lackblogger
SasqWatch
- Joined
- November 1, 2014
- Messages
- 4,778
I've used Kickstarter in the title becaise when I searched for "Kickstarter RPGs" on [insert search engine here] nothing came up as a comprehensive list. The only vaguely useful list was the standard Wikipedia page that listed all the crowdfunded games it knew about.
So I've titled this as Kickstarters so that RPGWatch might benefit from clicks from anyone doing similar searches. Who knows, maybe it might even get top result one day
So, yes, the following includes alternative crowdfunding, such as Fig etc. I also only cherry picked games which this site has shown a great deal of interest in since 2012, if I've missed any out I can only apologise, it either wasn't in the Wiki article or the name meant nothing to me or it was a sadly neglected here jRPG, etc etc.
Instead of adding even more numbers to each entry, I've foregone actually writing the numbers, such as No.1, No.2 etc, instead they are listed in batches of ten which I'm sure make it perfectly easy to work out which number each game sits at.
They are ranked by Metacritic's User Score, then the title of the game, then how many people ranked it in brackets, then how much each crowdfunding campaign amassed in cold hard cash prior to development. Amazingly, I found exactly 30 games to list, which was nice and neat.
8.8 Divinity Original Sin 2 (1602) $2,032,434
8.7 Divinity Original Sin (2175) $944,282
8.5 Grim Dawn (639) $537,515
8.4 FTL Faster Than Light (1402) $200,542
8.3 Undertale (3924) $51,124
8.3 Pillars of Eternity (2414) $3,986,929
8.3 Hyper Light Drifter (300) $645,158
8.1 Kingdom Come Deliverance (1975) $1,106,371
8.1 Expeditions Conquistador (208) $77,247
8.0 The Banner Saga (735) $723,886
---------------------------
7.8 Pillars of Eternity Deadfire (522) $4,705,524
7.8 Darkest Dungeon (513) $313,337
7.8 Lords of Xulima (122) $35,657
7.7 Shadowrun Hong Kong (219) $1,204,726
7.7 Legends of Eisenwald (73) $83,577
7.6 The Banner Saga 3 (76) $416,986
7.5 Hard West (145) $94,183)
7.4 Shadowrun Returns (970) $1,836447)
7.4 Pathfinder Kingmaker (342) $909,057
7.4 Sunless Sea (142) $100,803
-----------------------------
7.3 Wasteland 2 (1,193) $2,933,252
7.3 Serpent in the Staglands (34) $28,058
7.0 Torment Tides of Numenera (397) $4,188,927
7.0 BattleTech (323) $2,785,537
6.7 The Bard's Tale IV (83) $1,519,680
6.6 Shroud of the Avatar Forsaken Virtues (37) $1,919,275
6.5 Dead State (91) $332,635
6.3 Sunless Skies (47) $377,952
4.3 Jagged Alliance Flashback (75) $368,614
2.1 Underworld Ascendant (45) $860,356
--------------------------------
There are lots of ways you could interpret this data, and no doubt lots of ways to partially dismiss it. For example, Metacritic User Scores aren't the best way to rate games, nor the most up to date, as not many people use it any more and most people use Steam analytics for their quality guesstimation data. Also, a game with only 30 ratings is going to be far more prone to huge fluctuation than a game with over 1,000, obviously.
Also, just because a game has been Kickstarted it doesn't mean that the game was made for that amount of money. In a lot of cases it merely contributes to other funding. Shroud of the Avatar, for example, had a budget of $11m, but $9m of that came from 'private sources' and only the $2m for kickstarter. Those who are familiar with all the games will know which is which, but there's no easily presentable way to talk about each individually on a predominantly list-based thread.
The chart is already quite cluttered and I enjoy decluttering it into smaller clusters by refining the question and having the above list as the longhand for further information. For example: The following is a list of the top 10 cheapest kickstarters ranked by Metacritc User popularity:
$200k FTL
$51k Undertale
$77k Expeditions Conquistador
$313k Darkest Dungeon
$35k Lords of Xulima
$83k Legends of Eisenwald
$94k Hard West
$100k Sunless Sea
$28k Serpent in the Staglands
$332k Dead State
As you can see, the jumps get pretty big after $100k, nothing in fact until one game at $200k, and then again nothing until the $300k batch starts. I should have made it a top 7 as $2-300k stops being 'cheap' really, but it at least shows the scale of increase.
There's the middle ten at $300k-$1m but that's not interesting, that's all average information, so let's jump straight the top ten most expensive. Only, to make it interesting, this time they'll be ranked in money order and have their User Score as supplementary information, because, well, with money comes expectation:
$4.7m Deadfire 7.8
$4.1m Torment 7.0
$3.9m Pillars 8.3
$2.9m Wasteland 7.3
$2.7m BattleTech 7.0
$2.0m Divinity Two 8.8
$1.9m Shroud Avatar 6.6
$1.8m Shadowrun Returns 7.4
$1.5m Bard's Tale IV 6.7
$1.2m Shadowrun HK 7.7
Which, of course, shows that money can't buy you a good game. Just, in most cases, a nicer looking one. So when someone does combine money with a good game, they get the number 1 spot overall, but combining money with a bad game and… oh my, there's a lot of those in the bottom 10 overall.
Feel free to make your own top 10s out of the list as well. Data can be fun like that.
