THE BEST BENEFIT OF A KICKSTARTER FOR AN INDIE GAME DEVELOPER

Yes the money is always good we all need bread and water but what Kickstarter can really do towards making the project reality is the exposure to gaming enthusiasts who frolic the pages of Kickstarter. There are gamers who really can give some extra exposure for their specific gaming community if your project fits into their gaming niche and imagination.

WHAT NICHES ARE POPULAR ON KICKSTARTER?

MMORPGs have seen lots of success although market might be reaching saturation point at the moment and it is the same case with all sorts of RPGs, usually fantasy world driven Ultima copies. iPhone and Android games are also something that many want to shove their money into.

KICKSTART YOUR INDIE GAME FINANCING WITH PUBLICITY

Anyhow the key for you desire to start a project in Kickstarter is that you have an idea for a game. If your game idea doesn't fall into popular niches you are at disadvantage from the get go. Usually people behind the idea are not too good in pushing it forward so Kickstarter is the best place to let people know about you and your project. If you fail to expose the project to many probability for failure rockets. I say that it is small price to pay if you tune your original idea to make it a better fit for popular game categories. This way you are able to nail your project up on the wall for all hungry eyes.

HOW YOU REALLY GET SUCCESS FOR YOU INDIE GAME PROJECT?

Hard truth is that Kickstarter alone will not make your project. Actually Kickstarter is probably one of the last steps before you complete the project. The reason for this is that successful projects build following around them over long period of time. In the beginning it is the famous elbow grease, which will take care of pulling the project forward.

Only after you have build up following and development marches on comes time to MEGAblast the project skeleton on Kickstarter. At that point - because of your ready following - you will gain momentum fast, which will balloon into speedy completion of the funding run.

SO YOU GOT THE AUDIENCE, NOW WHAT?

You need to get the visibility among influential genre gamers for your title. This will ensure that the word gets out and people will come in troves. Then you better have something more to show them than just the idea and the best way to do this is to show impressive graphics. Impress enthusiasts and they will drum up even more visibility for your project.

BUT IT IS SO LITTLE MONEY...

I know that most indie game developers turn into crowdfunding as the last resource and rightly so. It tends to rake in sums in low five figures and that is not enough to pay through game development cycle unless it is something simple on iOS or Android. It's really difficult to say if it is better to slug it on as an indie developer at night and employed software developer zombie during the office hours OR throw away pension plans and dive into the rocky stream of indie developer and entrepreneur. The reason why I say this is that if you jump out and grab the helm of your own project you are going to see it through relatively fast AND you can either get it out of your system or alternatively you are going to be successful enough to keep pushing updates and new games and make a living doing it.

But remember Kickstarter is more of a catwalk, which gets you some desperately needed visibility. During your first 15 minutes your performance has to be top notch otherwise you'll sink.