The Future of Wrack: Starfall

Yesterday we wrapped up our first ever Kickstarter campaign. It was for the funding of Wrack: Starfall itself, and was the first time we were showing off our new game. So, obviously it was pretty exciting for us all. A lot of you really liked what you saw and were extremely supportive of the project (the average pledge was more than $45), which we were thrilled to see. That being said, the campaign succeeded, right? … right?

Cue the Price is Right failure horn.

Cue the Price is Right failure horn.

Let me emphasize once again: this was our first campaign, and in my case, it showed. 95% of this campaign was fantastic. The idea and concept are great (in a day and age where this matters a lot), the logo and campaign page artwork are beautiful, the video is entertaining and informative, and we asked for a very reasonable amount with enticing stretch goals and backer reward tiers. A hell of a lot went right with this campaign. So… what went wrong?

Marketing.

Not enough people knew about it. Outside of our social media audience, not a hell of a lot of people saw the campaign – at least not until it was too late. This is a game trying to reach a broader audience, and largely it failed to be seen by that audience. In fact, it largely failed to be seen by the Wrack audience, too! Our analytics show only about 5,000 different people visiting the page – far less than the number of copies Wrack sold on Steam.

Seriously!

Seriously!

Let me be clear: This is 100% my fault. I don’t blame this campaign’s failure on anyone else or on any other circumstances. The bottom line is that I didn’t make sure enough people were going to know about this campaign when it launched to make sure that it had any chance of success out of the gate. I was relying too heavily on word of mouth, and that was a mistake.

Now, I’m trying to correct that. With the relaunch of this website (pretty, eh?) I’m going to start building awareness of this game. Frankly, it deserves it. The team has worked really hard on this and I think we’ve really got something great here that I know a lot of people will enjoy.

So, what’s next for Starfall? (Finally, I’ll answer the question!) First, the project will continue. We’re going to try to make this work despite this challenge. Second, we may try crowdfunding again at some point, but that’s not guaranteed. I know others have had success on the 2nd or 3rd try, so that’s something we’re open to. Finally, we’ll likely look at something along the lines of Early Access. We’ll fund the first few real solid chunks of it with what we’ve got and finish the rest of it up with what we make from our Early Access sales.

I’m very much looking forward to what the future holds. We’re not letting one failed campaign derail us – especially when it was due to my own mistakes. If the campaign had failed because people didn’t buy into the game, that would be one thing, but that appears to not be the case here. So let’s make this happen!

3 comments to “The Future of Wrack: Starfall”

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  1. Kinda sad I didn’t get a chance at that designer’s pledge tier, but I’m glad the game is continuing on regardless.

    P.S. I’ll totally still give you my idea. Not gonna lie, it’s pretty awesome.

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