Cosmere Overtakes Avatar Legends To Become Biggest TTRPG Kickstarter Ever!

With a full five days left to go, Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG has passed Avatar Legends' record of $9.5M to become the highest funding tabletop roleplaying game podcast ever! Just its first-day total of $4.3M put it at #4 in the official Million Dollar Kickstarter Club, and it looks set to comfortably set a lead of at least $2M. Backer Tracker currently projects a total of just under $12M, while Kicktraq predicts $12.3M.

Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club

Avatar Legends leads the pack in an exclusive club -- Kickstarters for tabletop roleplaying game products which have broken the $1M barrier! It is currently the most successful TTRPG Kickstarter in history with a funding total of nearly $10M, and over 80,000 backers. [UPDATE--Backerkit started...

www.enworld.org

While the backer count is under half that of Avatar, the Cosmere dollar total is currently sitting at nearly $9.8M. Brandon Sanderson already holds the Kickstarter record for the most funded project ever--his novel series made over $40M on Kickstarter in 2023!

Published by Brotherwise Games, the game encompasses Brandon Sanderson's entire universe of novels. It includes a world guide, a rulebook, and an adventure called Stormlight Stonewalkers. It's a new game system, based on a d20 mechanic with talent trees and skill-based magic.

It only remains to be seen how far it can go--but one thing is for sure: Brandon Sanderson has yet another world record to his name!

​

 

[Gord the Rogue]

Now do Wheel of Time

 

[Parmandur]

Now do Wheel of Time

This system would work very, very well for Wheel of Time, a better fot than the WoT dw0 adaptation, neat as that was...I would be over the moon if Brotherwise Games worked that out with the estate (they already have a contact through Sanderson!).

 

[DarkCrisis]

Now do Wheel of Time

I wish the 3rd ed version had been better. Trying to cram it into a 3rd ed/D20 mold did it no favors.

 

[Parmandur]

They just hit $11 million with 3 days left to go. Today's update provides a little preview of how the rules will address travel in the Cog itinerary Realms, and the last PDF modular supplement for backers was announced, "Showdown in Shadesmar," which can be played in the Cognitive Realm coming from either Stormlight or Mistborn.

 

[Cergorach]

He made $40 million in a previous Kickstarter? No hate, like good for him as an artist, it's cool when something creative also makes people rich. Never read his books but still bravo.

That's real rich. A million isn't what it used to be but 40? He can do what he wants without being tied to a publisher. Freedom the real prize.

He didn't 'make' $40 million, that's what he 'sold'. Minus KS costs, credit card transaction costs, actual products that were sold, people paid, offices run, etc. Which is a LOT when you talk about almost 189k backers, they shipped 1,605,465 lbs worth of packaged product...

It wasn't just multiple Premium Hardcover books, epubs and audiobooks, it was also 8 boxes of 'swag' for tens of thousands of backers. They created 64 new products just for the KS. There's a whole company behind that KS, lots of people that need to be paid for a whole year, office space, storage space, etc. They got a whole new warehouse: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson/posts/3840325

That was not $40 million in the bank for Brandon. That was a whole lot of liabilities that first needed to be delivered. Also keep in mind that the KS would seriously cut into his regular books sales. Cutting out a lot of middle men in the process is lucrative for B though. But it wouldn't be the first KS that would underestimate how much delivering product would cost... My best guess is that he grew his Dragonsteel company significantly instead of rolling in the money like Dagobert Duck...

This $11 million KS is not run by B or his company (Dragonsteel) directly, it's done via Brotherwise Games, who have been making Cosmere products for a while now (miniatures and board/card games). So first paying for game development, designers, writers, illustrators, layout artists, playtesters (?). Then producing the actual product they sold here, the piles of books, decks, minis, and dice. They will also be paying people to make their RPG/products for a couple of different VTTs (I know of Roll20, Demiplane, Fantasy Grounds, and Foundry). Then they'll probably pay a license fee for the IP and possibly and writing work B did for them, the rest of the money stays at Brotherwise Games. This is as I understand it (details might be different). They were working on this for two years already and this KS includes a product for 2026, so this $11-$12 million needs to cover the cost of 4 years of work, besides physical and digital products... And those KSs have a serious marketing budget...

 

[Morrus]

He didn't 'make' $40 million, that's what he 'sold'.

Yep, a KS funding total is revenue not profit. That's $40M worth of product that has to be provided to backers.

 

[Epizarwin]

I was curious about a comment in another thread about maybe not surpassing another games backers at 40 something thousand and I thought that was weirdly low in comparison to mcdms 30k given the money raised so far. I checked out the amount of funder and while they only have roughly 27 percent more funders they've raised 2.5 times the money. Damn, are people refinancing to get this game? Lol

 

[Parmandur]

I was curious about a comment in another thread about maybe not surpassing another games backers at 40 something thousand and I thought that was weirdly low in comparison to mcdms 30k given the money raised so far. I checked out the amount of funder and while they only have roughly 27 percent more funders they've raised 2.5 times the money. Damn, are people refinancing to get this game? Lol

Nah, the top tier is still pretty reasonably priced, but gor most other RPG Kickstarters the weight tends to be towards lower iron middle tier pledges: for this, people are going all on pretty hard.

 

[Morrus]

I was curious about a comment in another thread about maybe not surpassing another games backers at 40 something thousand and I thought that was weirdly low in comparison to mcdms 30k given the money raised so far. I checked out the amount of funder and while they only have roughly 27 percent more funders they've raised 2.5 times the money. Damn, are people refinancing to get this game? Lol

It's all about the average pledge level and the sheer amount of stuff you get--that's why most of the million dollar Kickstarters have merchandise which pushes that average pledge level up. It's very hard to hit a million with just a game. Only Shadowdark and Coyote & Crow ever managed that (at least so far).

 

[Cergorach]

Only Shadowdark and Coyote & Crow ever managed that (at least so far).

That's not completely true either. Shadowdark had a $250 pledge which contained a lot more then just the 'game'. And Coyote & Crow had a $400 pledge with art prints (and a $160 pledge with the books + a Roll20 version). Both did 13k and 16k backers respectively, Cosmere is doing almost 40k backers, even looking at just the 'game' that will be way more then either (even combined). Sure, there's a TON of additional stuff their selling and people buying, there's a huge gap between $1 million and $11 million, that won't get filled up by just the 'game'. It's not just the amount that's selling to fans, it's also the quantity of backers.

Note: Not a fan and not backing. BS books might be interesting, but my previous attempts at reading his books weren't successful...