Anyways, here's May's raw data. Let's dive in!
- 194 campaigns
- 71 Backerkit
- 5 Gamefound
- 118 Kickstarter
- $21,498,324.43 raised
- $17,186,480.54 on Backerkit
- $235,153.86 on Gamefound
- $4,076,690.03 on Kickstarter
- Types of campaigns
- 17 accessories
- 1 Actual Play
- 64 adventures
- 10 campaign settings
- 1 fundraising
- 2 magazines
- 1 platform
- 1 reprint
- 49 supplements
- 47 systems
- 1 translation
- 75 distinct systems used (31 original)
- 81 campaigns (41.75%) used D&D 5E and raised $3,837,448.45 (17.85% of all money raised in May)
- 47 campaigns used AI in some form (24.23% of total) and raised $799,428.25 (3.72% of all money raised in May)
- 31 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 38.27% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns
- Campaigns were based in 17 different countries
- Top 3: 103 in USA, 23 in UK, 13 in Italy
- Singleton countries: Argentina, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland
Backerkit's May
The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in May were:
- Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG + Unstoppable by Renegade Game Studios ($13,298,059 from 55,972 backers)
- Traveller 5e by World's Largest RPGs ($841,443 from 2,374 backers)
- Gary Gygax's Castle Dungeons! by Troll Lord Games ($582,174 from 2,682 backers)
- Castle Whiterock by Goodman Games ($571,286 from 4,078 backers)
- Jewel in the Sky: A Megadungeon with a Twist from Monte Cook by Monte Cook Games ($302,132 from 2,674 backers)
Although DCCarl was not actually part of Megadungeon Month, it is somewhat fitting that it coincided with it considering that it is, at least aesthetically, set inside a megadungeon. You could certainly quibble as to how closely it corresponds given that there is no revisiting of levels after clearing them, but I don't think anyone actually cares about that. I do only know this because I have now had the mild misfortune of reading the first two books in the series, and these are my main takeaways:
- Dungeon Crawler Carl is a shockingly poorly written series of books, filled with only slightly less than egregious racial stereotypes. I find it compelling for the same reason police procedurals are compelling (I love a problem being solved in front of my eyes), despite having many of the same fundamental and aesthetic problems as said police procedurals.
- It makes complete sense that the 'game' described in the books would make over $13M. In many ways, my many issues raised above may actually contribute to its success given that the same criticisms could be leveled at Dungeons & Dragons (& descendants).
Do I think that the game (which I did not back) will be able to live up to the promises made by the books? Eh, yes and know. The style of the books is an intoxicating mix of "RAWR XD so random" + World of Warcraft fantasy aesthetics + mid-2010s Reddit (including the most basic critique of corporate capitalism), and I don't know how easily people who are not Matt Dinniman will be able (or want) to replicate that particular sludge of inspirations. Ultimately, it's probably a more honest representation of how a lot of people already play D&D, even if they think they're playing Critical Role at home.
Gamefound's May
The top (and only) 5 campaigns on Gamefound in May were:
- Last Arc: Tactics Analogue by Succubus Publishing ($200,109.70 from 1,503 backers)
- Pathfinder 2 - Rache der Runenherrscher by Ulisses Spiele ($34,455.35 from 258 backers)
- Shadows of the 1930s: 450+ RPG Battle Maps by Agnesagraphic ($375.53 from 14 backers)
- BITTER HARVEST: 80 Cursed Elixirs: A 5e Dark Mediterranean Compendium of Potions, Penance, and Power by Oranges and Olives ($160.54 from 15 backers)
- 1200+ POST-APOCALYPTIC BATTLE MAPS - INVASION FROM HELL by Agnesagraphic ($52.74 from 1 backer)
Gamefound continues to baffle me with its feast and famine patterns of funding. Either you have fairly successful (often $100K+) projects that don't seem to have a presence anywhere else that I'm online, or you have less than a handful of mildly funded projects that may or may not double dip with a Kickstarter. The things that tend to do the best are the most board game-shaped objects (like Last Arc: Tactics Analogue, which has a fair number of physical components to add on, though surprisingly no minis), which tracks for the overall focus of Gamefound as a platform. I'll be watching their next RPG Party closely to see how sustainable it all is and how much attention/creators it can attract from its competitor platforms.
