Stretch Goals – Best Practices for video games crowdfunding [Part 2]

Last time, I went over how a campaign should plan its stretch goals and communicate about them, but I didn’t say much about the nature of stretch goals themselves. So it is time to discuss that.

And before I go into my thoughts on the topic, I think this requires an extra disclaimer. While I have a strong opinion about how stretch goals should be planned and announced, the nature of stretch goals is a much more complex topic, one where the nature of the game, the profile of its communities, the capabilities of the studio play such big roles that it would be hard for me to establish rules the way I did in the previous piece. For this reason, take all of the below as general guidelines and if anything feels inappropriate or odd for your own project, it is probably because it is and you should ignore what I say. On with it.

Stretch goals goal

In your process to define your stretch goals (using wildly different scenarios as recommended in the previous article), there is something incredibly important to keep in mind all along: what are you trying to achieve with your Stretch Goals?

This might seem like an innocent question, but one too many project creators don’t spend enough time thinking about from my numerous discussions with many of them. Most of the time, Stretch Goals are seen as something needed to keep the campaign going, and you basically “need” them. And while they bring a much welcome boost to a campaign after reaching its goal, there are not that binary thing that magically get the pledges coming. They are a very important additional promises you are making, on top of the initial promise of delivering the rewards of your campaign.

So, what can you achieve with Stretch Goals?

Objective 1 – Get new backers to pledge for your campaign
Objective 2 – Get existing backers to pledge more for your campaign
Objective 3 – Get your backers to talk about your campaign (to get more new backers, but also to expand awareness on the project overall not just the campaign)
Objective 4 – Get media to talk about your campaign (a hard one to achieve)

Seems sensible enough, but you need to look at each and every one of your goals and ask yourself how each one of them helping the campaign?

You can go and incentivize your existing backers to upgrade their rewards through additional perks from the Stretch Goal. That’s a very common practice for miniature-based tabletop games, but a much more difficult one to execute for video games. However, if the game lends itself to this notion, this is great, because you are already actively engaged with the audience that those goals are intended for.

You can expand your game to make it attractive to a new audience. This is a very common approach and why you see so many Stretch Goals about bringing the game to Linux or to Mac. This is also the same logic behind adding new languages support. But. You need to make sure you know how you can tell those would-be backers about your plan. Most of your current backers won’t give a damn about the game being available on Mac and in German. They most likely speak English and want to play the game on PC.

Finally, you can build your stretch goals to be about the game content itself, and get your existing community excited about them. They might not be motivated to “upsell”, but they will sure be motivated to get the word out so more backers join you in order to get more “bang for their buck”. They become very motivated to play the role of advocates for your campaign and spread the word.

I have tried to break down those types of Stretch Goals with these elements in mind, this is what I came up to so far in terms of segmentation of stretch goals and the terminology I am using for each of them:

Straight additional Stretch Goal.

A Stretch goal that adds value to all the backers (or the very vast majority of them) by expanding/improving the main end project: extra levels, better music, physical component added as a bonus to everyone.

These should universally be appreciated by backers, and by players who missed out on the campaign as well. They are great tools to motivate your existing base to spread the word about your campaign once the goal was reached.

Segmented additional Stretch Goal.

A Stretch goal that adds value to only a sub-section of the backers by expanding the main project in a way that will only benefit them: port to a new platform (Mac/Linux/consoles), additional languages added to the localized version of a game.

These are very paradoxical – existing backers already showed support for the game and these extra goals will not make them more interested in the campaign. If they have friends who care about a specific language version or a specific platform, they might spread the word to them, but it will only be a slightly less efficient message. Even the ultra fan, who will use every piece  of ammunition you give them to get the word out will likely be less effective here.

Incremental Rewards Stretch Goal.

A Stretch goal that adds value to the backers who increase their pledge, ie: additional content added to a new reward level or to a reward level higher than the most common tier, [for tabletop projects] additional miniatures only through add-ons.

This is most frequently seen with tabletop projects, where the extra manufacturing costs for the extra content more easily justifies the additional content to be dependent on new rewards, or limited to higher tiers of existing rewards. It needs a particular kind of game to do this elegantly. Expansions are sometimes use that way, with the extra content explicitly schedule post-release of the game, and the extra content coming at an extra cost, you can either pay for it during the campaign, or pay it at the release of the expansion. But an extra cost there is implied.

These goals are more complicated to communicate about overall, but they will be seen as added value to the project. If the game lends itself well for them, they can be excellent tools to raise awareness and money for a project. As mentioned though, they are not the most natural fit for a lot of games.

Most common stretch goals for video games

Extended content (straight additional goal) – Depending on the game, this will take different forms. It can be more levels in a platformer, more campaigns in an RTS, an extra character in a fighting game. The core here is that the game promised has a volume of content that is X, and the Stretch Goal promises to expand on that content beyond X. Everyone benefits from it, both backers and future players, but they can be very costly to put together and they are also not always a good fit for some games.

Consider Point-and-Click Adventure games for instance. While I can imagine a studio to be using this type of Stretch Goal to add an environment they never could fit in their original budget, it still comes across as completing an existing vision. Once the vision is set, expanding on it may not necessarily be what you want. Adding an extra 5h to that game could go against the well thought story that was initially pitched and dilute an otherwise great plot. More can be less sometimes.

I know this unusual here, but for once,  I will discuss this with an example from Indiegogo, Keep Skullgirls Growing