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TIGSource ForumsPlayerGamesTo Azimuth - awesome-looking period science fiction conspiracy game
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Author Topic: To Azimuth - awesome-looking period science fiction conspiracy game  (Read 816 times)
Jonathan Burroughs
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« on: December 11, 2014, 04:40:56 PM »



I've been excited about this Kickstarter for a while, but it's starting to look like it might not make its (fairly modest) goal. And that makes me a bit sad. So I thought I'd do a bit of signal-boosting in case folk around here weren't aware of it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1978921498/to-azimuth

At the time of writing there are 5 days left on the clock and roughly $13,000 still to raise.

I don't personally know anyone involved in the development of the game. I just think it looks marvelous. Those scene transitions!

There was a little write-up on RPS today, so hopefully that'll net it some attention:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/12/11/to-azimuth-kickstarter/
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oahda
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« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2014, 10:39:04 PM »

She seems to be suffering a bit from the T-rex syndrome. Maybe that's intentional.

Looks great otherwise, tho. Loving those room transitions.
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LobsterSundew
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« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2014, 11:46:45 PM »

I liked its room transitions effect, so I shared the link around on forums other than this one. I find the art style to be interesting as well. The setting is an interesting hook. The project looks like it has a good direction. It was covered by Rock Paper Shotgun on November 19th. I was really surprised it was covered again on December 11th.

By the time the green TV room scene was playing I was waiting for the pitch video to end, then it improved when I saw the cans levitating. I can see less patient people not watching that far in. The pitch could have been much worse. I can't call it bad because it conveys the atmosphere and such, but it feels too lacking for me to praise it.

Here are graphs about the performance of To Azimuth's rewards:
http://i.imgur.com/8F5mCON.png

The second Rock Paper Shotgun article appears to have been very effective at generating momentum with big y-axis gains. The $10 tier introduces a copy of the game and has 105 backers. Here is something interesting: the $15 tier has 361 backers (256 more). That up-selling there impressed me at first, but then the thought occurred that the $15 tier was so popular because following tiers (After the $25 tier) being too weak. There is a noticeable lack of medium (Above $30) and large (Above $100) sized pledges on this project. I see weak rewards as a huge factor for why it didn't succeed.

First, the average pledge per backer amount really stands out as a big potential indicator of a problem with up-selling backers to the larger reward tiers. With so many $15 pledges I would expect a campaign like this to be above $20 per backer. The final average was $21.01 per backer, but it had risen up from around $17. It should have been above $20 after the first 48 hours. If it was a project with a $5 copy of the game I could call those averages good.

Second, there were no reward tiers priced above $100 for the first 25 days of the campaign. Why is this bad? If a large reward tier doesn't exist to contain a large pledge, it is a disincentive for someone to make such a pledge. A lack of any backers over $100 can really harm the momentum a crowdfunding campaign needs to reach tipping points. A lack of large pledges can significantly lower the average pledge per backer amount. Even after the addition of 4 new large tiers there weren't any backers selecting them. The content of the large tiers isn't very appealing from my perspective.

Third, there is a jump from $25 to $50 with no reward tiers in-between. Why is this bad? There is a funding hotspot around $40 (And $100) for video game campaigns. It is not tapping into that hotspot, so it will have a harder time covering funding distances and also keep the average pledge amount lower. The graph for the number of backers at each reward tier shows a significant drop in the number of backers at the $50 tier then again for the $75 tier. From experience I do not like seeing a reward tier with less than a quarter of the number of backers of the previous tier. Doubling the price when jumping to the next tier is an easy way to cause less effective up-selling. In general, exceptions to the don't-double-the-reward-pricing-with-each-jump advice are for $1 tiers and the tiers priced above $100. Those exceptions are because of backers at those tiers often have different motivations for pledging. Again, there is a visual indication of a problem up-selling backers.

It missed its minimum goal by $5,647 and a reboot in 2015 would likely succeed. The last update hinted at a reboot and I hope they attempt one. If the rewards had been more efficient per backer it should have had a much easier time reaching its goal with the first attempt. The last quarter of the year is also a harsh time to run. They did manage to get greenlit for Steam which can be a big plus for a reboot.
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