Well readers, we have reached an exciting precipice with my Kickstarter series. This will be number twenty in my series of interviews and stories that showcase a wide variety of projects. I consider myself quite lucky and proud to have established this worthwhile corner of the universe. So now having twenty articles written over the past 5 years as of September 2021 I feel confident that the stream of excellent content, quality campaigns, and positive interactions has elevated my time with you all. I hope many more pieces will emerge from this hobby and keep the knowledge and smiles flowing.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17| Part 18| Part 19
I was looking to expand my series and had thought of a few new ideas and topics I could expand upon. This led me to post on Reddit. I wrote about my series that I do for Boss Rush Network not entirely sure if anything would come from it, but what arose was a user who left me a comment. That interaction brings us to our next guest which I truly appreciate that he had reached out to me.
Matt Olick, a Kickstarter crusader, who has many campaigns and knowledge under his belt, wanted to talk about his own Kickstarter adventures. I was surprised with the depth of campaigns he has been a part of. Much like my own interest in helping in a Kickstarter game, he has done it many times over. It was very interesting to see so many campaigns he has helped with that I have pledged to. Projects such as Bura: Where the Wind Blows, Forgotten Waters, Tavern Talk, MACABRE, Alarial’s Blessing and Dwerve are all on my personal bingo card of backed projects. I definitely see a theme of what I look for in a campaign when backing it. Who is Matt Olick and what is his secret campaign gumbo for successful campaigns through Kickstarter? Let’s find out.
Interview:
Who are you and where are you from?
I’m Matt Olick from Easton, Pennsylvania in USA. It’s a cozy spot between Philly and NYC, and one of the first colonial towns formed in the USA.
My background comes from the Video Game Development industry, where my older brother Jon Olick (Naughty Dog, id Software, Oculus VR, Epic Games) taught me programming at age 6. I entered the professional space as a Pixel Artist, 3D Artist, and later evolved into a Voxel artist and Technical Art Director. My own works from that period include dozens of titles and a couple in various top 250 all-time global charts, namely: ‘Pirates Vikings and Knights 2’, ‘Starbound’, and ‘Clone Drone in the Danger Zone’.
What crowdfunded video games have you worked on?
Hey Shane, thank you again for the opportunity to talk about Kickstarter. I’ve been hired directly by many crowdfunded video games, including titles like Starbound, DungeonBox, FIEFDOM, Bura: Where the Wind Blows, Forgotten Waters, Space Chef, Tavern Talk, Kristala, MACABRE, Whispers of the Eyeless, Alarial’s Blessing, Dwerve, and many more.
Did you ever work as a developer for a crowdfunded game?
My career with crowdfunded videogames began in 2013 with Starbound, where I was helping co-create the original Beta release. We became the most-backed video game at the time, beating out Star Citizen, which set a bit of a world record. After that, with Tiy’s blessing, I went forward to co-creating Voxelnauts which unfortunately never made it to release. Eventually the Kingdom of Night team reached out to me, and we went through two Kickstarter campaigns before we got it fully funded, thanks to Dangen Entertainment. After that, I had a bit of fascination with Kickstarter and collaborated with Dwerve as their marketing partner.
How did you get into crowdfunding then as a marketer?
Okay let’s roll that back a bit. Originally, I made some comments on Reddit from people asking how to do mobile game ads on Facebook, which I was exploring by using ecommerce brands through my Ecommerce Academy partnership, which I also co-created with Tony Folly (@tonyfolly.fit). Not much later I got an email from the Five Bits guys doing Fit the Fat series, which was a top 10 mobile game on the Apple store and Google Play store. We accumulated about 10M downloads there for Fit the Fat 3, which really helped sharpen my advertising skills for games.
During this time, I also began moderating the Indie Game Developers IGD group network on Facebook, where the Dwerve team were promoting their upcoming game. When they said they were preparing a Kickstarter, I reached out and offered to help. I documented the process and published it as a tutorial in 2020 across Gamasutra, Reddit, GameDeveloper, and Medium. It was a super popular article, and afterward I went to go work for LaunchBoom to develop with Joe what became known as their Accelerator program.
You mentioned you worked for LaunchBoom, why did you leave the company?
We collaborated on a project called Pericle, which was our most successful prelaunch at the time. Unfortunately, it resulted in backers threatening a class-action lawsuit against the consultants who recommended the VIP Deposit system, since they weren’t getting a better deal than the Early Bird backers. I asked Mark, the CEO for indemnity, but it wasn’t granted, so I decided to leave. To cover my own butt, I invented a system for fulfilling VIP Deposits in bulk using Backerkit’s email segmentation tools, and I noticed we could also apply items to backer orders using this method as well.
Together with Pericle Team, we devised various Exclusive VIP Add-ons to poll their VIP community with. It had a positive reception, and so I wrote up a guide on how we did it and I started applying it to future campaigns. A year later, LaunchBoom reached out to me asking how I was doing it and I shared with them my guides. Next thing you know Botany smashed a couple months later and they’ve really championed the system!
What system do you use now to get projects funded?
I currently use what I call the Kickstarter Follower system for just about all my clients. Basically, the goal is to collect as many Kickstarter Followers as possible by sending all traffic directly to the Kickstarter Page. The important part of my Kickstarter Follower system though is to use the Facebook Pixel and the Facebook Event Setup Tool on the Open app button to get more robust tracking, which results in a Cost Per Follower of $3 on average with a conversion rate of 30% into backers on average.
Did you create that system yourself?
