Kickstarter is a global platform which allows anyone, wherever they are in the world to back projects and create their dreams.
It is easy to see Kickstarter as a platform with a single audience but it is important to remember where potential backers come from. We all know a large percentage of backers will come from the United States, followed by Western Europe and then the other regions, but do they all think the same way?
THE REGIONS
I have analysed all the responses and categorised them into one of 8 groups:
For the purpose of this page I will be ignoring the 29 people who did not enter a location.
HOW I MEASURED IT
As the largest group of people was from the United States, I have treated them as the base line and have compared the level of importance of each item, for each region, to that of the US as a %.
Regions showing a positive percent against an item view it as more important than the US, and regions with a negative percent view it as less important.
THE PROJECT VIDEO
THE ARTWORK
A BREAKDOWN OF WHAT’S IN THE BOX
ORIGINAL GAME MECHANICS
A SHORT OVERVIEW OF THE GAME
A DETAILED EXPLANATION OF THE GAME
STRETCH GOALS
SOCIAL GOALS
THIRD PARTY REVIEWS
RECOGNISING THE THIRD PARTY REVIEWERS
MINIATURES
ACCESS TO THE RULEBOOK
THE CREATOR HAS RUN PREVIOUS KICKSTARTERS
THE CREATOR HAS A SOCIAL FOLLOWING
THE GAME IS ON BOARD GAME GEEK
THERE IS AN EARLY BIRD OPTION
THE KS PRICE IS LESS THAN THE MSRP
KICKSTARTER EXCLUSIVES
PHOTOS OF PLAYTESTS
INFORMATION ABOUT THE TEAM CREATING THE GAME
ACCESS TO A DIGITAL PROTOTYPE
It is important to keep in mind the sample sizes for this vary in size a lot, whilst the US and Western Europe have large sample sizes the other regions have much less. I think Canada (with 54) and Australia/New Zealand (with 24) are still a good sample but Asia, Central Europe and Other are fairly small.
ASIA
Overall Asia seemed to have the biggest difference of opinion to the rest of the world, with exclusives, the project video, artwork and what’s in the box being of great importance.
Miniatures were nearly 30% more important to them than the rest of the world.
CANADA
Canada was fairly mutual throughout and their views didn’t vary much from the average. They saw the detailed explanation of the game and third party reviews being much more important, with Kickstarter exclusives being much less important to them.
AUSTRALIA / NEW ZEALAND
The views from AU/NZ were a little stronger than that of Canada but still didn’t vary much from the average overall.
They view original game mechanics as being less important but seeing a game on Board Game Geek and recognising 3rd party reviews was more important to them.
WESTERN EUROPE
When first looking at the sample sizes I took the Western Europe vs United States data to be the most important, how would they compare? Are we all really looking for the same things when viewing a Kickstarter page?
Going through the different items you can see there is less than a 4% variance on most of the results, the few which vary more are:
- Western Europe viewed “Has the creator run previous kickstarters” as 6.85% less important than the US.
- Western Europe viewed “Access to the rulebook” as 5.27% less important than the US.
- Western Europe viewed “The project video” as 4.76% less important than the US.
So overall I would say the views aren’t that different.
CENTRAL EUROPE
Central Europe had a few more disagreements than some of the other regions, showing a breakdown of what’s in the box, a short overview, Kickstarter exclusives and early bird options as over 10% less important than it is for the US.
With third party reviews, the creators social following, digital prototypes and the game being on Board Game Geek being much more important.
BIGGEST DIFFERENCE
Some of the stand out differences are:
- Kickstarter exclusives are nearly 40% more important for Asia than they are for Central Europe.
- Miniatures are nearly 30% more important for Asia than they are for Canada.
- Photos of playtests are over 20% more important for Asia than Australia / New Zealand.
SUMMARY
There is a huge amount of data on this page and you could spend hours looking over it all wondering what it means. Perhaps if you are creating a region-specific campaign that might be valuable, if not then maybe it’s just worthwhile remembering that Kickstarter is a global platform and we all see it differently.
