Even Mega Man's Creator Isn't Sure to Succeed on Kickstarter

Keiji Inafune's Kickstarter for Red Ash doesn't look like it's going to get funded. There's an important lesson here.
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"Maybe there's someone else getting ready to do their own Kickstarter and surpass everyone else," said Keiji Inafune at this year's E3. "Maybe it's me."

Well... no, it's not. Inafune, the longtime producer of the Mega Man series did indeed launch a new Kickstarter just a few weeks after making that comment, for a new game called Red Ash. But it's not going to break the record for the most-funded game on Kickstarter. In fact, it doesn't look like it's going to get funded at all.

There's an important lesson here, not only for would-be crowdfunders but for everyone else besides: Kickstarter success is not guaranteed, no matter who you are.

Red Ash seemed like a fairly simple recipe for success. Inafune funded his game Mighty No. 9, a spiritual successor to Mega Man, at $3.8 million in 2013, making it the third most-funded videogame ever at the time—and by a fairly small margin, at that.

His fans had also been clamoring for a spiritual successor to Mega Man Legends, an RPG-style spinoff of the series. Capcom had greenlit an official sequel in 2010, but it was canceled shortly after Inafune departed the company.

So a Kickstarter for an ersatz Mega Man Legends, in the same vein as Mighty No. 9, would seem to be a slam dunk. But with less than 5 days to go, the Red Ash campaign is currently sitting at less than $480,000 of its $800,000 goal, and moving at a glacial pace. Even with the bump that most Kickstarters get in their final 24 hours, it looks almost impossible for Red Ash to get funded.

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What happened? You can go read a million different theories as to why Red Ash failed to launch, although many of the things that the campaign supposedly did "wrong" are things that successful Kickstarters also did.

No video footage of the game? Bloodstained didn't have that either, and it shattered the funding record. Players were confused as to how much game they were getting for their money? Shenmue III had that same issue, and it shattered Bloodstained's record.

When a pitch like this whiffs so badly, the answer is probably simpler than anyone thinks, although it's the hardest answer to swallow: Not enough people actually want a pseudo-sequel to Mega Man Legends.

Mighty No. 9, at least, strongly resembled a Mega Man game. You can't really tell what Red Ash is supposed to be, from glancing at it. The name is actually a too-clever-by-half reference to the series' Japanese name, Rockman Dash, which means it looks totally unrelated.

As an RPG-ish series, Mega Man Legends' main draw was the storyline. Players will accept an action game where the character only looks like Mega Man if the action is the same thing they remember. But people want a continuation of Mega Man Legends with the Capcom characters they love, not a new cast of lookalikes that don't even really look that much like the real thing.

And quite frankly, even if they were ready to accept a sort-of substitute, it may be the case that Mega Man Legends' enduring popularity is just plain overstated. The fans are certainly enthusiastic—but enthusiasm can mask small numbers.

That's why it's important to take away the lesson that Kickstarter success isn't guaranteed for anyone—no, not even big-name game producers who have had huge Kickstarter success before. Until fans get to vote with their wallets, you can't really know if a project will be successful.

This is more than a warning to developers against being too certain of one's impending success. It's a note to any naysayers who think that big-time developers shouldn't be using Kickstarter at all, or think these crowdfunding campaigns amount to little more than an unnecessary "cash grab" or marketing scheme. A Kickstarter might be the only way of being able to tell if there are a lot of players out there waiting for a game to come back, or if the online chatter outweighs the actual intent to buy.