7 ms·

Reverse Kickstarter – shows real sales stats

91 points by mrcharles 13y ago

MicahWedemeyer 13y ago
I'm going to guess that KS will be sending a C&D. It's a cute site, and I like the idea, but the style is way too close to KS. They have to be concerned about people stumbling onto this and not getting the joke. On the other hand, if it gets popular to the point that KS sends a C&D, then the site probably served its purpose. Overall, a neat marketing idea.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  I tried to make it an obvious parody, but if it's too close for comfort I will change it even more. It's more about showing players our sales data and giving faces to the developers of their games. The Kickstarter parody aspect of it is intended to be humorous more than anything.
  - coffeecheque 13y ago
    I'm on my phone so couldn't see the URL. I thought it was a Kickstarter, for what it is worth. Great to see you're from Adelaide too! Keep up the great work, and best of luck. Really imaginative campaign.
    - interpol_p 13y ago
      Thank you for letting me know. The last thing I want is for people to confuse our page with a real Kickstarter page, so I've made a significant change to the theming. I hope it helps make it stand out as a parody.
      - brey 13y ago
        still too close :( I love the concept, but I spent most of the time reading the page wondering when kickstarter had started offering projects hosted on your own domain, a la wordpress. it's the layout of the right column that's sailing a little too close to the wind, IMO
interpol_p 13y ago
We set this site up for our new game Crabitron and decided to call it Crabstarter. It is intended to be a light-hearted parody of Kickstarter, while showing real sales. One of the main reasons we set it up is because we wanted to have some hope of recouping our investment in this game. In order to do that, we felt that we couldn't go for rock-bottom pricing and hope for a mega-hit. That seemed crazy and unrealistic. Instead we gave our game the price we thought it deserved — $5. In order to help App Store players get over the "sticker shock," we set up Crabstarter. When you see that five dollar price in this context, it suddenly doesn't seem so high. We also wanted players to see that we were real human beings, and not a faceless company. So we tried to make an honest video in the format of a standard Kickstarter video.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  It's good to educate the buying public about how much it really costs to make something like this and how hard it is to recoup that. I hear people grousing about $3 apps and it drives me nuts. The new era of apps is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we've got these obscenely low prices... but on the other hand, people are actually buying software. That's a bigger deal than most folks realize. Before the iOS era, people basically just didn't buy software. I mean, geeks did if there was some specific tool they needed, and gamers bought games of course... but the run-of-the-mill normal person? At most they bought MS office and maybe got hoodwinked into picking up Norton when the trial expired on their computer. Now? Jane Q. Soccermom buys programs and games. That's a huge shift.
  - peterkelly 13y ago
    I hear people grousing about $3 apps and it drives me nuts. The Oatmeal did a great parody of these people a while back: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps
    - belorn 13y ago
      While funny, it completely fail in identifying the underlying causes of this consumer behavior. I do not consider it strange that people feel threaten by a $3 app purchase, but not a $400 phone. To me, its consistent with consumers when they buy a product they trust vs a product they don't. In psychology, economics, and finance, its call Risk aversion and is the reluctance of a person to accept a bargain with an uncertain payoff rather than another bargain with a more certain, but possibly lower, expected payoff. People expect software to fail. To a degree, Microsoft is to blame with blue screen of death, but thats only part of the culture regarding software. If I buy that $3 app, it might not solve the problem I got, it might be buggy, and it might not even start. If it end up in either of those cases, the social blame is normally put on the consumer for not knowing better on which software to buy, adding additional feeling of uncertainty. On products like phones or computer hardware, the risk feels less. If the phone don't start, we expect to get it replaced and fixed. The blame will be on the seller/producer, and not on the consumer. Add on top the positive reinforcing through marketing in TV and movies, and a physical sale person, and the $300 or even $1000 can feel much safer for the consumer than clicking yes on a $3 app purchase.
EGreg 13y ago
I don't get it. How is this a reverse kickstarter?
- hmottestad 13y ago
  Because the product is done already and you can buy the product. The goals seem to be different enhancements to the game, they start after their 100k has been covered.
- peterkelly 13y ago
  Normally with kickstarter they ask people to contribute to the development of something before the development is done. In this case, they've finished & released the game, and are encouraging people to contribute to recovery of their development costs after the development has been done. Hence it's in "reverse".
