September TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

The September data dump is here!

• 113 campaigns
• 12 Backerkit
• 0 Crowdfundr
• 101 Kickstarter
• $3,750,155.58 raised
• $1,454,136.46 on Backerkit
• $0 on Crowdfundr
• $2,296,019.12 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 11 accessories
• 28 adventures
• 1 advice
• 1 audiobook
• 5 campaign settings
• 1 platform
• 40 supplements
• 26 systems
• 48 distinct systems used (17 original)
• 50 campaigns (44.25%) used D&D 5E and raised $1,168,288.21 (31.15% of all money raised in September)
• 31 campaigns used AI in some form (27.43% of total)
• These campaigns raised $215,538.99 (5.75% of all money raised in September)
• 20 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 40% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns

Backerkit's September

The top 5 Backerkit campaigns in September 2024 were:

1. Old Gods of Appalachia: Deeper Still by Monte Cook Games ($803,832 from 5,211 backers)
2. So You've Met A Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings ($284,129 from 4,108 backers)
3. Fiendish Forge (5e) - Fearsome Bosses, Monstrous Items by Io Publishing ($127,211 from 1,141 backers)
4. Get It At Sutlers: A Troika Adventure Generator by Melsonian Arts Council ($61,136.10 from 1,046 backers)
5. Storypath Ultra Core Manual by Onyx Path ($58,525 from 1,261 backers)

A real smattering of systems here: D&D, Cypher, Troika, Storypath, Thousand Year Old Vampire (if you can call that a system per se). Some things that jump out at me immediately:

• Not exactly a surprise that the Old Gods of Appalachia supplement did well given that it's based on a popular podcast, created by a big indie publisher, and following an incredible crowdfunding success for the original book.
• What is a little surprising is the difference in money raised between the two: $2,097,820 from 15,064 backers for the original vs what we see here for the first official supplement. I would normally expect some dropoff between the two (not everyone needs or wants a supplement after all), but the reduction by roughly two-thirds in terms of money and backers is substantial
• Tim Hutchings might be one of the only people in the TTRPG space who embarks upon such ambitious projects as this 'all by himself.' (As he says on the page, there were plenty of people who contributed some writing, but the bulk of it is his work.) To me, this is the peak of what crowdfunding is for: ambitious works of art that truly couldn't be achieved in any other way.
• Finally, this is the first time I've seen something Troika-related raise so much money! It's genuinely nice to see it pop up from time to time, considering that it came out around the same time as Mothership 0e and Cairn but seems to see far less attention.

Kickstarter's September

The top 5 Kickstarter campaigns in September 2024 were:

1. Monster Trainer's Handbook: 5e Campaign Supplement & Setting by Dungeon in a Box ($401,323 from 2,675 backers)
2. Fantasy+, the Future of TTRPG Audio by Monument ($359,100 from 1,670 backers)
3. Faster, Purple Worm! Everybody Dies, Vol. 1 by Beadle & Grimm's Pandemonium Warehouse ($232,336 from 3,376 backers)
4. The City of Arches - A High-Fantasy 5e RPG City Sourcebook by Mike Shea ($202,890 from 4,371 backers)
5. 7th Sea: The Price of Arrogance by Agate ($173,300 from 1,490 backers)

A lot of D&D in the top 5 list, but I want to focus in on the official D&D product tie-in for a moment. For those who don't know, Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! is a 2023 television production born from the collaboration between Wizards of the Coast and Beadle & Grimm's Pandemonium Warehouse, a retailer of premium D&D (and some Pathfinder) products founded by Matthew Lillard and four friends. Now this does not seem like a huge company (the website only lists the five founders and a "Social Media Goblin, Art Director" in the Founders & Staff section), but it strikes me as odd to need to crowdfund the official tie-in book for an official D&D TV show when some of the producers of the TV show are making the book and also there are a lot of celebrities (of both the real and the niche internet micro- variety) attached to the project. But this is just an example of the precarity that is normalized in the TTRPG space at the moment: big companies will support 'sure things' like the show itself (which I don't actually imagine is even a sure thing, considering that it's unclear whether the show is coming back for a second season, but is certainly in line with WotC's glitzy D&D TV line-up last year) but will pawn off the risk of making the tie-in book on the smaller partner, which in turn defrays the risk by running a glorified pre-order campaign on Kickstarter.

And unfortunately, it seems they might have been right to do so! Though the campaign raised 6 figures on Kickstarter, that's a drop in the bucket for the overall revenue of Wizards of the Coast ($5.9 billion in 2022) and probably not worth the time and energy it would take them to make. Kicking that over to a junior partner though (especially one already heavily dependent on the D&D brand and glossy premium content market) makes a lot of sense since it will continue to advance their market dominance and potentially drive eyes to the show itself. I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw this point made originally (I think it was about Avatar Legends) but we really have to remember who is benefitting from branded tie-in IP Kickstarters: investors and companies.

Crowdfunding games based on popular IP (which usually must be done because those games are given to smaller companies to make) foists the job of investing onto the consumer rather than on the company. Assuming that they have some kind of licensing agreement, and I cannot imagine a world where they don't, Wizards of the Coast (and Hasbro above them, and the stockholders above them) will reap profits from Faster, Purple Worm! Everybody Dies, Vol. 1 until it stops being printed, but you (as a hypothetical person who backed the Kickstarter) stop receiving benefits when the rewards are shipped to your house. In fact, you're accepting all of the risk because no one is even legally obligated to provide you a finished product when you back a Kickstarter campaign. This makes complete sense when it's an individual person's passion project, but is completely ludicrous when applied to Beadle & Grimm's!

Now please do not imagine that this is me defending capitalism and saying that everything would be better if companies just started doing investment correctly again like they did in some mythical beforetimes, I just think that it's indicative of how big companies move nowadays. They farm out projects to smaller players, rely on their precarity to dictate whatever terms they want to them, and cut them loose whenever they like. Consider what Warner Bros did to whole movies that they had ready to be released, or what continues to happen to streaming exclusive shows on Netflix and Paramount+ and HBO. And those were projects that they already owned! I completely understand why individuals or companies would want to work on popular IP on a personal, creative, and financial level, I just worry about the kind of precedent it sets for everyone else in this artform.