With a overall funding of over $4.8 million dollars, it’s safe to say that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is the most successful video game Kickstarter campaign of all time. With what now seems like a meager original funding goal of $500,00.00, this reincarnation of the beloved Castlevania series has blasted past all of its initial and stretch goals sitting at $4,876,705. In fact we’re now waiting to see what new stretch goals might be added, even though there are only a few hours left before the campaign ends. And while I don’t suspect that it would happen though it would be exciting if they did and even more exciting if it that goal was met in less than 8 hours.
Just to give you a sense of how well Bloodstained fared, take a look at several past video game related Kickstarter campaigns. And to be fair, this list full of great titles as well, each and everyone are titles that were definitely worth the amount they raised.
Torment: Tides of Numenera – $4,188,927
Pillars of Eternity – $ 3,986,929
Mighty No.9 – $3,845,170
Broken Age – $3,336,371
Star Citizen – $2,134,374 (even though the game is sitting at 90 million, the majority of the funding is from outside of Kickstarter)
Divinity: Original Sin – $944,282
Star Mazer – $193,566
Shovel Knight – $311,502
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero – $776,084
Elite: Dangerous – £1,578,316
Yooka-Laylee – £1,882,983
I’m sure there other games I’ve missed or forgotten about, but you get the idea.
That’s a large amount of Castlevania fans, myself included, that helped make this happen. I can’t tell you how happy I was when IGA finally announced Bloodstained was real and not a hoax. I mean the return of man who created Castlevania, a title that I’ve enjoyed growing up back in the Nintendo era. The return of a former king, ready to kick some ass again, even though it won’t be until 2017 at the earliest. Let’s just hope it doesn’t pull a Mighty No.9 and end up with multiple delays or worse.
In fact the only video game related Kickstarter campaign that surpasses this is the one for the Ouya, which ended with $8,596,474. And we won’t go in detail about that system other than it’s circling the drain and did not meant the lofty expectations that it set. Even now, the company is currently setting its self up to be sold to Razer.
Hoping this is a sign of things to come and maybe even other Japanese development houses get involved and put their ideas onto Kickstarter as well. If anything, this will show that if you present a good idea to the masses and ask for their support, if that idea is strong enough to warrant the support then chances are it will get it. Crowd-sourcing, does it always work for funding games? No, as there as been a lot of great ideas that didn’t get funded and some ideas that probably shouldn’t have been funded but were.
But there’s no denying it’s charm and effectiveness, just look at Bloodstained. What do you think about this? Should more companies, especially Japanese companies, look towards Kickstarter to get their projects funded or is crowd-sourcing still carrying a negative stigma, despite it’s recent successes?