  - EGreg 13y ago
    But what do the people get for the donation? If it's the game, then are they selling it outside the app store? And if so, how?
    - peterkelly 13y ago
      It's sort of an ironic parody of kickstarter. People "donate" by simply purchasing it on the app store, just like you would with any other app, and thus they get the game (immediately). And they are saying that they will add other features to the game if the revenue exceeds the target.
    - interpol_p 13y ago
      It's just being sold on the App Store. The whole site is a parody / joke around Kickstarter campaigns. At the same time it does show real sales data and have an authentic video.
peterkelly 13y ago
Brilliant concept IMHO. A lot of people don't realise the amount of work that goes into creating this kind of stuff, and sadly the race to the bottom that's happened with games on the app store has meant in a lot of cases it's hard to for developers these days to justify the large development costs. I also love that you've given it a price and not gone with a freemium model. I'd much rather pay $5 for a (good) game up front than be constantly annoyed with offers to "buy more coins" etc.
brandynwhite 13y ago
How much do they have to unlock before it becomes a real kickstarter for an android version of the game?
oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
I like the idea of the top-up, in-app purchases. Makes me wonder how successful a much-loved, popular app would do if it adopted a 'get free, pay what you want via in-app' model, along the lines of Radiohead's In Rainbows sale. Think something like ... Monkey Island 3. Unfortunately, if my maths is correct, Crabitron has sold barely any (literally 1-3) top-ups :-(
- fredleblanc 13y ago
  Keep in mind that some figures only will update once per day. It could be much more by the time tomorrow hits.
  - oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
    (Bear in mind that I don't know whether you're anything to do with the project, so I might be speaking out of turn!) I'm assuming that the two figures in the top-right, being so closely related, are 'cached' in tandem: 732 backers, $2,569.56. 732 * 5 = 3660. 3660 - apple tax @ 30% = 2562. That gives $7.56 worth of 'top-ups' (no, I can't explain why that's such an odd number, unless the apple tax for in-app purchases isn't exactly 30%)
    - fredleblanc 13y ago
      I have nothing to do with the project, and I agree with you on the caching in tandem. I think my point is that those numbers might shoot way up tomorrow after a decent showing on HN (and presumably other places). I really like the idea, the look of the game, and the execution of the site. I'm in for the full $10.
      - interpol_p 13y ago
        Thank you! I hope it does well, too. Our current chart position is #117 in paid iPad apps (ranked by number of downloads). Our current grossing chart position is #368 for iPad (i.e., Crabitron is the 368 highest earning app on iPad). There is a massive discrepancy between these two charts because freemium games (i.e., games that allow consumers to spend as much as they want) can sit relatively low in the paid charts, but earn a lot more money from a stable user base. Our current popularity is mostly due to being featured by Apple in their New and Noteworthy section. This will end in 5 or 6 days and sales will likely drop down to $100/day (instead of $1000+ per day). Games are extremely hit-driven, and have very unreliable sales curves. With this trajectory in mind it is unlikely we will hit our development costs of $100,000. More realistically, we will see $20,000 before the game drops off completely in a few months. It's still a pleasant amount to earn back for a side project, but it's definitely why we still work full-time for someone else, building things for clients.
smalter 13y ago
The game looks really fun. I'm going to get it now. One thing I looked for and didn't see was additional tiers of contribution a la Kickstarter. The post-game credits tier, the t-shirt tier, the poster tier, etc. The art and game looks so fun I would've tossed in an extra $20 to support you guys and get a shirt.
morganwilde 13y ago
I feel as though a much more exciting thing you guys are doing is Codea - http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/ http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/. It looks so cool and something a lot of people could relate to, given the major shift to tablets.
- mrcharles 13y ago
  Codea rules and is pretty popular. As far as I know, Crabitron is just their side project.
  - morganwilde 13y ago
    Oh, I had no idea about it, but it's great to hear that it's doing well. One would definitely hope for such a project to gain traction.
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    Actually both Codea and Crabitron are our side projects — we work full time on iOS development... for clients :(
    - morganwilde 13y ago
      It's incredible to hear that since your work is really insightful (Codea reminds me of http://worrydream.com/#!/LearnableProgramming http://worrydream.com/#!/LearnableProgramming) and is pointing in an interesting direction. At the same time I do get that you need to put bread on the table, so to speak. Still with startup culture booming one has to wonder, why not commit? Have you guys tried that or is it something in the works?
ryan-allen 13y ago
Incredible marketing!

