January 2025 TTRPG Crowdfunding Retrospective

January may have felt like it took forever to end, but don't worry! There were also very few TTRPG crowdfunding campaigns that ended within this time period. On one hand this was kinda good because it gave me some time to relearn R and start putting together some statistical analyses of the 2024 data. On the other hand, it made the numerous AI campaigns feel that much more prevalent and depressing (even though there weren't many more than usual).

That said, let me actually get into the stats to give you context. As always, the raw data are available for you to peruse at your leisure.

• 68 campaigns
• 6 Backerkit
• 0 Crowdfundr
• 62 Kickstarter
• $554,028.38 raised
• $199,232.66 on Backerkit
• $0.00 on Crowdfundr
• $354,795.72 on Kickstarter
• Types of campaigns
• 10 accessories
• 23 adventures
• 1 audiobook
• 1 campaign setting
• 2 reprints
• 24 supplements
• 5 systems
• 1 translation
• 1 zine
• 18 distinct systems used (4 original)
• 37 campaigns (54.41%) used D&D 5E and raised $176,170.54 (31.80% of all money raised in January)
• 28 campaigns used AI in some form (41.18% of total) and raised $130,553.04 (23.56% of all money raised in January)
• 22 of these were D&D 5E campaigns, accounting for 59.46% of all 5E crowdfunding campaigns

Backerkit's January

The top 5 campaigns on Backerkit in January were:

1. MythCraft TTRPG Enhanced: New Loot, Reprint, and VTT Support! by QuasiReal Publishing ($139,903 from 1,002 backers)
2. Fallout, el juego de rol by The Hills Press ($48,813.76 from 456 backers)
3. Audiobook of Deadlands for Savage Worlds by World's Largest RPGs ($3,860 from 73 backers)
4. Dystopian Dawn "Cowboys & Mutants!" by Fractured Brain Studios ($2,602 from 30 backers)
5. OSR Booster Zine - System Neutral and Mörk Borg by Severed Books | Severed Toys ($2,592 from 148 backers)

This may seem odd, but the campaign I'm most interested in here is the "Audiobook of Deadlands for Savage Worlds," and that's because this used to be a mainstay of Kickstarter for all of 2024. Under the name AudioRPG (which seems to have been wrapped into or always was part of "World's Largest RPGs"), they made seven audiobooks of Traveller and Savage Worlds supplements from February through October 2024. In December they switched to Backerkit for the first time with the Audiobook of Third Imperium, a supplement for Traveller campaign, and now that they've done a second on this platform I suspect that the switch might be permanent. The other reason this is probably the case: both Backerkit campaigns made more than any of the Kickstarter campaigns.

I'm obsessed with these couple of data points and will be keeping an eye out for more. These are the kinds of campaigns that could really grow a regular userbase on Backerkit beyond big blowout projects with larger companies behind them. Smaller campaigns like these are the bread and butter of Kickstarter, vastly outnumbering bigger campaigns by a factor of anywhere from 10:1 to 100:1 (depending on how you define "smaller" campaigns). They are also, I would argue, crucial to realizing the promise of democratizing project financing that crowdfunding platforms originally sold themselves on: small creators getting their projects supported by a wider audience than they would have been able to get themselves.

That said, I do want to call attention to two things. First is AudioRPG's past use of AI in all of their Kickstarter campaigns. They said that it was only their "table chapters" that were generated by speechify, but I'm fairly uncomfortable with AI being used in any capacity at this point. I hope that they've abandoned that practice with the move to Backerkit, considering Backerkit's AI policy. Second thing to consider is that both of these Backerkit campaigns were released in an environment where there weren't many other campaigns going on and may have benefitted from a more open field. My observations here aren't a clarion call to say that Backerkit is where all the money is at, but to point to an interesting potential change in the winds.

Kickstarter's January

The top 5 campaigns on Kickstarter in January were:

1. The GM's Citadel: 3D Printable GM Screen & Storage Case by Tabletop Terrain ($43,120 from 636 backers)
2. .DUNGEON a Dying MMO Fantasy Roleplaying Game by Snow ($32,838 from 876 backers)
3. 100 Unique Factions for D&D 5e! by Igor Antunes ($26,957 from 968 backers) - used AI
4. Wild Magic: Expanded (A DnD 5E Expansion) by David Ferguson ($23,527 from 582 backers)
5. Knight Errant by St Caedmon Studios ($20,311 from 237 backers)

This was a dark month for Kickstarter on the AI front. It didn't see the most AI campaigns by raw amount (that was July 2024 with 43 campaigns) but we did see the highest proportion of AI campaigns, both by count (28 campaigns, or 45.16% of Kickstarter campaigns) and by money raised ($130,553.04, or 36.80% of money raised on Kickstarter).

I'll put it bluntly: this fucking sucks. It sucks that generated slop is obscuring art made by real people. It sucks that the process of slop generation is also microwaving the planet before our eyes. And it sucks that we have no real way of stopping this.

This is part of why AudioRPG moving to Backerkit is so potentially exciting to me. Firstly, the hope that someone has abandoned AI tools. Secondly, and more importantly, if we can move away from a platform with terrible AI policies we can potentially move money away from people who are actively harming us all with their use of harmful AI tools.

2025 vs 2024

Now that I have a full year's worth of data, I'm going to include a short section comparing this year to last. Let's see how the Januaries stack up:

• Number of campaigns
• Backerkit: 4 (2024) - 6 (2025)
• Kickstarter: 71 (2024) - 62 (2025)
• Money
• Backerkit: $4,608,855.66 (2024) - $199,232.66 (2025)
• This isn't a particularly fair comparison since the MCDM RPG campaign happened during January 2024 so here's the total with that taken out: $8,335.66 (2024)
• Kickstarter: $801,189.61 (2024) - $354,795.72 (2025)
• AI
• Count: 19 (2024) - 28 (2025)
• Money: $113,268.66 (2024) - $130,553.04 (2025)
• D&D 5E
• Count: 32 (2024) - 37 (2025)
• Money: $367,344.91 (2024) - $176,170.54 (2025)

To sum up: more campaigns, more AI, less money overall but more money in Backerkit (sorta).