway tipping point. It is still possible to get funded if the campaign doesn't reach 30% before halfway, but it becomes more difficult.

Devastated Dreams dropped to 11th in popularity for the category. Max's Big Bust, Purfectly Ever After and sphereFACE saw surges because they are ending this weekend. Two of those are visual novels; Order of Ataxia is also a visual novel and it appears to be benefiting from the traffic the other novels are generating. Some projects decided to launch on Saturday. Tsioque did better than I expected by grabbing the third rank.

The Kickstarter category is slow right now. There is data up to the end of June, but I'm waiting for the data for July. The start of August can mean a fresh wave of good quality campaigns to drive traffic to the site. There could even be some superstar class campaigns. Even if the new month would mean a boost that is still a week away.

A new trailer could maybe get some attention by being shared around the Internet. I'm not talking about using it to replace the current pitch or trailer. It would be an alternate trailer much like how movies will have multiple versions of a trailer over time. It maybe doesn't even have to be a trailer. If the objective is to show off cool Filipino monsters and create a creepy atmosphere then it could almost like a developer diary talking about the monsters while sitting in a dark room or forest. Concept art for the monsters could be faded in the corners of the screen when a monster is talked about.

I wasn't able to find any large Let's Players based in the Philippines. If there was that could be an opportunity. I did learn about the existence of the PinoyGamer.ph forum, but it doesn't have thousands of members.

Currently there are 685 backers and the campaign was looking at needing a total around 3,700 backers to reach 100% funded. It is a possibility that if things get close near the end many of the backers of Neverending Nightmares that hesitated enough not to pledge to Devastated Dreams may finally come over and become backers. It is also possible to create some sort of digital add-on reward that returning backers would get for free as an incentive for some to return.
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

Post by evilkinggumby »

RightClickSaveAs wrote:Dashie posted a video of Devastated Dreams demo today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaUtGiILOxU

It's already at 130k views, he's becoming a pretty big Youtube LPer. I heard about him when Neverending Nightmares was released and he did a video, nice to see he's bringing some eyeballs to the campaign, possibly.

Have there been any measurable increases in traffic from the Youtube videos that have been going up?
straight out of the gate he is cracking Maury Povich jokes about the fact the protag is pregnant. I wonder if that is going to be an issue, folk not respecting the protag Angel because she is young and 'knocked up' ? Does the game explain anything early on to let the gamer know where the father is? if this was a legitimate pregnancy or a mistake?

in the US teen pregnancy is often looked down on and I'd hate for a lot of your message, and the horror of the situation, get lost to people lacking respect and cracking jokes at that detail. It can't be stopped, but.. makes me wonder how to alleviate it.
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

evilkinggumby wrote: in the US teen pregnancy is often looked down on and I'd hate for a lot of your message, and the horror of the situation, get lost to people lacking respect and cracking jokes at that detail. It can't be stopped, but.. makes me wonder how to alleviate it.
Yeah, that's going to happen, especially with gaming and especially with Youtube players that have, what's the best way to put it, big personalities? Hopefully the overall theme of the game will show through for people.

Youtube LP videos are a weird thing to me. I don't watch many of them, and I don't really like them most of the time (I'd rather play the game myself generally :) ), but I've seen what a big impact they can have on exposure so I started to pay attention to them during Neverending Nightmare's campaign and launch. Some of these guys get more views than major TV shows. So far, Dashie's is the Devastated Dreams video with the largest number of views, so hopefully some of that will trickle down to the Kickstarter.
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

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The father and her situation will be explained as you progress through the game. There is an actual concrete story this time around.

I don't think you can control what is said in the youtube videos, but in the end, I don't think it matters. In the PewDiePie video of Neverending Nightmares, he talks about Justin Beiber all the time. Most of the people watching the video just want to hear him crack jokes. If a few percent of the viewers look past that and say "hey this is worth playing", then I think it's a huge win for us just because their audience is so large.

As far as how to change the momentum, it's really tough. Joe has had some unpleasant health problems, so there isn't anyone to work on some cool new videos. We'll see what we can do. I am hoping I can get a potentially polarizing opinion piece published on a big website to generate some interest, but I haven't heard back about that. I may not be a controversial enough person for that to go viral though. (Who would have thought that being reasonable would be a bad thing?)

