Subcategory report · 14.7K projects
Video Games on Kickstarter
Indie video game development, expansions, retro games, niche titles. The largest Games subcategory after Tabletop — and the riskier cousin.
n = 14.7K · subcategory of Games · 2009–2026
Subcategory report · 14.7K projects
Indie video game development, expansions, retro games, niche titles. The largest Games subcategory after Tabletop — and the riskier cousin.
n = 14.7K · subcategory of Games · 2009–2026
What makes this subcategory different
Of the 14,731 Video Game projects on Kickstarter, only 33.2% succeeded. The gap to Tabletop (76.6%) is the largest within-parent split we measure. The reason: video games promise something that takes years to deliver, requires specialist skills the team may or may not have, and ships a digital product backers cannot verify before launch. Tabletop ships boxes; video games ship promises. Combined with a backer audience that has been burned repeatedly by delays and cancellations (several seven-figure Video Game campaigns from the 2010s never delivered), trust on the subcategory is structurally low. Successful campaigns almost always come from teams with prior shipped titles.
Finding 01 · Goal analysis
Video Games projects under $10K succeed at 32.8%. Projects asking $100K+ close at 20.5% — a 2.5× drop. The middle range, $30K–$100K, lands at 27.8%.
Finding 02 · Geography
Of the eight largest creator countries by volume in this subcategory, United States sits at the top with a 33.7% success rate — 0.5pp above the subcategory average. Geography proxies for the local ecosystem of suppliers, distributors, and audience networks that compound campaign credibility.
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