Betrayal Blog: Development Diary #7

Hi all of you,

Today I am happy to announce it on Saturday at 12 noon February 10th Act of Treason is planned to be launched on Kickstarter (Friday, 9.11:00 GMT).

To help make the launch a success, I will be running promotions closer to the release date. As mentioned previously, I’ve been playing around with an additional “Social Media” goal bonus to help spread awareness of the Treason Act before the Kickstarter goes live. After much deliberation, I finally went ahead with this plan, and targeted 4,000 followers which should have been an achievable goal. That should be enough to help me get funding for the Treason Act.

4,000 may seem like a lot to some of you. I’ve laid out my reasons below which I help explain where I’m coming from. I’m trying to pick a number that will result in a successful Kickstarter – nothing more.

To reward us all for reaching 4,000 followers, I’m personally going to dig into my pockets and lay down *double* of the money budgeted for both the final product Art and Marketing during the Kickstarter campaign. It helps me and it helps you. I can make a prettier product that I can be prouder of than an excited parent – and you can have a prettier, nicer-looking game that you can enjoy playing with your friends. We all win!

Note that there is an additional art budget increase in the initial kickstarter goal as well. So even if we don’t reach this goal, there is still plenty of opportunity to fund even better artwork for Act of Treason.

It’s not easy to get that prize. I want rewards that don’t detract from the product and divert attention or effort elsewhere. I also wanted a prize that all supporters could enjoy. Fair rewards for all supporters. This reward is in line with my main concern – making the best game possible.

It’s easy to say twice as much – what does it actually mean? Well, for Art, the current base budget is ~$5,000 USD. Which roughly breaks even when it reaches its Kickstarter funding goal. This will double to ~$10,000 USD if we reach 4,000 followers! Marketing during kick starter is currently set at $2,000 USD. Of course this would increase to ~$4,000 USD. Remember, marketing doesn’t just help me! More marketing means more promises and more promises means achieving broad goals. This means the budget is even bigger. This means economies of scale. This means negotiating power, etc. In the end, this will all result in a better product for you!

So, how can I get 4,000? Well, previously on my blog I posted a figure of 1,000 views, within the first 24 hours. Or better yet, 1,000 appointments in the first 24 hours. I have been convinced by others and my own research that this is a good step in the right direction, and will definitely help achieve a successful initial campaign.

To reach 1,000, I estimate we need more than 1,000 followers. The conversion rate of every social media account I own will likely not be 100%. I imagine that for twitter I would have a very low conversion rate, say 10%, and for an email list I would expect something like 70%. Therefore, I definitely need more than 1,000 followers across social media if I want 1,000 pledges in the first 24 hours.

It’s also worth noting, there’s nothing stopping people from signing up for more than one social media channel – and that’s okay. However, this means lower conversion rates for each social media channel. For example, the same followers can be spread across 4 different media channels, but will only generate one sale. Therefore, I imagine that 4,000 is at least the minimum required to get those delicious 1,000 in the first 24 hours. If 4,000 is probably too low – but I want to set an achievable goal for you all that provides incentive for you and me to make this project a success!

Note there will be some foot traffic from the Kickstarter as well as marketing traffic from my ads. So of course we’ll get some promises of bonuses that won’t come directly from followers, but the more we get in the first 24 hours will increase our chances of hitting the front page of glory and getting a prime spot on that Pareto distribution.

4,000 Followers seems like a good start to me. Who knows, if we reach 4,000 quickly enough, I can always offer another bonus prize!

Here’s our progress so far:

So far it looks pretty good, but we only have three months to reach our goal of 4,000 followers!

Now, as touched on above, I believe email signups are a much stronger indicator of interest than other social media. Therefore I have offered a very good x3 bonus *all* Email signups – the strongest indicator for buying all social media. After all, an email signup is someone who has taken the time to sign up either using a link on a blog or from a website – they’re not just looking for a follow-up.

This is reflected in the graph above, so the actual number of email signups is currently around ~25, and this has increased to ~75. If you want to help me, you know what to do.

Thank you to everyone who has followed the journey so far and I look forward to opening my arms and inviting more of you in the coming weeks!

Part One of Design Journal was quite well received, and I was humbled. I’m happy to see that people enjoy reading it and hopefully they get some insight from it. In progress is part 2 of Design Journal and I will also be running a series called Dominant Strategy, where I will talk about all aspects of game design, game theory, and game analysis. This is a bit inspired by the stonemaier blog which discusses everything related to Kickstarter. Awesome resource that I hope anyone looking to release a game on Kickstarter takes a look at – Lots of great info there! I want to do something similar, but for Game Design! The first article from Dominant Strategy is “What makes games fun”, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

The second part of Design Journal and the first Article of Dominant Strategy will be posted in the next week or two.

See you again at squad fam.

Father bless,
Tyson

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