Posted in: Games, Movies, Video Games | Tagged: entertainment, games, playtonic, Playtonic Games, video games, yooka-laylee

Yooka-Laylee's KickStarter Funding Has Slowed Significantly (And That Might Be Good!)

Last week were all enamored with the success of Yooka-Laylee, which became the quickest game on Kickstarter to £1 Million ever. It seemed that sky was the limit on the game and the demand was huge. How big would the final total be? five maybe even eight million?

Well, a week later and things have actually dropped off significantly for the KickStarter. I noticed that the the campaign has been stuck at £1.4 Million over the last two or three days. I then buried deeper, with a little encouragement from Twitter, and found the drop off had been huge. Using numbers provided by KickTraq, it shows the game went from 23,000 pledges on launch day to just 781 yesterday. In monetary terms, it went from £833,752 int he first day, to £20,000 in a week.

A steep drop is expected after the first few days of course, but conversely, another huge Kickstarter game campaign, Broken Age, never had such a sharp decline, especially not this soon.

Additionally, Mighty No. 9, another Kickstarter success, also showed that initial drop off, but kept its numbers up to a steady pace.

Despite beating both of those games past the million mark, it looks like Yooka-Laylee has quietened down much faster than other games successes.

However, this is not all doom and gloom. In fact, it could be a blessing in disguise. One of my fears for the title was that it would end up getting funded past £8 million or so. Now, that could still happen, I concede, it just doesn't look likely.  But getting too much support on Kickstarter can be somewhat of a poisoned chalice. Original visions for the game suddenly change as you have more means, unmanageable expectations are heaped on a title and as the game grows, its release date gets pushed back further and further. We saw all of this with Broken Age.

I don't wan't that to happen to Yooka-Laylee. I'd love a condensed experience that hits the detail and nostalgia factor just right. I'm not sure I'd actually want a 20 hours platforming epic. I also don't want it to be plagued by unreachable expectations due to its Kickstarter success as that always turns people a little sour, especially when their money is involved.

Now, I'm not naive enough to think 1.4 Million is a lot of money. Playtonic are probably going to need a well beyond that to fund the entire game. However, I'm also not Naive enough to think that the developer will fund 100% of the game through Kickstarter. They will no doubt find their funding in other places and their successes already show that there is a very eager audience for this title. That will go a long way.

As I said, this could all change, and the level of support is bound to skyrocket at the end of the campaign. At the end of the day, I want Playtonic to make the best game they can. I sincerely hope that the company get as much money as they need to keep their employees well paid and fed, but not so much that the project gets bloated. We will see how this develops over the next few weeks. I'll keep an eye on those numbers.

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