Eight game publishers. Nine crowdfunding campaigns. One fantastic setting: The Purple Planet.

In February, Goodman Games launched the Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) RPG Adventures on the Purple Planet and Beyond on BackerKit, a thrilling sequel to 2014’s Peril on the Purple Planet. But this time, they weren’t alone.

Joining forces with Gaming Honors, Horse Shark Games, Studio 9 Games, Raorgen Games, TSG High Dive Games, RollFunkyDice, and Purple Sorcerer Games, they formed The Purple Planet Horde. This joint effort, known as a BackerKit Group-Collab, saw all nine Purple Planet-themed campaigns launch simultaneously. They also worked together as a team to get each project funded and collaborated on incentives. By the time the nine campaigns had ended, the Purple Planet Horde had raised an impressive $380,505 from 5,115 backers.

To conquer a world — you’re going to need a HORDE!

Goodman Games, a role-playing games publisher founded in 2001, is best known for the DCC RPG and line of adventure modules. Over the years, they’ve launched more than 40 crowdfunding campaigns, with four successful projects on BackerKit (including Adventures On the Purple Planet…and Beyond! and Roll20 for DCC, which were both part of the Purple Planet Group-Collab).

Participating in crowdfunding events is nothing new for the team at Goodman Games. However, with previous endeavors, the participating creators would simply launch projects around the same time. Joseph Goodman, owner of Goodman Games, had always wanted to push this idea further. He was inspired by Pintopia, BackerKit’s collaborative crowdfunding event in which a cohort of enamel pin creators launches together, collaborates on rewards, and works toward individual and communal funding goals.

“When I saw what BackerKit was doing with Pintopia, it was clear that a similar ‘-topia’ would be a supportive business platform for our indie publishers to bring even more awesome products to our fans – all in the shared Purple Planet setting.” — Joseph Goodman, Owner of Goodman Games

The Group-Collab was a success! In addition to raising more than $380K:

  • It was 100% funded within the first 48 hours
  • The average backer count per project was 568
  • 34% of Purple Planet backers backed more than 1 project and drove 53% of total funds raised in the Group-Collab
  • 25% of Purple Planet backers backed 3 or more projects and unlocked a Group-Collab incentive

Meet the Horde

Joseph selected creators he’d known for years to team up with him. They’d all run successful crowdfunding campaigns before, they were some of the DCC community’s most popular independent designers, and all had shown that they would be excellent collaborators.

The nine projects that made up the Purple Planet Horde were:

 

Are you interested in running a Group-Collab? Apply today >>

Each member crowdfunded a Tabletop Role Playing Game (TTRPG) supplement designed for use with the Purple Planet setting. For example, with River of Lies, you travel the Purple Planet’s legendary Ghost River of Varnasus and with Wrath of the Orb-Men!, you “explore a hidden vale deep in the mysterious outback of the Purple Planet.”

The connection between the campaigns extended beyond the creative setting. “The Purple Planet project goes one step further [than crowdfunding events on other crowdfunding platforms] by making operational, creative, and marketing collaboration even closer,” Joseph says. While all participants maintained ownership of their individual campaigns, the crowdfunding experience was unified from start to finish using the tools and features available to creators who launch a BackerKit Group-Collab campaign.

Taking the group launch to the next level with BackerKit Group-Collabs

A Group-Collab launch gives you a unique opportunity to create a dynamic experience for backers, who can bounce from one campaign to the next, enjoying a veritable buffet of treats and the excitement of seeing creators get closer and closer to their goals. It also makes it possible to bring multiple projects across the finish line together.

BackerKit Group-Collabs are the newest iteration of BackerKit’s industry-first collaborative crowdfunding model. Purple Planet drew inspiration from Pintopia, and Group-Collabs are very similar to BackerKit Topias. With both, a group of creators launch at the same time, partner on rewards, and cross-promote each other’s projects. However, Group-Collabs are led by creators rather than BackerKit, empowering the group to shape the launch and how they work together.

Group-Collabs allow creators to support and elevate each other’s campaigns as they work toward a collective goal and make it possible for participants’ audiences to cross-pollinate, as backers are introduced to new creators within the group — that means more new fans for everyone!

The Purple Planet Horde is a powerful example of how Group-Collabs benefit participants and their communities — and make the crowdfunding experience so much more fun. This group did an incredible job of unifying their individual campaigns and making sure that everyone succeeded.

Here’s how they did it:

1. Showcasing the group and their goals with a Group-Collab Page

The Group-Collab Page is the main hub for the Group-Collab, providing backers with a brief introduction to the group, its goals, and any rewards you’ll receive for backing multiple projects. It’s one of the elements that distinguishes a typical, individual launch from a group launch.

