Critical Role Critical Role's Kickstarter Breaks $1,000,000 In About An Hour!

Parmandur · Mar 8, 2019

jmucchiello said:
There was not a big surge last night. So I doubt the number of backers will more than double by the end of the kickstarter. As I write this they are just under 47,000 backers. (And $6.4m)

It is definitely falling into the U pattern common to KS projects. Doubling their current take, $6.4 million from 47,000+ people, would be pretty amazing: but based on past trends, that can still be surpassed handily. There will be about 40 more days of slow and steady (relatively slow) and them 48 hours of last minute bonkers flurry, as is standard. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

Parmandur · Mar 8, 2019

So, per the following KickTraq page, this has already made $118,000 today, with 695 backers.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/criticalrole/critical-role-the-legend-of-vox-machina-animated-s/#chart-daily

If a slower rate of ~2,000 pledges a day continues, at the same average and median pledge rate, that would be ~$8 million more. That's not taking into account the final 48 hour rush (which is typical, as many people like a project and check in on the end to get an idea of what they get). So, I think at least $14 million+ is still highly feasible.

Swarmkeeper · Mar 8, 2019

Parmandur said:
So, I think at least $14 million+ is still highly feasible.

Which would make Vox Machina cooler than the Coolest Cooler. Let's go!

Henry · Mar 8, 2019

Oh, God, they're doomed -- they're only taking in $300,000.00 a day, now! How will they make enough stretch goals to fund a series that goes all the way through to the Vecna fight at the end of the campaign, now??

Parmandur · Mar 8, 2019

Henry said:
Oh, God, they're doomed -- they're only taking in $300,000.00 a day, now! How will they make enough stretch goals to fund a series that goes all the way through to the Vecna fight at the end of the campaign, now??

I doubt they'll get full Vecna funding (before talking about thorny "who owns Vecna?" questions), but it seems plausible that the Chroma Conclave sorry arc might get funded at this rate.

CleverNickName · Mar 8, 2019

They are now the 11th highest funded project in Kickstarter history.

I hope they meet all of their stretch goals, that goes without saying. But more than that, I hope this project gets picked up by Netfix and expanded into an animated series that spans multiple seasons, with the staff and cast of Critical Role at the helm and WotC/D&DBeyond as key sponsors. It's not that farfetched: the demand for such a thing is now undeniable, and for better or worse, Critical Role is now a leader in the video entertainment industry.

Even if the Netflix thing doesn't happen, I hope it at least inspires the producers and studios in Hollywood to start taking these kinds of projects a little more seriously, fund them better, and create more of them. I hope this Kickstarter is a game-changer (pun intended).

jmucchiello · Mar 8, 2019

Henry said:
Oh, God, they're doomed -- they're only taking in $300,000.00 a day, now! How will they make enough stretch goals to fund a series that goes all the way through to the Vecna fight at the end of the campaign, now??

Well, yeah.

But seriously, most of this talk is about will they get to $20m to be the top KS ever, I think.

Parmandur said:
I doubt they'll get full Vecna funding (before talking about thorny "who owns Vecna?" questions), but it seems plausible that the Chroma Conclave sorry arc might get funded at this rate.

The full Chroma Conclave is 3 times longer than the Briarwood Arc. It's in three sections, each as long as the Briarwood arc: The assault on Emon and kill the white dragon, find the vestiges of divergence and work on Keylith's aramente, and finally Thordak and Raishen. There's a trip to the city of brass in there too. And Vasselheim.

Vecna is about as long as the Briarwood arc. And the name would not be a problem. They would use whatever was used in the Tal'dorei Campaign Guide. Same issue exists for Pike worshipping Sarenrae.

CleverNickName said:
Even if the Netflix thing doesn't happen, I hope it at least inspires the producers and studios in Hollywood to start taking these kinds of projects a little more seriously, fund them better, and create more of them. I hope this Kickstarter is a game-changer (pun intended).

As long as it isn't Cartoon Network. They don't understand that cartoons can be consumed by adults.

kenmarable · Mar 8, 2019

As for this being rich people getting richer, I'm not their accountant, but I think it'd be an awfully safe bet that they make the majority of their income from their actual careers as voice actors and directors. Critical Role has increased their popularity and visibility, and they are making enough to hire a handful of staff (looks like 10ish, dunno how many are full or part-time) and rent a warehouse, but being the voices in some of the most popular video games and many cartoons is likely a far larger portion of their income. If nothing else, I'm pretty sure Ashley Johnson isn't fly back and forth across the country and missing half the games to be in Blindspot because that's more fun than supposedly getting rich playing D&D with her friends.

Also, if anyone is excited about the profit potential of this Kickstater it's Titmouse, the animation company. The CR crew have been clear all through the Kickstarter that as much of the funds as possible are going directly to animation. Heck, the CR team are actually putting their own money into this which is why it was originally capped at 4 episodes because they couldn't justify/afford to collectively put in anymore. (I think this was mentioned on Talks Machina, but it might have been in the Q&A. Plus it makes the original goals make more sense, since they said each minute of TV-quality animation is $30-50,000, but their original KS goals only accounted for $25,000 per minute.)

So, no, they are certainly not getting rich off of this Kickstarter. In fact, they are spending anywhere between $500K-$2M of their business's - and maybe even some of their personal - money as well. (The range depends on whether the final costs are closer to the $30K or $50K per minute.) Unless they are lying, the KS clearly states that "operational costs" are <1%, and that's likely for the staff member they have handling everything involved with the KS (they mentioned her name, but I forget who it was).

Parmandur · Mar 8, 2019

$6.5 million, with 47,633 backers. ~1564 new backers today, totaling over $200,000 with just small pledges.

Given general KS trends, this might be normal for daily pledging for the next month. It adds up.

Kurotowa · Mar 8, 2019

jmucchiello said:
As long as it isn't Cartoon Network. They don't understand that cartoons can be consumed by adults.

Oh, they understand. They've just got business priorities besides simple viewership numbers. Even today a lot of animated series are made with the unstated goal of being advertising for kid's toys, and sales of said merchandise is expected to subsidize a series that would fail to make a profit on ad revenue alone. If too many of the wrong people are watching a show then merch sales won't be high enough to justify its continued existence.

At least, I'm told that's the business model they operate with. You can try to make a case for alternative business models that leverage a more adult viewership to somehow justify the expense of a high quality animated series, but they may not listen. Institutional inertia is a thing and unproven business models are usually regarded with a great deal of suspicion.