I sort of buried the lead, but I announced that we'd add a story intro to the demo when we get 30%. It seems like a lot to ask of our existing backers to go recruit another $9k, so I'm not sure that is enough motivation.

We've definitely had some pledge increases including friends upping their pledges without changing the reward level, so that is where the unallocated funds came from. At least in my estimation, the backer count is the most important thing, and we just aren't drawing in enough backers. I was hoping streamers like Dashie would help (I've been nagging them quite a bit), but it seems like maybe that isn't the case. I also got a small plug for our kickstarter in a piece on OUYA, but I don't think it'll bring in much more traffic.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

Post by LobsterSundew »

693 backers have pledged $25,440. The average pledge amount is $36.71 per backer.

Indieformer, XO and RedBull mentioned the project. Polygon and eplayerz mentioned the quote about Ouya's acquisition. There was a post on the Angry Joe Show forums.

Bitly shows the amount of sharing for the project shortlink is very low since July 21st.

The Thunderclap has 61 out of 100 supporters.

$9,329 more in pledges until 30% funded.

July 25th had 9 new backers, July 26th had new 3 backers and July 27th had 4 new backers. The campaign has lost more than 75% of its momentum. It could take 53 days to reach 30% funding if the momentum stays this low. External exposure continues to be a problem, but also the lack of responses where there is exposure. Polarizing opinion pieces can generate backlash, but even backlash can be better that the apathy the project is receiving.

Lack of new backers meant the campaign has dropped down to the 17th rank in popularity. It would have dropped lower, but many campaigns are also struggling right now.

The $15 tier continues to keep growing. This is good. If that tier stops then the whole campaign would likely stall out. I hope to post updated graphs on Wednesday.
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

Post by evilkinggumby »

I am hoping I can get a potentially polarizing opinion piece published on a big website to generate some interest, but I haven't heard back about that. I may not be a controversial enough person for that to go viral though. (Who would have thought that being reasonable would be a bad thing?)
LOL yeah who would have thought being reasonable would be such a hindrance hehehe

One thing you could try to do to get attention is playing up the fact you are using a non-sexualized and not (necessarily) victimized female protag to the Anita Sarkeesian crowd. That whole situation is a powder keg, and if she actually caught wind of this and tweeted or mentioned it at all it could have a crazy effect, depending on reactions. You'd either be blackballed by society or considered a champion and get major support.

Not sure how you could get her attention. I will try posting on her old kickstarter in the comments and with a link to see if that gets any interest.

**update**

Ok i put word of it on the comments and added a link as well to it and Through The Woods, another solid kickstarter funded game with a respectable female lead. Hopefully even if Anita doesn't check it folk from her kickstarter will and spread the word.

If things explode after this, you owe me a coffee.. LOL (just kidding. I'll take a beer!)
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

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Thanks! :) I don't know how Anita would react to the game, but I would be very interested to get her thoughts!
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

Post by LobsterSundew »

July 28th brought in 6 new backers. 702 backers have pledged $25,844.

The campaign rose to the 13th rank in popularity. RED ASH, Undead Darlings, Circuit Breakers, Jade, Generation 64, Sun Sentinels, Space Food Truck and One Dreamer all end within the next 7 days.

When being controversial a preparation step is planning what big questions will be presented. If the questions have no clear answer then that can spark debate. There could be questions about why people react how they did to the project or how they should have reacted. What would happen if the campaign were to fail establishes consequences for not supporting the project.

There has been some news about Ouya's Free The Games Fund recently. Because Neverending Nightmares participated that could be an opportunity to be mentioned.
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Re: Watching the Devastated Dreams campaign's progress.

Post by LobsterSundew »

July 29th brought in 9 additional backers. 711 backers have pledged $26,085.

TheRealIndie posted a video. Other than that exposure continues to be very low right now.

Here are updated graphs:
http://i.imgur.com/CyCcbbv.png

Not much is different from last time. The $15 tier keeps going, but many reward tiers have now stalled. That $100 tier is one of the better performing tiers.

Next week should have the first wave of new August projects.

5 more people are needed for the Thunderclap campaign.

I am going to look over the Gamasutra article linked in the last project update in more detail later. The rise of $0 raised projects is one of the more interesting pieces of information.
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