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论述项目开展Kickstarter活动的3大益处

作者:Eric Boosman

自从宣布Dark Tonic将就《Wall Street Titan》开展Kickstarter活动,朋友和同事就反复问我,为什么要这么做,能否确保从中筹集大量资金。当我表示资金在此决定中并非关键要素时,他们似乎有些困惑。

Wall Street Titan from gamasutra.com

Wall Street Titan from gamasutra.com

Kickstarter非常适合进行筹集资金,但它的作用远非如此。很多Kickstarter活动都未能实现他们的融资目标,但这并不意味着活动是失败的。

强大的大众融资活动能够带来如下三个益处:

1. 提高项目曝光度

对于我们这样的独立工作室来说,最大的挑战莫过于提高自己的曝光度。若没有人知道我们的项目,那就没有人会进行体验,掏钱购买,进而展开讨论,你不过是将游戏保存在磁盘中,放在永远不会被用户注意到的货架上。

Kickstarter通过其主页面底部的Discover/Your City组合至少能够将你的项目呈现给当地用户。假如你在各社交网站上对项目进行基本的推广,你有可能吸引众多观众。

若他们并未给予支持,没有关系,多数观众通常都不会给予支持。但他们能够帮你宣传项目,或者至少你已树立一定的辨识度,这能够帮你发展项目、产品或品牌,进而带来销量或其他益处。

2. 测试市场

Kickstarter是将初期构思呈现给目标用户,查看其兴趣所在的低风险方式。这或促进你的计划,或充当你的市场指示器,告知你时机也许还不成熟,或者构思需要稍作修改,方能适应你的用户。

更好的是,你能够从用户那里获得直接反馈(游戏邦注:关于项目哪些内容令他们着迷,哪些他们不感兴趣),然后做出相应调整,迎合他们的口味,令最终成品获得最佳反馈。这有点像是开放式测试。

3. 同用户互动

这可以说是Kickstarter的最大优点。虽然你可以通过许多不同的社交网络同粉丝进行互动,但交流话题通常需要多种多样,以防粉丝觉得内容过于平淡无奇,你过度宣传自我。而在此粉丝主要同你谈论Kickstarter项目,因此你能够同他们展开高效交流,让他们觉得自己在塑造最终产品方面能够施加影响。

你还能够从中获悉哪些用户会掏钱,他们置身何处,这能够帮你过滤掉吵杂的网络评论员,他们也许在其他场合中扮演重要角色,但在此他们的话语没有什么参考价值。

但最重要的是,当有人表示会支持你的项目时,他们的观念会发生转变,这巩固你们之间的关系。他们现在是团队的一份子,他们未来依然是强大的盟军。

Robert Cialdini曾在其著作《Influence: Science and Practice》的第三章中谈及这一心理转变,强烈推荐业务扩展及营销人员进行阅读。

这一章节主要谈论人类的心理一致性需求。他举例加拿大心理学家的调查研究:在赛马比赛中,相比下注前,已下注的人更加确信自己的马匹会胜出。他们表明立场,因此需要确保自己的信念和之前的行动保持一致性。

不到一周,我们项目就获得约20%的融资(游戏邦注:预期目标是达到融资计划的30%),但就如我说的,即便没有实现目标,我们依然从中受益匪浅。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

3 Reasons Kickstarter is not actually about the money

by Eric Boosman

Since announcing that Dark Tonic was going to do a Kickstarter campaign for Wall Street Titan, and after launching it, I have been asked by many friends and colleagues why we were doing it, did we think we’d make a bunch of money, etc.  They seem puzzled when I explain money was not even a real factor in the decision.

Kickstarter (and other crowdfunding options) can certainly be great for raising useful capital, but they can be tools for so much more.  Many Kickstarter campaigns miss their funding goals, but this doesn’t mean they are failures.

A strong crowdfunding campaign can provide the three following hugely useful benefits:

1. Raise visibility for your project

For an indie studio like ours, arguably the biggest challenge we face is simply being seen.  If nobody knows about your project, obviously nobody will be playing it, buying it, talking about it, and you may as well have just saved your game on a disc and put it on a shelf to be taken down never.

Kickstarter takes your project and at the very minimum exposes it to a local audience through their Discover / Your City grouping appearing at the bottom of the Kickstarter home page. Provided you do a minimum of grassroots promotion of your project on various social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn groups, etc.) you have the possibility of getting a huge number of viewers.

It doesn’t matter if they don’t back you, the vast majority will likely not.  However, they may then help promote the project for you, or at the very least, you have planted a seed of recognition that helps grow your project, product, or brand, that may result in a sale or other contribution down the line.

2. Test the market

Kickstarter is an extremely low risk way of putting an early concept in front of your target demographic and learning what kind of interest is there.  It can either support your plan for the concept, or give you a strong market indicator that the time might not be right or the concept may need to be modified to suit your audience.

Even better, you have a chance to get direct feedback from your audience about the stuff in your project that excites them, and maybe the stuff they’re not so crazy about, allowing you to tailor it to trending tastes to help ensure the best response to the finished product.  It’s almost like free focus testing!

3. Engage your audience

This is perhaps the most valuable thing provided by Kickstarter.  Although you can engage with fans via many different social networks, the conversations necessarily have to be on a variety of topics to avoid coming off as spammy and too self-promoting.  With your fans engaging you specifically about your project on Kickstarter, you can have very useful, meaningful conversations with them where they feel empowered to have a real voice in shaping the end product.

You also get to see who will put their money where their mouths are, which helps cut through the chaff of noisy internet commenters and trolls that may seem like important voices in a different setting, but are now proven to not likely be worth listening to.

The absolutely most powerful part of this, though, is that when someone pledges to back your project, a change takes place in their brains that solidifies a connection as a fan of yours.  They are now on your team, and they can remain powerful allies in the future.

Robert Cialdini talks about this psychological change in chapter 3 of his book Influence: Science and Practice which is highly recommended for any of you in biz dev, marketing, or if you just want to know what kind of tricks may be played on you by unscrupulous people.

This chapter deals with the human need for psychological consistency.  He uses as an example a study done by Canadian psychologists where just after placing a bet a horse race track, betters are much more confident of their horse’s chances of winning that before laying down the bet.  They took a stand, and as a result have a need to bring their beliefs into alignment with their past actions.

There are many other great ways Kickstarter provides benefits beyond the above, but those are three very powerful examples.

After just under a week, we’re about 20% funded with our project (missing that magical 30% mark) but as I say, even if we miss our goal, we will have received a massive benefit.  (see that need for psychological consistency at work?)(Source:gamasutra


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