Successfully funding a project through crowdfunding websites can be a game of chance for creators, but Galena High School English teacher and Hebanon Games owner Caleb Stokes already is on a roll with his third go-round, dubbed Red Markets.
The tabletop, horror-themed roleplaying game – described on the project’s
Kickstarter page as “a game of economic horror, where the world has ended and the rent is still due” – had $45,613 pledged and 867 individual backers as of 11:30 a.m.
Stokes said the campaign reached its pledge goal of $12,000 – two hours and 19 minutes after it started on May 23. He estimates spending roughly $5,000 commissioning art and voice talent for the game’s trailer before launching the campaign.
No stranger to successful crowdfunding, Stokes also authored two similar projects through Kickstarter in 2012 and 2014 – No Security: Horror Scenarios in the Great Depression and No Souls Left Behind. Each game was fully funded within one week.
“If you’re not funded in the first two or three days, statistically, you have less than a 10 percent chance of ever making it,” Stokes said.
Stokes, whose own “best-case scenario” projection for Red Markets was reaching the $20,000 mark after 30 days, netted $20,932 on day one.
“The biggest number of backers and donations come in the first day and it goes down from there,” he added. “If I didn’t get it funded in the first day or two, I was going to be really worried.”
Closed to Kickstarter funding after June 22, Red Markets has 15 more days of potential backing to reach stretch goals of $48,000 to pay for an offset print run of the game book and $52,000 for full-color artwork throughout.
“It’s on par with something you would buy in a museum shop,” Stokes said, comparing the $52,000 version to a glossy coffee-table book. “It would be a significant product.”
