[Kickstarter] Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina Animated Special

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 2]

Calling @brennon and all other Critters,

Critical Role have set up a Kickstarter to fund the making of a 22-minute animated special Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina.

It is a prequal to the webseries starting familiar voices, plus some guests.  Animation by Titmouse.

The Kickstarter is to make a special with the aim of to one day make an animated series.

I won’t comment on how much the project has made as it is changing by the second, but let’s say it funded in only 40 minutes.

Link to Kickstarter here

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 1]

Update: well since it has raised over US$2.5 million, they have reached a stretch goal and the special is now 66 minutes long.

I think the team managing the Kickstarter isn’t going to get much sleep overnight if this pace keeps up, and I think it will as other parts of the world wake up from a night’s sleep and take a look at what is going on.

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 0]

Update: so they have blown through all of the stretch goals and have to think up new ones, but that hasn’t stopped the Critters from blasting the project past US$3.5 million.

Apparently NBC news and Forbes have taken notice.

A number of the cast appeared on the Critical Role Twitch channel for a Q&A and could not keep pace with the chat asking questions… When I type “keep pace” I mean the chat was soooo active that questions could not be read as they scrolled past too quickly.

They didn’t expect this reaction and were totally blow away.  Things have progressed at a much quicker pace than they were expecting.

They have to think up more stretch goals, so stay tuned….

[torros 23816xp 1]

I don’t understand why they keep having to offer more stretch goals . Surely the thing is now funded so go off and make it . Seems to me on a lot of kickstarters that the more stretch goals that are offered the harder it is to get the original concept off the ground

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 0]

They really want to make a series and didn’t think that their community would come up with the funds…

So they initially had a small achievable goal.

It appears that their community is basically saying “Sod this, we want a series and here is the money to do it”.

What ever comes out isn’t currently due until northern hemisphere autumn of 2020.

[limburger 21709xp 0]

They add ‘stretchgoals’ in order to keep momentum.

It often looks like backers go away if the campaign doesn’t update enough even though they may have achieved funding.

Every single time a project appears to be ‘lacking’ in stretchgoals there is a vocal minority screaming loudly that the project is dead or some equivalent.

I also am convinced that many campaigns set the goal too low and therefor need to achieve the real value as set by their top tier stretchgoals to actually succeed. Why ? Because they get that ‘funded in X hours’ moment that provides an extra boost to visibility.

In essence Kickstarters are X day marketing campaigns that are judged by the momentum they manage to keep during the entire process. It must be tricky to estimate how much time is needed to get funded and how much time is needed to promote the product itself. I kind of wish Kickstarter would allow campaigns to be declared successful before the end date, because the current concept and market forces the addition of needless stretchgoals in order to ‘add value’.

Anyways …

I agree that campaigns that over-fund can result in project failure because they’re not restricted by their initial budget and thus make costly mistakes and delays. I’d point to Star Citizen as the infamous example of this.

//

I kind of wonder why they needed crowdfunding at all. Given the prestige this show appears to have and the backing by WoTC itself you’d think there’d be actual investors willing to help them.
OTOH … Kickstarters are glorified marketing campaigns as well.

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 0]

They did have some interest, but initially I think they wanted to show that it would gain viewers on Netflix or other streaming service or broadcaster…

They have only recently separated from Geek & Sundry/Nerdist, who have just announced the closure of their subscription service (Alpha) at the end of March.

I think that they will instead want to keep control of their product, produce it themselves with the aid of crowdfunding and then look for a platform willing to show.  This would serve as an advertisement for the webseries Critical Role, its merch, etc. and get it a larger viewing audience on Twitch and YouTube.

Since Twitch is owned by Amazon, I would have though that they would go Amazon Prime.  The latter is, after all, producing the “Lord of the Rings” series and they seem a complementary fit.

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 0]

Update: they hit US$4 million in less than 24 hours.

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 0]

Update: the Kickstarter record for most funded Film & Video campaign has a new owner….

It beat:
Veronica Mars                            ($5,702,153 from 91,585 backers, 30 days in 2013)
Mystery Science Theater 3000  ($5,764,229 from 48,270 backers, 31 days in 2015)

in its first 3 days!                           ($5,767,352 from 42,050 backers)

What a week for @brennon to be dragon hunting in Wales.  🙂

 

Update to the Update: it’s 15th place in most backed Kickstarters right now

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