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Funding challenges in the era of evidence-based investing
23.04.2024 - 13:47 / gamesindustry.biz
Yes, it's been a particularly rough start to 2024, especially for studios seeking funding. Finishing out 2023, it felt like venture capital funds closed the faucets of years' past, and publishers hit the pause button. Thankfully, the vibe at GDC was slightly more positive, with new deals being announced by both publishers and VC funds.
While the checkbooks are back out, there is a sneaky shift that's been occurring over the past few years: The burden of proof that an audience exists for a game is falling more and more on the shoulders of the developer.
This need for evidence, or traction, is a whole layer developers need to worry about beyond just building a great prototype and putting a strong team together. This was very much echoed in the investor update article posted on this site prior to GDC.
The next logical question is, 'What kind of evidence do I need to produce?' Sadly, the answer is, 'It depends.' Several vectors to look at are the degree of social proof, the level of community engagement, and your funnel metrics.
Social Proof: This is all the stuff that shows others think what you are doing is interesting and worth paying attention to. This is often manifested via social media likes and follows, or trailer views, or even your number of wishlists. Newsletter subscriptions count, too. The more the better, of course. This can also cover stuff like juried festival selections, winning pitch competitions, or press preview coverage (eg, "the most exciting RPGs coming next year"-style articles).
Community Engagement: Going one level deeper than just liking a tweet, to what degree are you building an engaged community around your game?
This may be manifested via active Discord members, playtesters giving feedback, and streamers engaging with early builds of the game. For example, the average playtime of your demo or beta build is a critical data point to demonstrate that your core gameplay is engaging and sticky.
Funnel Metrics: Now we're getting down to the nitty gritty of your user funnel, the process by which you make someone aware of your game, inspire them to evaluate the game, then wishlist/back/download/buy the game, and become a fan.
Funnel metrics look at the cost and efficiency of bringing someone down the funnel. Specific measures to look at could be the cost/effort to get a new wishlist, or the cost/effort to get a new Kickstarter backer, or the cost/effort to generate a new download of your mobile softlaunch build.
Each of these vectors for evidence and traction creation is a deep topic that merits much further exploration, but this starts to give you a sense of the things that the people with money like to see to de-risk their choice of who to give that money to.
In fact, conceptually, there is
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