91 points by mrcharles 13y ago

I'm going to guess that KS will be sending a C&D. It's a cute site, and I like the idea, but the style is way too close to KS. They have to be concerned about people stumbling onto this and not getting the joke. On the other hand, if it gets popular to the point that KS sends a C&D, then the site probably served its purpose. Overall, a neat marketing idea.

interpol_p 13y ago
I tried to make it an obvious parody, but if it's too close for comfort I will change it even more. It's more about showing players our sales data and giving faces to the developers of their games. The Kickstarter parody aspect of it is intended to be humorous more than anything.
- coffeecheque 13y ago
  I'm on my phone so couldn't see the URL. I thought it was a Kickstarter, for what it is worth. Great to see you're from Adelaide too! Keep up the great work, and best of luck. Really imaginative campaign.
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    Thank you for letting me know. The last thing I want is for people to confuse our page with a real Kickstarter page, so I've made a significant change to the theming. I hope it helps make it stand out as a parody.
    - brey 13y ago
      still too close :( I love the concept, but I spent most of the time reading the page wondering when kickstarter had started offering projects hosted on your own domain, a la wordpress. it's the layout of the right column that's sailing a little too close to the wind, IMO

interpol_p 13y ago

We set this site up for our new game Crabitron and decided to call it Crabstarter. It is intended to be a light-hearted parody of Kickstarter, while showing real sales. One of the main reasons we set it up is because we wanted to have some hope of recouping our investment in this game. In order to do that, we felt that we couldn't go for rock-bottom pricing and hope for a mega-hit. That seemed crazy and unrealistic. Instead we gave our game the price we thought it deserved — $5. In order to help App Store players get over the "sticker shock," we set up Crabstarter. When you see that five dollar price in this context, it suddenly doesn't seem so high. We also wanted players to see that we were real human beings, and not a faceless company. So we tried to make an honest video in the format of a standard Kickstarter video.

Pxtl 13y ago
It's good to educate the buying public about how much it really costs to make something like this and how hard it is to recoup that. I hear people grousing about $3 apps and it drives me nuts. The new era of apps is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we've got these obscenely low prices... but on the other hand, people are actually buying software. That's a bigger deal than most folks realize. Before the iOS era, people basically just didn't buy software. I mean, geeks did if there was some specific tool they needed, and gamers bought games of course... but the run-of-the-mill normal person? At most they bought MS office and maybe got hoodwinked into picking up Norton when the trial expired on their computer. Now? Jane Q. Soccermom buys programs and games. That's a huge shift.
- peterkelly 13y ago
  I hear people grousing about $3 apps and it drives me nuts. The Oatmeal did a great parody of these people a while back: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps
  - belorn 13y ago
    While funny, it completely fail in identifying the underlying causes of this consumer behavior. I do not consider it strange that people feel threaten by a $3 app purchase, but not a $400 phone. To me, its consistent with consumers when they buy a product they trust vs a product they don't. In psychology, economics, and finance, its call Risk aversion and is the reluctance of a person to accept a bargain with an uncertain payoff rather than another bargain with a more certain, but possibly lower, expected payoff. People expect software to fail. To a degree, Microsoft is to blame with blue screen of death, but thats only part of the culture regarding software. If I buy that $3 app, it might not solve the problem I got, it might be buggy, and it might not even start. If it end up in either of those cases, the social blame is normally put on the consumer for not knowing better on which software to buy, adding additional feeling of uncertainty. On products like phones or computer hardware, the risk feels less. If the phone don't start, we expect to get it replaced and fixed. The blame will be on the seller/producer, and not on the consumer. Add on top the positive reinforcing through marketing in TV and movies, and a physical sale person, and the $300 or even $1000 can feel much safer for the consumer than clicking yes on a $3 app purchase.

