704 backers have currently pledged $16,270 (40.67%). The launch day went well.
--- Part 1 --- campaign performance.
By 12:53PDT Moonlighter's campaign had surpassed 30% funded with 543 backers pledging $12,357. Crossing the 30% funded objective so soon is very good for its chances to get funded. What is more uncertain is how many stretch goals will be reached.
The average pledge is $23.11 per backer. A $15 priced game usually lands an average of between $22 and $31 per backer. All 350 $12 early-bird tier slots are filled. The average pledge amount should rise as newcomers pick the more efficient (at cover funding distances) $15 tier. At $31 per backer it would take 1,290 backers to reach 100% funded. At $22 per backer it would take 1,818 backers to do the same.
Kicktraq shows a trend to $273,190 (682%). It takes about a week before the Kicktraq trend becomes more accurate. It is possible to add tags like "PS4" to the Kicktraq page using that "+Suggest" button. It can take some time for tags to appear due to moderation.
SideKick is for some reason showing a 12% success probability. Weird.
BackerTracker shows a trend to $78,556.
Bitly shows 81 clicks of the project shortlink (this is not the long project URL).
Kicklytics will show a trend after 5 days.
--- Part 2 --- exposure.
Moonlighter is ranked #1 in popularity for the video games category. It is 3rd in the overall games category behind the tabletop projects Xia: Embers of a Forsaken Star and Outlive.
Hardcore Gamer did an article. There were also German and Spanish web sites. There was a post on the NeoGAF crowdfunding thread.
A post on /r/Games had 72% upvotes and 11 comments. A post on /r/gamernews had 68% upvotes and 2 comments. Overall the majority of comments are positive and about the art style. A /r/SquareEnix post had 100% upvotes and 3 comments.
The pitch video has 2,991 views on the YouTube version.
The project received a "Project we love" staff pick very quickly.
Exposure within Kickstarter is not a problem. It is the external environment outside of Kickstarter that will decide if stretch goals are achieved.
--- Part 3 --- communication with backers.
There is confusion about if the early-bird tier offers the choice of console keys.
The first day had 4 project updates. That is okay. Too many project updates can result in backers unsubscribing from just the updates of Moonlighter. What to avoid is having too many updates. It usually means no more than 1 update per day until the very end or a critically important announcement. If you are worried about making too many updates try to condense/combine potential updates together or use the comments area. There have been campaigns in the past that annoyed backers with multiple project updates every day.
Project update #4 about the timezone differences was good so that backers didn't have to wonder why there wasn't a quick response to comments. In the future, announcing going to sleep in the comments section instead of as a project update may be enough.
--- Part 4 --- other campaigns that launched.
Fable Fortune isn't in good shape. It suffers from the drawbacks that F2P digital CCG campaigns have with their reward tier structures. If someone wasn't willing to pledge at one tier, just piling more of the same thing at the next tier probably won't convince the person to pledge. It can force the average pledge amount down. F2P also means there is a disincentive to pledge for "cheap" gamers. There are also comments about the design of the game (such as how difficult some visual information is) in comparison to Hearthstone. Currently Fable Fortunes has 625 backers pledging £21,245 (0.085% of £250,000 goal). For perspective, realize that over the last 48 hours the pre-launch marketing was pushing hard. IGN did an article and a 17 minute video of play. The news about a Fable-related game went around most of the gaming communities I check. Moonlighter has done better with its backer numbers and it had less overall exposure.
A bunch of other campaigns have launched, but many of them are low quality and without traction. Two that were high quality are ZED and GREEDY GUNS. ZED is a Kickstarter project from one of the artists on Myst and the Command & Conquer series. GREEDY GUNS is a project inspired by Metal Slug.
June 1st may see more high quality projects launching.
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