Kickstarter’s new director on the future of the crowdfunding platform

Kickstarter on Tuesday announced Jon RitterRoderick, board game designer and publisher, would be promoted to the role of director of games. Ritter-Roderick is a senior outreach manager for tabletop and has been with Kickstarter since 2020. He’s best known for DragoonThe beautifully designed strategy game. He’ll be joined by Nicole Amato, who will take on the role of games outreach lead in his place.

“Back in 2015 we ran our first game [on Kickstarter],” Ritter-Roderick said in an interview with Polygon. “I said, ‘What the hell, why not do this game thing and see what happens?’ And I made plenty of mistakes, advised people, and then slowly over the years my advice became better. Kickstarter presented me with a job. This was where I felt most comfortable accepting a job full-time, so I thought, “This seems like the perfect fit.” So let’s do it.”

Ritter-Roderick stated that he views his role as an ambassador for Kickstarter. He reiterated throughout the conversation that his main duty was to communicate openly with creators who are hoping to make their projects come to fruition.

“My goal at Kickstarter is to pass off the knowledge that I have and, if I don’t have the knowledge, get people in touch with those who do,” he said. “My hope is to kind of make sure that people are as informed as humanly possible, and that will turn help them be as successful as possible.”

Image: Kickstarter

Ritter-Roderick takes up the role during turbulent times for crowdfunding company. In 2021, Kickstarter was the subject of controversy when Aziz Hasan (the former CEO) announced that they would move to blockchain technology. The company has slowed but not stopped that transition, leading to numerous high-profile departures from the platform — including Cephalophair Games, publishers of hit board game Gloomhaven. Ritter-Roderick was asked if he would be interested in convincing tabletop makers that web3 technology is beneficial to their business. He declined.

“I don’t think anything is my role to convince the industry [about blockchain],” he said. “I think I’m here to be an advocate for the industry. This is why I’m certain that both Kickstarter and me are committed to the success of creators. [can]Bring their ideas to life. Precisely how that’s going to happen I don’t know, because that’s very far out. But I think the communication just needs to be clear and concise from Kickstarter when it happens.”

Before any transition to blockchain, Ritter-Roderick said it’s more important that the Kickstarter platform is meeting the needs of creators. The most significant value it adds, Ritter-Roderick stated, is the ability to reach that audience. Creators are free to engage with that audience in whatever way they see fit — even it that means offering pre-orders on Kickstarter and handling fulfillment through another platform. That’s the strategy recently employed by Wyrmwood. The Modular Gaming Table made nearly $9M through Kickstarter in 2020. Its latest campaign doesn’t offer any merchandise at all. The company is instead using Kickstarter’s reach to sell places in line to purchase its next product, a game master’s screen, which it will sell on Backerkit.

“People have to do what’s best for them,” Ritter-Roderick said. “There’s definitely value in the larger campaign on Kickstarter — more exposure, higher up in the sort, more articles talking about it. […]Would you like to have more exposure? A lot of people like Wyrmwood are like, ‘No, we don’t need it. We don’t want it.’ That’s OK. […] It’s our tool, and they can use it how they want.”

Ritter-Roderick also noted that he’s not paid on commission, and the company’s bottom line means very little to him professionally. He said the same thing about Kickstarter, which is, in contrast to other crowdfunding companies, a public-benefit corporation. In the foundation principles of the company, the idea to promote public good has been incorporated.

“As a PBC, we can focus more on that bringing-to-life aspect and less about maximizing profits,” Ritter-Roderick said. “We’re not a publisher. […]This charter is all about making these projects come to fruition. It’s not about maximizing profits. So taking the knowledge that I’ve had prior, and then making sure that people still know that I’m that same person. I’m still that creator who started on Kickstarter and is insanely grateful to be here for a bunch of reasons, and then I can pass that off to like the next generation of creators.”

Ritter-Roderick also said that he sees tabletop games, including board games and role-playing games, continuing to be a core element of Kickstarter’s business. The category currently accounts for more than 30% of the company’s annual income from crowdfunding.

“I think people write off [tabletop] games a little early,” he said. “It’s something I believe in. that one thing that I really hope over the next, like, three or five years people recognize is the game board games are very much in the entertainment industry, just as much as video games, as movies, as TV. And I think [that with] the upcoming release of the D&D movie, people are going to start seeing things transition from board games into movies versus the other way around.”