If I can figure out a way to analyse it, I'll run them all through Steam score data, but I'm not sure at this point how one could use their data for this kind of list as Steam's primary use is individual sales data, which is useful if you are already looking at the game and are interested, but not so useful for skimming for primary data regards games one is unaware of or comparison analysis.
So I've titled this as Kickstarters so that RPGWatch might benefit from clicks from anyone doing similar searches. Who knows, maybe it might even get top result one day
So, yes, the following includes alternative crowdfunding, such as Fig etc. I also only cherry picked games which this site has shown a great deal of interest in since 2012, if I've missed any out I can only apologise, it either wasn't in the Wiki article or the name meant nothing to me or it was a sadly neglected here jRPG, etc etc.
Instead of adding even more numbers to each entry, I've foregone actually writing the numbers, such as No.1, No.2 etc, instead they are listed in batches of ten which I'm sure make it perfectly easy to work out which number each game sits at.
They are ranked by Metacritic's User Score, then the title of the game, then how many people ranked it in brackets, then how much each crowdfunding campaign amassed in cold hard cash prior to development. Amazingly, I found exactly 30 games to list, which was nice and neat.
8.8 Divinity Original Sin 2 (1602) $2,032,434
8.7 Divinity Original Sin (2175) $944,282
8.5 Grim Dawn (639) $537,515
8.4 FTL Faster Than Light (1402) $200,542
8.3 Undertale (3924) $51,124
8.3 Pillars of Eternity (2414) $3,986,929
8.3 Hyper Light Drifter (300) $645,158
8.1 Kingdom Come Deliverance (1975) $1,106,371
8.1 Expeditions Conquistador (208) $77,247
8.0 The Banner Saga (735) $723,886
---------------------------
7.8 Pillars of Eternity Deadfire (522) $4,705,524
7.8 Darkest Dungeon (513) $313,337
7.8 Lords of Xulima (122) $35,657
7.7 Shadowrun Hong Kong (219) $1,204,726
7.7 Legends of Eisenwald (73) $83,577
7.6 The Banner Saga 3 (76) $416,986
7.5 Hard West (145) $94,183)
7.4 Shadowrun Returns (970) $1,836447)
7.4 Pathfinder Kingmaker (342) $909,057
7.4 Sunless Sea (142) $100,803
-----------------------------
7.3 Wasteland 2 (1,193) $2,933,252
7.3 Serpent in the Staglands (34) $28,058
7.0 Torment Tides of Numenera (397) $4,188,927
7.0 BattleTech (323) $2,785,537
6.7 The Bard's Tale IV (83) $1,519,680
6.6 Shroud of the Avatar Forsaken Virtues (37) $1,919,275
6.5 Dead State (91) $332,635
6.3 Sunless Skies (47) $377,952
4.3 Jagged Alliance Flashback (75) $368,614
2.1 Underworld Ascendant (45) $860,356
--------------------------------
There are lots of ways you could interpret this data, and no doubt lots of ways to partially dismiss it. For example, Metacritic User Scores aren't the best way to rate games, nor the most up to date, as not many people use it any more and most people use Steam analytics for their quality guesstimation data. Also, a game with only 30 ratings is going to be far more prone to huge fluctuation than a game with over 1,000, obviously.
Also, just because a game has been Kickstarted it doesn't mean that the game was made for that amount of money. In a lot of cases it merely contributes to other funding. Shroud of the Avatar, for example, had a budget of $11m, but $9m of that came from 'private sources' and only the $2m for kickstarter. Those who are familiar with all the games will know which is which, but there's no easily presentable way to talk about each individually on a predominantly list-based thread.
The chart is already quite cluttered and I enjoy decluttering it into smaller clusters by refining the question and having the above list as the longhand for further information. For example: The following is a list of the top 10 cheapest kickstarters ranked by Metacritc User popularity:
$200k FTL
$51k Undertale
$77k Expeditions Conquistador
$313k Darkest Dungeon
$35k Lords of Xulima
$83k Legends of Eisenwald
$94k Hard West
$100k Sunless Sea
$28k Serpent in the Staglands
$332k Dead State
As you can see, the jumps get pretty big after $100k, nothing in fact until one game at $200k, and then again nothing until the $300k batch starts. I should have made it a top 7 as $2-300k stops being 'cheap' really, but it at least shows the scale of increase.
There's the middle ten at $300k-$1m but that's not interesting, that's all average information, so let's jump straight the top ten most expensive. Only, to make it interesting, this time they'll be ranked in money order and have their User Score as supplementary information, because, well, with money comes expectation:
$4.7m Deadfire 7.8
$4.1m Torment 7.0
$3.9m Pillars 8.3
$2.9m Wasteland 7.3
$2.7m BattleTech 7.0
$2.0m Divinity Two 8.8
$1.9m Shroud Avatar 6.6
$1.8m Shadowrun Returns 7.4
$1.5m Bard's Tale IV 6.7
$1.2m Shadowrun HK 7.7
Which, of course, shows that money can't buy you a good game. Just, in most cases, a nicer looking one. So when someone does combine money with a good game, they get the number 1 spot overall, but combining money with a bad game and… oh my, there's a lot of those in the bottom 10 overall.
Feel free to make your own top 10s out of the list as well. Data can be fun like that.
If I can figure out a way to analyse it, I'll run them all through Steam score data, but I'm not sure at this point how one could use their data for this kind of list as Steam's primary use is individual sales data, which is useful if you are already looking at the game and are interested, but not so useful for skimming for primary data regards games one is unaware of or comparison analysis.
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2014
- Messages
- 4,778