Little over a third of all gaming Kickstarters that reach their funding targets ever fully delivers to their backers.
That's according to self-defined "nerd" blog Evil as a Hobby, which claims detailed analysis of all gaming Kickstarters from 2009 through to October 2012 suggests there's little reason for gamers to have any faith in crowdfunding as a valid aid for game development.
The blog deduces that 37 percent of successful projects delivered fully between 2009 and October 2012, with that figure rising by a further 8 percent if you include projects that partially delivered.
Mobile muddle
More worrying is the fact that, of those projects that only delivered in part, the blog claims it was often the mobile version that never materialised.
"Splitting a video game into separate parts or not releasing a mobile version that was part of the original pitch is something that appears to have increased in frequency in 2011," the post concludes.
"The above results, with only around a third of titles fully delivering their pitched titles to backers and more than half of projects are undelivered despite passing their promised delivery date, don't inspire confidence."
Looking ahead
In terms of money, this means Kickstarted video games from 2009 to 2012 have more outstanding value to backers than they've delivered in dollar terms, even if you exclude. cancelled projects.
Projects worth $16.8 million in funding have delivered either fully or partly to their backers. However, undelivered projects come in at $21.6 million in value.
The analysis only runs through to 2012 as deducing which projects deliver and which don't "requires time" - "The best point to know how well 2013 projects have delivered will be at the end of 2014," the blog states.
"Following the above analysis, I'm pretty comfortable with not having ever backed a Kickstarter video game and Im not going to start now."
[source: Evil as a Hobby]
