Does Kickstarter still work for video games?
2 min read
By Eduardo Orellana ·
It works for fewer games than it used to, and mostly for games that already have an audience. Narwhal's analysis of Kickstarter's Video Games category puts the overall success rate around 32%, and video games raised $25.2 million there across 1,335 campaigns in 2024. Kickstarter's own Games category shows a higher rate (about 49%), but it includes tabletop games. Campaigns that succeed usually arrive with a demo, a following and a modest goal; a campaign rarely builds the audience itself.
Kickstarter is a launch, not a discovery platform
In the early 2010s, a video game Kickstarter could find its backers on the platform itself. Today most backers of a successful game campaign arrive from outside: the developer's followers, wishlisters, newsletter and creators. That changes what a campaign is for. It turns an existing audience into funding; it rarely creates the audience.
The numbers
- Success rate: about 32% for video games over the category's history, in Narwhal's analysis, published by GameDev Reports in November 2025.
- 2024: $25.2 million raised across 1,335 video game campaigns.
- All time: $377 million across 5,526 video game campaigns, about $68,200 each on average.
- Kickstarter's own Games category reports a success rate near 49%, but that category includes tabletop games, which do far better.
What successful campaigns have before day one
- A playable demo, so backers can try what they fund.
- An audience: followers, wishlists, a mailing list, a Discord, enough to reach a large share of the goal in the first days.
- A modest goal, the minimum to finish, with stretch goals that do not expand scope dangerously.
- A Steam page, so backers can wishlist too.
- A clear video: gameplay first.
When it is the right tool
When you have an audience that wants the game and you need a defined amount to finish it. Kickstarter also proves demand to publishers and investors. When you have no audience yet, build one first: a Steam page, a demo, devlogs and a festival will do more for the eventual campaign than launching it early.
Where Flockbay fits
Flockbay builds your game for free on the official Godot engine, and does the audience-building work a campaign needs: the Steam page as a .zip you upload yourself, trailers and devlogs from real gameplay, posts and playtests. The publishing tools are free in beta until 1 December 2026, and Flockbay takes no share of your sales or your campaign.
Questions
- What percentage of video game Kickstarters succeed?
- About 32% over the category's history, according to Narwhal's analysis of Kickstarter's Video Games category.