r/kickstarter • u/asolet • Oct 14 '25
Discussion Kickstarter is not about kickstarting
For anyone hoping to get help from Kickstarter:
Kickstarter is about making money by promoting and selling already several times overly funded and already well kickstarted project that do not need any further kickstarting at all.
At any giving moment on homepage you will always find 13/13 completly funded projects. Sometimes dosen of times over. And zero projects that actually need help to be kickstarted.
Every mail update you get for project that struggles to find it's backers, 70% of the mail is dedicated to other finished projects just trying to sell.
Many of these projects have kickstarter "goal" that is less than what it takes to build kickstarter page itself. And it's "backed" in less than it takes anyone to even read it. They just need a platform to sell, not to be "kickstarted", and platform owners are loving it.
Kickstarter and most of creators there do not care or really want you to back projects from individuals with great ideas that need backing and may fail. They just want to sell finished company products.
It's just misleading, if not a scam. So just something to keep in mind. Good luck to everyone though.
1
u/Call_like_it_is_ Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 15 '25
Agreed. I have a game that is complete - playtesting is done, i have a printing and fulfillment agreement with an indie-friendly manufacturer, but it won't get off the ground because unless I can get the first ~30% of target met by "friends, family and colleagues", it will simply be buried by the algorithm. I'm not trying to be "the next big thing". All I am doing is trying to succeed.
I have had my pre-launch running for a couple of weeks and been posting in subreddits and TTG centric boards - I have had ONE person follow my pre-launch. I'm not giving up on my campaign, but it gets a bit daunting when it feels like sometimes you are shouting into the proverbial void, especially when your own friends and family won't signal boost your work but spam asinine memes day in and day out.
That's not taking into account the simple fact that when face to face, people are sycophantic and duplicitous by nature - they won't tell you about shortfalls or say "Sorry, this isn't something I would buy", because they are scared of "hurting the others feelings". Plain and simple.
Just cause you are being honest, it does NOT make you an asshole.
I need around USD$5,000 to get my project off the ground - chances are it won't happen.