It’s been exactly two months since Kickstarter started accepting projects from the land down under, namely Australia and New Zealand.  The last time we checked there were 12 projects across a wide variety of genres that launched in the first 24 hours.  Funding targets ranged from a very modest $700 all the way up to $200,000.  How did they do?

Not great.

downunder

 

As you can see the success rate was below the purported 30% Kickstarter success rate.  If you exclude Hand Of Fate and Trainz from the tally, that puts the total funding target at $348,200, with $14,421 raised.  Only 4.41% to target.

OUCH.

So what happened?  The usual, a number of the campaigns weren’t ready for prime time and seemed to be launching just to meet the local Kickstarter rollout, several campaigns had very few updates, and a number of the teams weren’t responsive to questions and inquiries.

As it stands now we’ve a few promising projects that achieved their funding, a number of bruised egos, and hopefully some lessons learned.

Of the projects that failed to reaching their funding goal, two are continuing development.  Space Station Alpha is alive and well, complete with a playable Alpha version, and the team behind Tiny Shops Burgers were able to get third party funding for their game.

Sad times all around, Huntsmen may have been a dream, but it still seemed great; and LaQuisha’s Odyssey looked like it could have been great fun.

About the Author

Greg Micek

Greg Micek has been writing on and off about games since the late nineties, always with a focus on indie games. He started DIYGames.com in 2000, which was one of the earliest gaming sites to focus exclusively on indie games.

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