April TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

For an overview of my methodology, please refer to my original November post. The only things that have been added this time around are some median metrics for various variables (campaign type, platform, AI campaign performance).

As always, the raw data are available for you to peruse at your leisure.

The big picture statistics:

• 145 campaigns
• 8 Backerkit
• 0 Crowdfundr
• 137 Kickstarter
• $6,529,324.42 raised
• $845,617.27 on Backerkit
• $0 on Crowdfundr
• $5,683,707.15 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 14 accessories
• 41 adventures
• 2 advice
• 1 art pack
• 6 campaign settings
• 1 fundraising campaign
• 2 reprints
• 46 supplements
• 32 systems
• 56 distinct systems used (19 original)
• 70 campaigns (48.28%) used D&D 5E and raised $2,486,324.42 (38.08% of all money raised in April)
• 33 campaigns used AI in some form (22.76% of total)
• These campaigns raised $310,089.95 (4.75% of all money raised in April)
• 23 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 32.86% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns

Big Takeaways

Since this post is coming late anyways, I'm going to eschew the usual breakdown by platform and look at a few pieces of the bigger picture.

Growth of AI

Unfortunately, April was the biggest month for projects using AI since I began tracking these data. The number of campaigns has stayed largely the same (19 in January, 35 in February, 34 in March, 33 in April), but the $310,089.95 raised by AI campaigns in April is a high water mark. This was mostly driven by one very successful campaign (The Captain's Logbook: 5E High Seas Adventure & Shipbuilding) as shown by the low average ($9,396.67) and median ($3,425.78) amount raised by these campaigns. Still, the general upward trend of funds raised by AI TTRPG campaigns is troubling to me personally.

Dropoff in Original Systems

There is usually a glut of campaigns using original systems every month that was absent in April. In March, 81 projects used original systems (30.34% of all campaigns) compared to only 19 in April (13.10% of all campaigns). Comparatively, D&D 5E was used in 69 projects in March (25.84%) and 70 in April (48.28%). I don't see the decrease in original systems a problem per se, but I do find it interesting that the perennial stable of 5E projects seem largely independent of the overall amount of crowdfunding campaigns.

Backerkit's Seeming Identity Crisis

I know I said I wouldn't get into individual platform minutia, but this seems worthy of commentary: Backerkit has consistently struggled to break through to a wide audience of people for their TTRPG campaigns. There aren't that many on the platform from month to month compared to Kickstarter, but they do fairly well on average. In April, for example, there were only 8 projects, but the average ($105,702.16) and median ($66,034.46) amounts raised are considerably higher than Kickstarter's ($41,486.91 average, $5,094.00 median). The platform continues to perform well for companies/people with large pre-existing audiences who will hear about the campaign regardless, but it appears to have trouble attracting the critical mass of people (both project creators and backers) who need to fill out the platform ecosystem and make it a real Kickstarter competitor.