A BackerKit Group-Collab Page has the following features that connect the projects, make it easy to pledge to all of the participants, and build excitement:

  • The Group-Collab Progress Bar shows the total number of backers, funds, and number of projects that have been funded, turning the launch into something that backers want to keep checking in on
  • Group-Collab Highlights compile the most recent updates, polls, discussions, and more from each project
  • The Group-Collab Tag is found on the top of each project, directing anyone who clicks it back to the Group-Collab Page and giving them the chance to see all of the participants
  • Backed Projects Tracker is a personalized tracker that counts how many Group-Collab projects a backer has pledged to so far and how many more they’ll need to back to unlock a group incentive

The collection tag above the campaign image identifies projects that are participating in a BackerKit Group-Collab.

2. Encouraging multi-project pledging through shared incentives

Each member of the Purple Planet Horde had individual campaign goals and offered rewards specific to their project, but they also had Group-Collab incentives that they were working together to reach.

These are really enticing incentives — a mix of physical rewards and bonus adventures. While all of the incentives were designed to get people to back multiple projects, incentives like the “unique Purple Planet drop-in encounters” and “bonus page of runic lore” encouraged backers to support ALL of the projects.

3. Gamifying backer engagement with the Leaderboard

Leaderboards on BackerKit add a little friendly competition to a campaign, as backers vie for the top spot. They also give backers a reason to keep engaging with a project, rewarding them for their participation and helping creators combat that mid-campaign drop-off in activity.

With the leaderboard, each backer gets points and receives a badge within the app for taking specific actions. For example, if you pledge to a campaign, you’ll get a Bronze badge. The more actions you take (voting on polls, commenting, etc.) and the more times you perform those actions, bring you closer to claiming a Silver or Gold badge.

Group-Collabs add a new dimension to the Leaderboard, giving you points for every badge you earn from the individual campaigns within the Group-Collab and giving you the opportunity to ascend the Leaderboard.

Goodman Games leveraged the Leaderboard in the group incentives to get backers to engage with all of the projects. The person who reached the top of the Group-Collab Leaderboard would receive a unique, personalized reward — having an anagram of their name appear as an NPC (non-player/playable character) — to match the amount of engagement and enthusiasm it would take to accomplish this.

4. Putting a plan into action

It was crucial for everyone to be on the same page to ensure the collaboration’s effectiveness. Goodman Games, led by Joseph, began by introducing BackerKit to creators who were unfamiliar with the platform, answering questions, and getting everyone acquainted with the tools they would use.

Open and consistent communication among creators was critical. Leading up to the launch, Goodman Games kept creators informed about the collaboration through emails. Eventually, they transitioned to weekly meetings to foster direct connections.

When setting up their campaign pages, everyone in the group used the same image to highlight the “cross-project” incentives. This type of branded image unifies the projects and can easily be shared with every member of a Group-Collab before launch while planning.

Once everyone launched, Joseph created a spreadsheet detailing the schedule for each publisher’s updates, polls, and other activities. This careful planning prevented backers from being overwhelmed with communications.

All of this preparation and organization instilled confidence in the team. Working closely allowed the creators to support each other and work together to market and promote all of their campaigns.

The Purple Planet Horde triumphs

All of the planning, coordination, and community engagement paid off in a big way for the group.

“In the end, it executed extremely well,” says Joseph. “I think in part due to the dedication of all parties involved — the indie creators, the BackerKit team, and the Goodman Games staff.”

The Purple Planet was an incredible success, and while there were so many great moments throughout, here are just a few standout milestones:

  • Every campaign surpassed its funding goal
  • Within the first 24 hours, Goodman games had already blown past most of their incentives
  • Several creators, such as Purple Sorcerer Games, went through the individual incentives quickly and had to consult their communities to develop new ones
  • Goodman Games raised more than 4x what Peril on the Purple Planet raised in 2014

 

Just putting together this collaboration was a major achievement in and of itself.

“As far as I am aware, Purple Planet is the very first cross-publisher crowdfunding project ever completed in the RPG space. I don’t know of any other RPG company that did this before us in the history of crowdfunding. So that is pretty cool to be the first!” — Joseph Goodman, Owner of Goodman Games

Outside of celebrating these milestones, the overwhelming consensus among the group was that they loved launching together.

When you launch with other people you have emotional support – someone to lean on as you manage the challenging times and to celebrate with when you succeed.

Are interested in running a BackerKit Group-Collab? We are now accepting applications for campaigns launching in 2024.