EGreg 13y ago

I don't get it. How is this a reverse kickstarter?

hmottestad 13y ago
Because the product is done already and you can buy the product. The goals seem to be different enhancements to the game, they start after their 100k has been covered.
peterkelly 13y ago
Normally with kickstarter they ask people to contribute to the development of something before the development is done. In this case, they've finished & released the game, and are encouraging people to contribute to recovery of their development costs after the development has been done. Hence it's in "reverse".
- EGreg 13y ago
  But what do the people get for the donation? If it's the game, then are they selling it outside the app store? And if so, how?
  - peterkelly 13y ago
    It's sort of an ironic parody of kickstarter. People "donate" by simply purchasing it on the app store, just like you would with any other app, and thus they get the game (immediately). And they are saying that they will add other features to the game if the revenue exceeds the target.
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    It's just being sold on the App Store. The whole site is a parody / joke around Kickstarter campaigns. At the same time it does show real sales data and have an authentic video.

peterkelly 13y ago

Brilliant concept IMHO. A lot of people don't realise the amount of work that goes into creating this kind of stuff, and sadly the race to the bottom that's happened with games on the app store has meant in a lot of cases it's hard to for developers these days to justify the large development costs. I also love that you've given it a price and not gone with a freemium model. I'd much rather pay $5 for a (good) game up front than be constantly annoyed with offers to "buy more coins" etc.

brandynwhite 13y ago

How much do they have to unlock before it becomes a real kickstarter for an android version of the game?

oneeyedpigeon 13y ago

I like the idea of the top-up, in-app purchases. Makes me wonder how successful a much-loved, popular app would do if it adopted a 'get free, pay what you want via in-app' model, along the lines of Radiohead's In Rainbows sale. Think something like ... Monkey Island 3. Unfortunately, if my maths is correct, Crabitron has sold barely any (literally 1-3) top-ups :-(

fredleblanc 13y ago
Keep in mind that some figures only will update once per day. It could be much more by the time tomorrow hits.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  (Bear in mind that I don't know whether you're anything to do with the project, so I might be speaking out of turn!) I'm assuming that the two figures in the top-right, being so closely related, are 'cached' in tandem: 732 backers, $2,569.56. 732 * 5 = 3660. 3660 - apple tax @ 30% = 2562. That gives $7.56 worth of 'top-ups' (no, I can't explain why that's such an odd number, unless the apple tax for in-app purchases isn't exactly 30%)
  - fredleblanc 13y ago
    I have nothing to do with the project, and I agree with you on the caching in tandem. I think my point is that those numbers might shoot way up tomorrow after a decent showing on HN (and presumably other places). I really like the idea, the look of the game, and the execution of the site. I'm in for the full $10.
    - interpol_p 13y ago
      Thank you! I hope it does well, too. Our current chart position is #117 in paid iPad apps (ranked by number of downloads). Our current grossing chart position is #368 for iPad (i.e., Crabitron is the 368 highest earning app on iPad). There is a massive discrepancy between these two charts because freemium games (i.e., games that allow consumers to spend as much as they want) can sit relatively low in the paid charts, but earn a lot more money from a stable user base. Our current popularity is mostly due to being featured by Apple in their New and Noteworthy section. This will end in 5 or 6 days and sales will likely drop down to $100/day (instead of $1000+ per day). Games are extremely hit-driven, and have very unreliable sales curves. With this trajectory in mind it is unlikely we will hit our development costs of $100,000. More realistically, we will see $20,000 before the game drops off completely in a few months. It's still a pleasant amount to earn back for a side project, but it's definitely why we still work full-time for someone else, building things for clients.

smalter 13y ago

The game looks really fun. I'm going to get it now. One thing I looked for and didn't see was additional tiers of contribution a la Kickstarter. The post-game credits tier, the t-shirt tier, the poster tier, etc. The art and game looks so fun I would've tossed in an extra $20 to support you guys and get a shirt.

morganwilde 13y ago

I feel as though a much more exciting thing you guys are doing is Codea - http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/ http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/. It looks so cool and something a lot of people could relate to, given the major shift to tablets.

mrcharles 13y ago
Codea rules and is pretty popular. As far as I know, Crabitron is just their side project.
- morganwilde 13y ago
  Oh, I had no idea about it, but it's great to hear that it's doing well. One would definitely hope for such a project to gain traction.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  Actually both Codea and Crabitron are our side projects — we work full time on iOS development... for clients :(
  - morganwilde 13y ago
    It's incredible to hear that since your work is really insightful (Codea reminds me of http://worrydream.com/#!/LearnableProgramming http://worrydream.com/#!/LearnableProgramming) and is pointing in an interesting direction. At the same time I do get that you need to put bread on the table, so to speak. Still with startup culture booming one has to wonder, why not commit? Have you guys tried that or is it something in the works?

ryan-allen 13y ago

Incredible marketing!