Score +2 For Million Dollar Crowdfunders!

This time last week, The Arcane Library's The Western Reaches for Shadowdark looked set to be the only game in town--so far--for TTRPG million-dollar crowdfunders this year. And it's still projected to break the top six of all time in the Million Dollar TTRPG Crowdfunder Club, which currently stands at 42 members.

However, two other crowdfunders rallied in their closing days, both squeaking in just past the million dollar mark! While it had always looked close, most people felt these two campaigns would just fall short of that magical--albeit arbitrary--number. However, The Magnus Archives RPG: Tangled in the Web from Monte Cook Games closed at $1015,475; and Fallen London: The Roleplaying Game from Magpie Games crossed the line with $1,028,103.

This means that the total number of million dollar TTRPG crowdfunders this year went from 0 to 3 in the space of a week! You can see the full list here.

It's noteable that none of these three are D&D 5E projects but this is easily ascribed to the fact that a new edition of D&D has just come out, making 5E crowdfunding creators and backers cautious all throughout 2024 and into 2025. Additionally, from the creator front, there is no official SRD (System Reference Document) available yet for the new edition of D&D, which is the rules document which D&D owner Wizards of the Coast puts out under the Open Game License--or, more recently, Creative Commons--as a developer tool for third parties. While this does not stop publishers making 2024 D&D-compatible products using the older SRDs (after all, WotC has gone to great lengths to point out that this is the same game, and not technically a new edition) it may have caused some to hold tight and wait for 'official' word.

Anyhow, after a quiet start, it looks like the million-dollar TTRPG crowdfunders are back again this year! 2024 saw 8 such projects, so it remains to be seen if 2025 will beat that!

 

[Reynard]

One thing that might be interesting is to indicate on that chart how many from each year have been fulfilled.

 

[Morrus]

One thing that might be interesting is to indicate on that chart how many from each year have been fulfilled.

If you want to do the research, I can include it!

 

[Rhineglade]

What's Kamala Harris doing in London?

 

[Umbran]

What's Kamala Harris doing in London?

Mod note:
Irrelevant to the topic, and political, which isn't something we find acceptable on this site.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I feel it might be likely that this number might diminish.

Whatever your political position is, I think we can all agree that there's a lot of uncertainty in the hair and international trade is going to be affected. This is going to increase prices, might lead to inflation in certain countries. People might have less money to spend and products might be pricier to make.

Coming from video games, the average pledge numbers on TTRPG are absolutely baffling. I often see average pledges of more than 150$ USD. This is very high. I feel like more people might either take PDF options, less books, or just pledge as much on fewer projects.

 

[CleverNickName]

That is a huge spike in 2021! The market for crowdfunded TTRPGs really hit its stride in the year after the pandemic lockdowns began, and it really hasn't gone back down to pre-pandemic figures. There have been 43 $1MRPGs since 2016, and 89% of them have been funded in the last 4 years.

Maybe one of these days I'll get enough spare time to go through this list and list out the ones that have VTT support. I'm curious if that was a factor (I doubt it, but why make guesses when we have DATA.)

I guess inflation could be a factor, too. According to the Internet, $1.00 in 2016 is about $1.32 in 2025...so adjusting the playing field for inflation, TTRPGs today would need to reach $1.32M to qualify. (Another way to look at it: the bar for entry in 2016 would have been $758K, not $1M.)

And check out BackerKit! It went from being a fairly unknown crowdfunding platform, to one of the highest-performing, in just 20 months. Four of these $1MRPGs have been funded on BackerKit, including the #3 and #4 highest funded TTRPGs of all time.

Anyway. I love statistics, and I love TTRPGs, so thanks for letting me blather on and on about both.

 

[Chaltab]

@Umbran The art really does look like Harris though. I don't think it's political to notice that?

 

[Umbran]

@Umbran The art really does look like Harris though. I don't think it's political to notice that?

Mod Note:
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[TheAlkaizer]

And check out BackerKit!

I have a few issues about the design of their pages, which I hope they'll fix. But overall I like the platform. I also believe they take a smaller cut of the funds raised. I'm happy to see some competition, hopefully it'll lead to improvements.