October TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

 

As it's now December, it seems the perfect moment to release the October data! What's the opposite of striking while the iron is hot? Whatever it is, I'm doing it.

• 189 campaigns
• 23 Backerkit
• 0 Crowdfundr
• 166 Kickstarter
• $7,781,327.26 raised
• $1,262,228.19 on Backerkit
• $0 on Crowdfundr
• $6,519,099.07 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 16 accessories
• 56 adventures
• 3 advice
• 1 audiobook
• 11 campaign settings
• 1 fundraising
• 2 platforms
• 58 supplements
• 39 systems
• 1 translation
• 65 distinct systems used (17 original)
• 82 campaigns (43.39%) used D&D 5E and raised $1,693,794.03 (21.77% of all money raised in October)
• 41 campaigns used AI in some form (21.69% of total)
• These campaigns raised $143,749.67 (1.85% of all money raised in October)
• 30 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 36.59% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns

Backerkit's October

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in October were:

1. Welcome to Night Vale Roleplaying Game by Renegade Game Studios ($529,977 from 6,654 backers)
2. The Expanse Roleplaying Game: Transport Union Edition by Green Ronin Publishing ($360,727 from 2,364 backers)
3. Worldographer 2025 by Inkwell Ideas ($93,560 from 877 backers)
4. High School Cthulhu - Roleplaying Game by Gear Games ($60,883.09 from 696 backers)
5. Netcrawl by Horse Shark Games ($44,290 from 386 backers)

Kickstarter's October

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in October were:

1. Ember by Foundry Virtual Tabletop ($710,981 from 3,808 backers)
2. PIRATE BORG: Down Among the Dead by Limithron ($621,486 from 5,202 backers)
3. The Broken Empires RPG™: Sim-Lite d100 Skills-Based TTRPG by Evil Baby Entertainment ($487,707 from 3,987 backers)
4. Root: The Roleplaying Game-Ruins and Rolls by Magpie Games ($385,728 from 3,928 backers)
5. Enter The Labyrinth: 5E TOV Expansion and Adventure Path by Kobold Press ($348,048 from 3,171 backers)

Big Picture

I've become interested in the 'big' indie D&D publishers, the people who make multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars when running Kickstarters but tend to focus primarily on D&D. They're obviously hugely successful, make nowhere near the money that Wizards of the Coast does, and were facing a uniquely precarious position with the whole OGL fiasco of early 2023. How are they doing now? What are they up to?

Take Kobold Press, for instance. Their in-house system Tales of the Valiant was created in response to the OGL fiasco of early 2023, and judging by their latest products they have been focused on supporting said system ever since it was created. That said, their four Kickstarter campaigns created since launching Tales of the Valiant have emphasized the compatibility between Tales of the Valiant (TOV) and 5E. Rather than create an alternative to 5E, they have a parallel product. And that makes sense, because in my mind Kobold Press is a studio that makes cool D&D monsters and adventures.

Back when there was the threat that Wizards of the Coast would try to take huge cuts from anyone other than them making money from D&D, it was a great idea to make something similar enough to 5E that they could keep doing what they do best without paying the literal price for doing so. But now that the threat has passed, they have this thing that's part of their brand that they sort of don't need anymore (except that WotC could always try something fucked up again, so it's good insurance I guess). Is anyone coming to Kobold Press specifically for Tales of the Valiant? 10,057 people backed the original Kickstarter campaign for the Player's Guide and Monster Vault, and 5,711 people backed the Game Master's Guide Kickstarter.

Their 5E and TOV adventure path Kickstarter that ended in October raised money and had backer numbers in keeping with both their pre- and post-TOV campaigns, but they're quite consistently still advertising both systems in their Kickstarter campaign titles. I would be very curious what conversations have been had about fully abandoning 5E, but I imagine that unless there's a specific downside to sticking with it they're unlikely to do it fully.