Kickstarted Tabletop Games Do Well In 2020 Despite Pandemic

ICO Partners has analyzed Kickstarter's tabletop games category and observed that tabletop games have made more money this year so far than ever before -- however, there are caveats!

While more money has been raised by the category there are two modifying factors:

• There was a steep 24% decline in products launched (3863 in March 2019, down to 2040 in March 2020). April's decline was 34%, and May's 30%.
• Correspondingly, the amount of pledges dropped sharply.
• The boardgame Frosthaven made a third of the total money raised ($13M) in May, making May the biggest ever month for the tabletop games category. It raised 10% of the total for the year so far.

Spring is usually a good time for crowdfunding. It appears that the pandemic has affected Kickstarter, but more from the project launch side -- fewer projects have been launched, resulting in lower overall funding (aside from Frosthaven) but those that did launch did just fine.

 

[Cergorach]

Frosthaven did it without having numerous minis like a CMON kickstarter...

No, they did it with just a few minis. Also keep in mind that a LOT of folks (established fans) knew this was comming for a long while and would have backed this hell or high water. Quite a few other people jumped on the wagon because you can play solo.

But what I find strange is that these numbers translate to some folks as "RPGs are selling well." RPGs might be selling well, the category Tabletop Games at KS also includes board games, card games, miniatures, and STL files for miniatures. So maybe someone needs to do some actual tallying of RPG kickstarters. And even more challenging, that KS that raised $300k+ for STLs of flying fantasy airships with crews has an option for an RPG booklet pdf for that KS. $99 worth of STL and an optional $5 addon for D&D 5E pdf booklet. What about all those dice KS?

 

[jedijon]

The bottleneck might even be fulfillment.

Strongly suspect that most projects will be delayed in their overall delivery date.

People will only want to be dealing with only so many unfulfilled pledges — and overall elasticity that’s going to be stressed. That and the psychological factors of “oh, another one is six months late” will reduce willingness to participate.

In short, more people will be burned out. that’s not a factor on the front end. It’s a long term factor.

 

[aramis erak]

Hasn't the tabletop games market been on a general upward trend for years, anyway?
And the RPG market as well?