Blade Runner: The Next Million Dollar Kickstarter?

Free League's Blade Runner Kickstarter has just launched, and is tearing through stretch goals after funding in just 3 minutes. It looks very likely that this will be the company's second million dollar Kickstarter (following last year's The One Ring campaign, which raised over $2M). It will also be the third million dollar Kickstarter in the last month, following Matt Colville's Flee Mortals!, and Monte Cook Games' Old Gods of Appalachia.

Blade Runner was voted the Most Anticipated TTRPG of 2022 by readers of EN World right here.

Free League's other million dollar Kickstarter, The One Ring, did $521K on the first day and finished with $2M. Compared to the other million dollar campaigns in the last few weeks --

• Flee Mortals! did $788K on the first day.
• Old Gods of Appalachia did $679K on the first day.
• Only one campaign has done $1M+ on day 1, and that was Avatar Legends with $1.15M on the first day.

Check Out These Bladerunner RPG Previews

Free League has shared some previews of its Bladerunner RPG, which comes to Kickstarter next week on May 3rd and looks very likely to be the third million dollar Kickstarter in the last month.

www.enworld.org

BLADE RUNNER – The Roleplaying Game

Walk the neon-noir streets of Los Angeles 2037 in the official BLADE RUNNER RPG from Free League Publishing and Alcon Entertainment.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[Morrus]

I mean, look at how short the campaign is, compared to other major campaigns they've done. Just 24 days total.

That's become more and more common these days--companies are starting to cut out the middle 'dead' period of the campaign. "Flee Mortals!" was just 20 days. MCG's Old Gods of Appalachia is 25 days. Free League's own The One Ring 2E last year was 22 days. It's not really necessary to do a full month, as many companies are proving.

 

[payn]

A like a lot of these stretch goals and be very interested in seeing the final product. These high quality hand outs and mystery material could lead to future products Id be very interested in.

 

[darjr]

One Million!

 

[Morrus]

 

[Mistwell]

Well they hit $1M. Was it in 24 hours?

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

That was impressive to watch unfold.

 

[Morrus]

Somebody should check the timestamp on the Flee Mortals! and Appalachia threads when they hit a million.

Edit--here's the post. By @darjr (of course!) -- so according to the timestamp, Blade Runner is 3-and-a-half hours faster to hit the million. Of course that doesn't mean much long term. It's just fun.

Edit2--here's MDG's Appalachia (again darjr!). Not quite as fast, but still incredibly fast--still another 9 hours until the same milestone.

So it's
Bladerunner (+0 hours)
Flee Mortals! (+3 hours)
Appalachia (+9 hours)

 

[overgeeked]

Well they hit $1M. Was it in 24 hours?

No. They launched at about 6am yesterday. Assuming the time stamps are right, they hit $1 million at 10:16 PST. Which is 28 hours 16 minutes after launch.

 

[Morrus]

No. They launched at about 6am yesterday. Assuming the time stamps are right, they hit $1 million at 10:16 PST. Which is 28 hours 16 minutes after launch.

Avatar is still the only TTRPG campaign to every hit $1M in the first day. Tanares came close by giving away a big gold dragon mini to all first day backers but even that wasn't quite enough!

 

[Sacrosanct]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'd be curious to know how much of that million goes to licensing. Between production/marketing/shipping costs, that 1 mil goes way down, so I wonder if they needed to hit a million just to make any sort of profit once you consider licensing as well. It always strikes me funny when someone says someone on KS became a millionaire because net profits are just a fraction.