The Influence of External Sources

Contrary to the magic many find with social media, the data suggests word-of-mouth is more influential than any other external source that leads respondents to Kickstarter projects. However, gaming journalists and bloggers can breathe a sigh of relief, as respondents value their opinions only slightly less than word-of-mouth.

Rated on a four-prong scale, from not influential to completely influential, word-of-mouth was the highest rated factor, being completely influential to 19 percent and very influential to another 40 percent. A gaming website/blog was rated completely influential to 13 percent, with an additional 46 percent feeling it was very influential.

Community forums and the act of browsing Kickstarter were less influential. The majority (at 40 percent) felt forums were only somewhat influential, and 42 percent felt the same way for Kickstarter.

Finally, social media ranks as being the least influential external sources. Reddit posts were chosen as not influential to 66 percent; Facebook posts, 55 percent; an email, 55 percent; and a Twitter message, 48 percent.

Respondents were free to interpret the sources of social media messages to be from whomever they choose. The results suggest that even important tweets, Facebook posts, and emails may get drowned in the noise of several (ineffective) messages compared to communication from friends or journalists.

Incidentally, 81 percent of respondents chose word-of-mouth as one way they mention projects they pledge to, with every other way trailing far behind:

These next charts show a disparity between how many projects respondents pledged to and how many of those projects respondents mentioned to others. One can conclude pledgers do not promote all of the projects they back.

When it comes to how much respondents contribute per project on average, the majority (47 percent) chose the $10.00 to $24.99 range, followed by $25.00 to $49.99 (at 23 percent). Regarding their interest in future Kickstarter projects, 61 percent feel about the same and 29 percent are more interested than before, suggesting interest overall has not waned for the crowdfunding site.

The Big Spenders

The majority of "big spenders," defined here as pledging $50 or more on average, are 31-40 years old and have a higher salary than the majority. Big spenders ranked perks mostly similarly to the majority. However, they ranked physical copies as the second most important perk.

This data may suggest that big spenders donate more because they make more, they are from a generation where boxed video games were more prevalent, or both.

The desire for boxed games seems evident in how the big spenders evaluate projects, too. Big spenders value these limited edition perks more than small spenders.

Big spenders also have more favorable funding rates in the past six months, notably in funding 10-plus projects.

Tapping into big spenders may require knowing what turns them off of a project. Here, 69 percent refused to fund a given project because the text and video were not interesting, while 48 percent feared it would not be completed successfully.

Finally, there is no evidence of nepotism in relation to big spenders and those who create Kickstarter projects. Around 76 percent are neither friends nor relatives and only 23 percent are friends of someone who created a project.

In conclusion, big spenders seem fair game for everyone willing to cater to their inclinations.