Consultancy firm ICO Partners released some interesting data on Kickstarter, which shed a most disturbing (but all too predictable) light on recent trends with the crowdfunding site. The biggest news is that Kickstarter video game projects have so far made less than half of what it made last year:

Kickstarter

Furthermore, it has been projected that unlike last year, which brought in 446 funded projects, this year the total number of funded projects would be about 300:

Kickstarter

One reason for this is that unlike the previous year which saw 21 projects reach $500,000 and over, only three so far have seen the same amount. This can be attributed to a number of large scale projects such as Torment, Mighty Number 9, Elite, Camelot Unchained, Dreamfall, Richard Garriott’s Shroud of the Avatar and more. Compare that to this year which are so far only Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Amplitude and Unsung Story.

Another cited reason is due to the amount of high profile failures (Clang and Yogscast for example) that have plagued the crowdfunding platform.

A huge factor in Kickstarter's decline is Steam's Early Access program. The vast majority of the Kickstarter video game projects are PC-based and when you consider the amount of work required to get a project funded on Kickstarter, compare it to the relative ease to go to Early Access in comparison, and add to that the fact that on Early Access the funding doesn’t stop after one month. There's also the factor that most games on this program are expected to have a playable demo, further increasing backer trust.

For a bit more insight into Kickstarter and its numerous issues, check out my editorial on the subject here.