The top 10 biggest board games and TTRPGs on Kickstarter in 2021

Tabletop games continue to represent a significant portion — as much as one third — of Kickstarter’s total annual revenue. There is more competition in the tabletop crowdfunding market, and Kickstarter is losing its edge with the confusing and highly public transition to the Blockchain. Polygon spoke to the Brooklyn-based technology firm about 2021’s results and what the future holds.

“2021 was a year — for all of us,” said Kickstarter’s director of games, Anya Combs, with a laugh. “I think there was a lot of uncertainty going into it. Industry-wise, are we going have a Gen Con or not? Do we plan to hold a PAX [Unplugged]? What about an Origins [Game Fair]? And what are those going to look like?”

These events, which were held in person prior to the outbreak of pandemic, formed important points on the tabletop crowd-funding calendar. Origins was virtualized but Gen Con, PAX Unplugged and Gen Con both continued, though with much lower attendance. Combs was happy to report that it didn’t slow down crowdfunding all that much. Kickstarter’s own data shows the category was up more than 14% over 2020 to a total of $270 million earned for tabletop projects. That’s down from a 32% increase the year before, but still heading in the right direction.

However, video games were slightly lower, falling from $22.9 Million in 2020 to $21.8 Million in 2021.

Combs claimed that tabletop saw a rise in sales due to the fact that people were unable to get out of bed and sought refuge in family and friends. This was true even more during the summer when low infection rates combined with warm temperatures allowed for people to reunite.

“I’m really proud not only of the team,” Combs said, “but also of all the creators and the backers who’ve made 2021, specifically for tabletop, just another crazy, wild, fantastic year. We had our best numbers ever.”

The list of 2021’s top 10 highest-earning tabletop game projects includes several notable tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) campaigns. Magpie Games’ campaign for a game based on Avatar of The Last Airbender And Legend of KorraAll records were broken for a TTRPG platform-wide, with more than $9.5 Million raised. Dungeon AlchemistIt was a promising method to generate virtual terrain for tabletops on-the-fly, which brought in over $2.9 million.

Kickstarter’s 2021 story was also notable for the achievements of many independent TTRPG developers it supported over the years. For example, Possum Creek Games’ WanderhomeThe book, which received rave reviews in 2021, was funded successfully in the latter part of 2020. Tuesday Knight Games turned to Kickstarter for funding the first edition. Mothership In 2021, earn more than $1.4million Cy_Borg– Stockholm Kartell, Moreover, he was successful in securing more than $444,000.

“I think indie RPGs kind of give you that opportunity to exist in a world that you kind of get to curate in the way that you want to with people in a space that is safe,” Combs said, “where you don’t have to jump on Twitter and read about CDC things or politics or anything like that. You can exist in a world where it’s like, ‘I’m going to play Children on bikes for a couple of hours and I’m going to figure out what this weird alien is that landed in this small town in Indiana that I’ve created, because I just had the opportunity to do that and create a world that feels safe to me versus the world outside that’s terrifying.’”

Kickstarter’s planned pivot to blockchain technology, announced in early December, caught nearly everyone in the tabletop games industry by surprise. Numerous creators condemned the decision of Kickstarter, claiming that it was an inexcusable drain on resources worldwide and could lead to climate change. Several — including Possum Creek — have made plans to use other platforms going forward. Jay Dragon, the founder of IndieGoGo, will instead take any future campaigns to IndieGoGo. Gamefound in Poland could provide another avenue for users who are dissatisfied. Founder Marcin Świerkot tells Polygon his platform, which includes a robust post-launch pledge manager, should exit beta in February or March.

Combs refused to make any comment about the switch to blockchain. Instead, she deferred to Kickstarter’s senior director of communications Kate Bernyk who responded to Polygon’s questions via email. We’ve included Kickstarter’s full response below.

Polygon: Which specific benefits will the switch to blockchain technology bring for board and role-playing gaming communities?

Kate BernykThis new direction will allow for a significant increase in creative projects and a better experience for backers and creators.

When Kickstarter was founded, the number and breadth of potential funding sources for creative work increased dramatically—from a few centralized gatekeepers to anyone on the internet. This is what we’ll do at a different scale now.

Over the years, we’ve heard from creators that Kickstarter should offer better ways to connect directly with communities and create more tools to help bring more creative projects of all kinds and sizes to life. Meanwhile, backers have told us they’d like to more easily discover and participate in projects, be able to better control their data, and have more robust tools to assess the trustworthiness and viability of projects. A decentralized, open-source protocol would be the best way to empower people to innovate and create new technologies.

What do you say to those designers and publishers who are upset by Kickstarter’s move to the blockchain and who are actively looking at alternatives?

We’ve heard from members of our community that we could have told the story of why we are supporting a decentralized protocol better. We are very conscious of our responsibility towards creators and currently trying to make the story clearer about the potential and benefits that the protocol offers for the community.

The Kickstarter community is incredibly grateful for the contributions of creators. As plans develop from here, we’re committed to transparency and thoughtfulness. We will also engage with creators more.

Users who invested so much effort in your campaigns and are now terrified about the possibilities of participating on a blockchain-based crowdfunding site can what do you say?

Our mission was always to support creative projects and this mission continues. The commitments we’ve made in our charter Public Benefit Corporations are not subject to change.

We expect the changes we’re making to result in better tools for creators and backers, more backers getting involved in supporting projects, and more projects finding funding. We’re doing this to benefit creators and to help bring more creative projects to life.

Creators and backers should know that cryptocurrency will not be suddenly forced upon them. To pledge funds, backers can use their normal credit or debit cards. Creators will continue to get local currency for fulfilling their projects.

Kickstarter is an extremely important community that includes backers as well as creators of tabletop products. As we work together to create and implement new plans, we will be open and honest. We’re continuing to speak with creators one on one and planning additional ways for creators and backers to learn more and share their thoughts.

Games — including video games and board games — have recently accounted for roughly one-third of Kickstarter’s income from successful crowdfunding campaigns. The games industry continues to expand, with more than $30,000,000 in revenue this year according to your data. Given the shift to the blockchain that is on the horizon, and the community’s reaction to it, does Kickstarter project that revenue from games will increase or decrease in 2022? What is the difference?

In the weeks after the announcement, we’ve seen support for projects continue at the same level as the weeks prior, including for games projects.

In recent years, nearly half the funding for creative projects came from people who found them through Kickstarter channels. This includes newsletters and email alerts as well as project discovery pages. This is the Kickstarter experience our community has grown to love and it will continue.

Back when Kickstarter launched twelve years ago, there was similar anxiety. There were pockets of creators who weren’t sure what to do with the new model where they could directly reach audiences and raise funds for their projects. This anxiety subsided as more people discovered.

Meanwhile, Combs says one of her team’s biggest priorities in 2022 is content moderation. The company was subject to a torrent of complaints in September about a campaign which included white supremacist imagery within its game assets. The Kickstarter campaign was allowed to continue, however only after the assets had been modified. What followed was a Whac-A-Mole situation in the campaign’s comments, one that shined a light on what many say are the crowdfunding platform’s inadequate moderation tools.

“It’s a huge topic,” Combs said. “It’s something that my team and I are talking about […]It is pretty much the same every day that I work in the company. I am so thankful to have a trust and safety team that is able to see things that I don’t even know [about].”

“There’s a lot sort of going on behind the scenes that we also need to figure out,” Combs continued, “ and we want to make sure that anything that directly impacts our creator and backer community we have everything that is as perfect as it possibly can be. But that’s something my team and I are pretty hell bent on doing our best to improve the experience on.”