GameLaunched: A New Crowdfunding Site for Games

Crowdfunding websites seem to be popping up everywhere. GameLaunched, a new platform devoted strictly to games, has launched today with live projects that are ready to start receiving pledges. But what sets it apart from the rest?

For crowdfunded games, Kickstarter is king. The games category is one of the most successful categories on the site, with many projects raking in millions of dollars in funding. The founders of GameLaunched have obviously noticed, which is why they have set out to steal away some of the momentum from the crowdfunding giant. In doing so, they may have gotten some things right for this audience – but only time will tell if the site will gain enough traction to become the next "go to" crowdfunding site for game designers and publishers.

GameLaunched has followed Kickstarter's "all or nothing" funding approach, which seems to be a good choice, given Kickstarter's success. They also have the typical reward structure for projects, where different levels of funding qualify for different rewards, as determined by the project creator. However, there are several factors that set this platform apart from Kickstarter:

1. GameLaunched uses PayPal – this is good news for people who don't have or want an Amazon Payments account, which is the platform used by Kickstarter. In addition, Amazon payments is U.S. only, which has caused headaches for many international project owners, whereas PayPal is worldwide – and GameLaunched has made it clear that U.S. and international projects are welcome on the site. For project owners, there is also a lower transaction fee with PayPal (2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction), but coupled with the 6% commission of GameLaunched, the fees average about the same as they would on Kickstarter (5% plus 3-5% for Amazon Payments).
2. GameLaunched has a commission-free marketplace for the projects that successfully fund. This is a huge bonus for project owners who would like to continue to sell their products after the rewards have been sent to backers. By comparison, Kickstarter maintains that they are not a store and they essentially drop all interest in their project owners after the project ends. (Stay tuned for news about Crowd Outlet, which aims to provide a post-crowdfunded marketplace for all types of products).
3. GameLaunched is "gamified" – in other words, they have XP (experience points) and a leaderboard for the most active users on the site. As you pledge to projects and share them on social media, you gain XP, which can increase your ranking and can be traded in for merchandise in the marketplace.

GameLaunched accepts all types of game projects, from video games, to gaming hardware, to tabletop games of all kinds (including casual games). At the time of launch, there are exactly two projects. Admittedly, this is not much, but launching a website such as this truly is a chicken-and-egg problem. We look forward to seeing casual board games on the site in the future and will keep an eye out for the level of success that they experience over time.

More information: GameLaunched.com | Press Release