Hi everyone!
Stretch goals are a funny thing in crowdfunding. I always get the balance wrong.
I get excited about any project I bring to Kickstarter, and my stretch goals end up being: too ambitious, too time-intensive, too expensive… and I never feel right about charging people extra to unlock them.
From a strictly business perspective, that’s “wrong”. And you could easily argue that I should be more measured or more commercially minded.
But here we are with Era: Crueltide, and we’ve now unlocked 20 pages of stretch goals. This is material I’ve written specifically for this Kickstarter, still committing to deliver everything (including the extras!) in time for Christmas. Maybe that’s too ambitious. But I’m confident I can make it work.
So should Stretch Goals even be a thing?
The reality is that even though £10 for a full tabletop RPG is an excellent deal, many people want further incentives. There’s a belief that stretch goals increase total funding. I don’t know whether it’s dogma or backed by hard data I haven’t seen.
Era: Crueltide hasn’t been my biggest ever success on Kickstarter, but it’s done respectably well, and I’m proud of what it’s become. And the stretch goals matter to me because the community helped create them. From John McClane to The Guilty Snowwoman Ava Launch, backers spoke up about what they wanted to enhance their game and the world.
The result is a 20-page booklet: Digital for all backers and Physical for anyone who wants it. Physical copies do cost a little extra because of print costs, but many people have still chosen to add it.
I suspect any marketing expert would tell me I’m making a mistake giving so much away. Here’s the reality:
I care more about creating an amazing game and a brilliant experience than I do about squeezing every pound out of a campaign.
Maybe that’s wrong.
Maybe I should be more “business smart.”
But I’m willing to be wrong. I’m willing to put the time and effort in to make something special.
Era: Crueltide ends in just over 24 hours, if you’d like to get these extras.
– Ed
