Thanks for the mention and good article. Yes, a lot of learning has been going on with regard to Kickstarter. There really aren't that many projects on there that games get lost in a sea of competitors. If I click Discover > Games > Video Games, then look at the "popular this week list", I only have to scroll down a page or 2 to see Carnage. So while it's not plastered all over the front page, it's not buried under 100s of other titles. Anyone who wants to spend a few minutes browsing game titles should come across it.
So I don't think visibility on the Kickstarter page is the problem. I think it's probably:
a) People aren't routinely browsing games on Kickstarter. Most traffic probably comes in from outside the site, and since Carnage has no publicity, there's no traffic.
b) People expect the game to be much further through development. Since funding ran out, we had to get this project up now, but really it hasn't quite reached the stage where the content can wow people. We're trying to promote the vision through development visuals and I don't think it's working.
The lessons I've learnt are:
a) Work hard to build a game community from day 1. Don't leave it until Kickstarter launch.
b) Don't hit a crowd funding site until you have a lot of gameplay to show so you can truly capture people's imagination
We still have a chance with Carnage as there is a long way to go, but we're trending to miss our target by a long way. Promotional plugs all help and maybe it'll pick up at the end. Articles like this all help, so thanks for that.