Kickstarter's May
The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in May were:
- The PackMule Ultimate 5E Inventory System by Eternal_GM ($616,278 from 2,031 backers)
- Historia Arcanum: The Coven of Salem by Metis Creative ($550,252 from 3,164 backers)
- Realis by Tyler Crumrine ($354,529 from 7,359 backers)
- Zoologist's Primer: Birds by Hunters Books ($344,454 from 3,710 backers)
- Tabletop Table: The Portable, Modular Gaming Table is Back by Tabletop Table ($227,563 from 368 backers)
It's finally happened: the most successful Kickstarter campaign in a month used AI. Specifically, AI was used for "early concept exploration for simpler item-image ideas and for some internal drafting/template assistance related to flavor-text workflow," whatever that means. Now keep in mind that this product, the PackMule Ultimate 5E Inventory System, is literally just making physical cards for every item in the D&D 5E SRD. And therein lies the problem, I think. They obviously cannot use the art that exists for many of these magic items, as that art is owned by Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, but they need 1600 unique pieces of art (or what's the point of buying them). They then also need flavor text for those magic items that don't take up the full text box, which seems to matter most for the crafting materials cards given that they are presumably always going to have less text in them. But don't worry! They also have randomized booster packs of 15 cards of their own custom items! And you only need to buy ~50 of them to achieve 95% completion. There's also a custom card creator that works...somehow. Details are very unclear, especially on the level of how you could possibly create unique artwork for those cards and how you could print those individual cards at any reasonable cost given that they would be singletons by definition.
I started writing this section genuinely trying to give them some tiny amount of credit: it's a niche of 5E that WotC isn't currently filling, they're just using some tools I personally think are heinous to do that. But the milk of human kindness quickly curdled in my mouth when it became obvious that they're just rent-seekers of the worst variety: shamelessly profiting off of others' labor (because regardless of how you feel about D&D, the SRD is the product of actual people) while gatekeeping anything original behind a randomized lootbox, and you don't even know what those original items are like so you can't know if they're worth getting. At the end of all of this, I don't even think I believe them when they say that all final artwork will be human made because truly every single promotional image on the campaign page (including the physical products shown off in some of the promotional videos) appears to be the product of generative AI. This is just what happens when you allow this kind of slop on your platform; unless you have some intensive verification process to actually require people to prove their claims about AI usage, you'll get slop merchants essentially conning $600K+ out of the easiest marks on the planet (D&D 5E fans).
May 2024 vs 2025 vs 2026
| 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campaign count | |||
| Backerkit | 18 | 23 | 71 |
| Kickstarter | 133 | 140 | 118 |
| Money Pledged | |||
| Backerkit total | $735,159.58 | $727,356.92 | $17,186,480.54 |
| Backerkit average | $40,842.20 | $31,624.21 | $242,063.11 |
| Backerkit median | $8,810.00 | $15,432.00 | $8,237.43 |
| Kickstarter total | $7,238,839.84 | $6,500,570.98 | $4,076,690.03 |
| Kickstarter average | $54,427.37 | $46,432.65 | $34,548.22 |
| Kickstarter median | $6,766.72 | $4,430.84 | $4,544.00 |
| AI | |||
| Campaign count | 34 | 44 | 47 |
| Money pledged | $251,400.35 | $441,459.48 | $799,428.25 |
| D&D 5E | |||
| Campaign count | 59 | 79 | 81 |
| Money pledged | $4,936,605.69 | $3,093,350.95 | $3,837,448.45 |
As much as I'm tired of them, I have to say that Backerkit's Months seem to be working. May's 71 campaigns represents the high water mark for number of projects in a month on the platform, tied with February 2026 (when Zinetopia was happening). Median money pledged to campaigns has stayed relatively consistent, which means that the money isn't necessarily only flowing to the most successful campaigns too. Even with the DCCarl game raising $13M+, that's $3,888,421.54 pledged to the other 70 projects (which by itself would be the most money pledged in a month on Backerkit in 2026).
Kickstarter is having a slightly rougher time of it (but since this is coming out so far into June I can say that trend is already turning around), and has the dubious honor of hosting a $600K AI campaign. What I will say on the AI front, though, is that all ther other AI campaigns have never made so little money collectively (as when you take out that outlier you have $183,150.25 across 46 projects).
Anyways that's all. New retrospective to come in hopefully less than a month's time since this one really got away from me.
