Kickstarter And The Personal Touch

Some of the folks who browse around the internet have heard of Kickstarter, it's basically a fundraising thing for projects of varying scope from independent films to new technology.

One such example of a item which launched via Kickstarter is the Pebble Smartwatch, I didn't back it personally but I bought one later.

And through time I've ended up backing a couple of projects on Kickstarter, one thing which makes the whole thing slightly different is that the more you give, sometimes, the more you get, so you could pledge money just to get the product (like a DVD, CD or the item itself) or you could pledge more and get more 'perks' as a thank you for pledging more.

When I look to backing a Kickstarter I always see what the range of the perks is, now you don't HAVE to take any perks, you could just pledge money, usually the higher end 'tiers' of perks have interesting things attached to them, from Meet and Greets with the creators to personal thank yous.

Now a Kickstarter works on a thing of that people 'pledge' money towards supporting the project, the project will have a goal and a timescale for that, lets say a project has a £2000 goal to be raised within a month, if the project meets it's goal it's successful and the money is taken, if the goal isn't reached, say it raised £1999 and time ran out, then it failed and nobody's money is taken.

So not everything is guaranteed to win on Kickstarter, there has been success stories but there have also been failed projects, due to lack of interest or poor planning.

So to reel this back to what I'm talking about, 'The Personal Touch'.

The strange quirk of Kickstarter is that it makes projects all the more personal, you know who gave you money, who believed in your project, who supported it and how much they gave.

The last couple of Kickstarters I've backed I have nearly always gone with a high level perk for varying reasons.

Havok and Hijinks is a really quick and easy card game featuring some wonderful artwork with absolutely adorable baby dragons, I'm all for dragons, especially when they're being protrayed in a nicer light than a big baddie, this Kickstarter had a top tier pledge level wherein they would create and print your -own- dragon card to use within the game, working directly with the creators and artist to create it, I knew I HAD to back at this level and the results are wonderful.

Note, there is text on the 'backside' of this card with the tired side, I have three cards and one of them has no game text which is the right one here.

So I have my own personal, professionally done game card for this charming wonderful card game, usually to be included in a card game like this, you'd have to be best friends with the creators, but since I gave my own money to support the project, this was my reward for doing so.

I have mentioned other Kickstarters I have backed in the past in the posts 'The Experiment Of Spoons', 'My Love Can Change That' and 'Technology And Charity'.

Which got me a animated cameo in a popular webseries' intro, a thank you credit in a music video (as well as a personal thank you from the musician involved, read 'Technology And Charity' for the full story).

There is another similar fundraising site called 'Indiegogo' which works the same way to Kickstarter but it'll take the money off you first, it'll refund you if it's unsuccessful, I backed a film called 'Ashens And The Quest For The GameChild', it's available on youtube fully able to be watched by anyone, it's good fun and a enjoyable romp. Plus it is now available to purchase at Amazon or your local entertainment retailer.

Stuart's look to camera just slays me.

I got some DVD's from the project and my name read out in a personal 'Thank You' video which Stuart Ashen reads out the names of everyone whom backed the project, now I'm not going to make you sit through a over hour long video just for one little bit.

Yes I could've used my real name but I decided to use my screen name instead because I wanted to get a reaction from them and I did, really made my day when I first saw it.

So what's next, well I've not gained anything like a cameo appearance in a film or video game like some other projects have provided but you may never know what's around the corner.

What I am currently backing is Eric Stuart's latest project, a 4 Song EP called 'Character', Eric is a fantastic musician and song writer and I really recommend checking out his works!