Yes. The Kickstarter Team slid in the Facebook Pixel on the Pre-Launch Pages silently without an official update on their blog, but I noticed it pretty immediately when my Facebook Pixel Helper browser plug-in started firing whenever I visited a Pre-Launch Page. Since I was already experienced with wrestling against Kickstarter’s incomplete pixel implementation on Live campaign pages with my 2020 Dwerve article, I realized that in this scenario the Event Setup Tool would work by applying a Lead event to the Notify Me button. I published about this as soon as I could to the public.
A year later, however, the Kickstarter Team decided to add default pixel-tracking support for the Notify Me button, so this part is no longer necessary. However, a substantial amount of users don’t take this pathway when following a project, so now I teach to only use the Event Setup Tool on the Open app button to complete the tracking picture.
Why do people back Kickstarters for a video game?
For video games, the main things that backers are on Kickstarter for is to get early access, exclusive collectibles or goodies, support original ideas and personally connect with the creators. If there’s an opportunity to collaborate in shaping the product, some superfans will pounce on this too. Gamers aren’t so much interested in getting a discount, so it’s more compelling to offer them an exclusive freebie instead.
What’s the top 3 most important parts to get funded?
Marketing can be boiled down to three things. You have a product and an audience, which are connected by a message. Having a product design with broad appeal, and being offered at a fair market price, is essential to raising the most amount of money possible.
Getting cheap clicks on your ads is pretty easy when using best practices during the ad setup and audience targeting. However, converting those clicks into backers is the hard part, and it’s the Kickstarter page that does the heavy lifting here in both setting expectations and fulfilling those expectations from users. So I would say the most important 3 things are your product design, what your audience actually desires, and clearly communicating what it is and what you’re offering.
What’s the best way to get Steam wishlists after the Kickstarter is over?
Press and influencers, Steam Fests, and getting viral posts going on either YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or Reddit. Once you have any of these in place to drive mass brand awareness, you can use regular paid ads to drive traffic and vacuum them all up into Steam wishlists. While working at Camlann Games, we were able to drive down the ad’s cost-per-wishlist from $2 down to less than $0.50 when activating press or influencers.
For Steam Fests, such as Next Fest, the initial Steam charting algorithm is determined by the wishlist velocity 2 weeks prior to the Fest. We would use various methods such as a trailer reveal, demo drop, or similar to activating the press and influencers prior to the Fest starting, and then use paid ads as described earlier to drive wishlists. This allowed us to chart within the top 10 upcoming lists for some of our games. The same method is used for Early Access release to assist with charting and capitalizing on the launch hype.
Thank you for your time, where can people go to learn more about your book?
My book “How To Launch A Kickstarter” is completely free and walks you through everything, along with various tools and a Shopify website theme to jumpstart any project at https://prelaunch.marketing/products/kickstarter-templates-bundle
It’s not just for gaming, it’s also for tech products, comic books, board games, you name it! While I currently use my Kickstarter Follower system for most clients, I still offer all the tools for VIP $1 Deposit systems and VIP Add-on systems. For example, another client right now Cheffy ‘s E.G.O.R. broke even between their cost per VIP and the total VIP deposits. While this scenario is rare about less than 1% of clients, it does enable products with a very high Average Order Value and extreme broad appeal to extend their budget considerably.
What motivates you personally and professionally?
It gets me out of bed every morning to just see hard work pay off and succeed. Just watching people’s imagination come to life. It’s also really uplifting whenever pulling off a turnaround recovery on a campaign that was struggling or had a serious failure.
Underlying it all is just my deep appreciation for human connection, and I really love projects that connect people to each other in new activities, experiences, or other ways. Things that improve our wellbeing are equally inspiring.
Where can people follow or reach you?
Best place to reach me is via Discord app in the Prelaunch Club chat server. We currently host live Q&A group-sessions via video share on Tuesdays (3PM EST new york time) and Thursdays (1PM UK time), it’s free to join and you can always jump in queue to chat directly in the live session:
Out of all the projects you have helped crowd fund what was the most fun and what was the most challenging?
Aside from Starbound which was an exercise in pure passion, I definitely had the most fun marketing iDventure’s Wonderbox of Alice. It was a non-stop ride of fun concepts to build from, and everything I tried really resonated with both the Alice in Wonderland and iDventure fanbases.
The most challenging project is always any project that has had a launch failure with poor conversion rates. I find that maybe 1 out of 10 projects fall into this category. The challenging part is navigating the recovery process, which can involve complex PR messaging, comment management, grassroots outreach, and special ads.
Bonus Question: What is your favorite video game series, and have you played all the video games you helped crowd fund?
Ultima Online was my favorite game while growing up… But I still play Heroes of Might and Magic 3 to this day. Gothic 1 and Jedi Knight hold a special corner in my mind. Both ‘Earthbound’ and ‘Lunar Silver Star Story Complete’ also defined a lot of my childhood.
I play most games, I help crowdfund, for at least a few hours.
Thank You!
I want to thank Matt for taking the time to share with us some of the history, the process, and the valuable knowledge that he brought to the table for me personally and for all my readers. Hearing others personal stories, wins and losses, life lessons, and passion always make for a great educational experience for others to absorb. I also want to thank those who continue to support me on my adventures, I truly appreciate everything.
Once again, I personally want to one day take part in a Kickstarter campaign to see for myself the challenging work that goes into the whole ordeal. Matt has definitely motivated me and has given me much to ponder. I will continue my Kickstarter journey, so please check out my past series and if you have a campaign that you would like me to interview you on or check out, please let me know. Contact and reach out to (Stillsaneshane) on X or Bluesky. I would love to hear from you. Also, you can now go to my website at Stillsaneshane.com. Remember to keep making and backing those amazing projects! Make today a swell one and journey on.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17| Part 18| Part 19
Featured Image: Kickstarter.com
Additional Pictures: Provided by Matt Olick
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