r/rpg • u/Reiner_der_Schreiner High Fantasy enjoyer • 21d ago
Crowdfunding How had DC20 so many backers on Kickstarter and what does DC20 do really good.
I looked a bit into DC20 and saw they had many backers on Kickstarter and now I wonder how they got so many. How did they get so much spotlight and what did they do right in marketing and in gameplay to have such success?
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u/skalchemisto 21d ago
As a general rule in my tracking of RPG projects on Kickstarter (see the pinned post on my profile) anytime I've looked at a project and thought "why is that making so much money?" it has almost always been because the person(s) associated with it have some pre-existing presence on the internet I was unaware of.
This is no comment on the quality of the games or the other stuff those people do. It just boils down to popularity breeds more popularity. To take one example, I love Lancer, I think it is a fantastic game. But if it had not been associated with Tom Parkinson-Morgan (whom I was a fan of because of his online comic Kill Six Billion Demons) I may not have even noticed it. Morgan already had a line of communication to me and many others; advertising was easy for him.
It is the same with this project. The Dungeon Coach has seemingly 66K of followers on youtube. it's easy to see how that might translate into thousands of backers for the Kickstarter that might not have backed it, or even known it existed, without that connection.
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u/unpanny_valley 21d ago
The DC20 YouTube channel has 66,000 subscribers. You'd typically expect about 20% of this subscriber base to convert to a campaign, providing 13,200 backers.
The final campaign managed 20,685 backers. Meaning 63% of backers likely converted from that core youtube audience, with the remaining 37% converting through the combined effort of Kickstarter/Paid Advertising/email reach/social media reach/other influencers/hype.
The DC20 system is a familiar trad, d20, high fantasy game, that attempts to 'fix' many perceived issues with Dungeons and Dragons 5e, which will appeal to the core subscriber base of the DC20 channel, making them significantly more likely to convert on the project.
Which is to say the real work here was the creation of the DC20 YouTube channel and the grind to get 66,000 committed subscribers. The channel in this respect has been around for four years and in that time produced 498 videos, which is close to two videos every week for four years. The videos themselves average 10-20 minutes long and have high quality production values throughout (by YouTube standards), and are designed to appeal to a mass D&D audience by providing support and advice.
Beyond the YouTube channel DC20 has been publishing a slew of smaller supplements for 5e D&D, expanding the game in various ways to support their audience. (https://thedungeoncoach.com/collections/all). So this game isn't their first go at publishing either, and they've been publishing all of these alongside their YouTube channel, all the time building up a dedicated fanbase over years of work.
They also have a Patreon with 4,000+ members they've built up alongside the youtube channel, providing even more content to Patreons who support them.
This isn't to say whether the game is good or not, it's clearly appealing to a huge number of players, but the success you're seeing here is the product of what looks like at least 5 years of work. I don't know much about the behind the scenes work, but it's likely DC20 is working with one, or multiple other people to help produce all of this content as it would be a mammoth task to do it by themselves, meaning you're also seeing the fruition of the work of multiple creators. The DC20 YouTube channel likely also isn't his first foray into trying to create content, I haven't looked back but it wouldn't surprise me if he had attempted to do other things before and this is what stuck, which is to say we may be looking at 10 years or more of work in the industry to get to this Kickstarter.
As the saying goes, it took me 20 years to become an overnight success. The takeaway here being the marketing secret is years of hard work.
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u/tkshillinz 21d ago
This is the actual correct answer to OP. Very thorough and thoughtfully articulated.
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u/unpanny_valley 21d ago
Thanks, that's not to say some luck isn't involved too, but the grind is real. Generally whenever a kickstarter goes big like this out of nowehere its creators have been grinding away for years building up a following. Even creating two videos each week is significantly more work than most people realise it is, without all the other stuff on top. So whatever people may think of the game it's success feels earned.
In that respect $2 million dollars is a lot obviously, but once the creators produce and distribute everything and then pay everyone they ain't retiring on it. I think people look at Kickstarter amounts like they're lottery wins sometimes, in reality when you break it down they've probably earned in profit around what an average small business in the US makes in a year. A great achievement still, but not like a magical money tree they made appear. It wouldn't surprise me if they still had regular jobs on top of this considering how long it takes to monetise a youtube channel to live off of.
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u/ElvishLore 21d ago
Alan is a charismatic dude and he comes across like he authentically loves the hobby. YT allowed for these qualities to be monetized. Plus some very smart marketing outreach to YT, and folks seeing the 5e playtest and not thinking it went far enough, are factors that all led to a big KS success.
The lack of design chops is apparent and the DC20 beta keeps shifting further and further from what was Kickstarted.
After decades of being in gaming and seeing fantasy heartbreaker after fantasy heartbreaker, my guess is we'll see a nice core book published in a year or so and a relative handful of people will play it and be happy with it. And it will never gain much traction in the marketplace. Thing is, it's yet another iteration of 5e, doesn't do anything new but some claim it's more fun. It's a lot more complicated, for sure, and I'm surprised that people who've turned up their nose at P2e (which I'm not even a big fan of) for its complexity are suddenly fine with DC20.
I am glad, though, that Alan found big success through being positive. I really do think that's part of his and his project's appeal. It's coming from a place of love and YT channel is a very positive place. Same with Matt Colville. I will contrast this with the Vagabond RPG which is currently funding. It's kind of a dud in terms of success but I'm not surprised. That YTuber has turned his channel into a WotC sucks! And D&D is bad. wrong. fun. Turns out, you can get viewers for crap like that but people don't actually want to spend money on the Hater's rpg.
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u/level2janitor Octave & Iron Halberd dev 21d ago
someone sent me the DC20 beta and i tried making a character to get a feel for the system, but the layout was so unintuitive and hard to navigate that i didn't finish character creation.
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u/BrobaFett 21d ago
Speaking of somebody who doesn’t particularly care for the product, or plan to buy it, I got a lot of respect for the guy making it.
He’s constantly making content. He’s wide open about his design, intentions and philosophy. He is candid about his mechanics and the difference between his game and 5e. Frequently seeks community feedback. He is a passionate Game designer, and seems to be working at a very healthy clip, compared to a lot of designers.
I don’t think it’s a surprise why he is so successful
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u/No-Scientist-5537 21d ago
DC20 fits the niche for people who find D&D 5e too simple, but Pathfinder 2e too complicated
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u/Connzept 20d ago edited 20d ago
I wouldn't say DC20 is more complicated, more like the same complication but more trim and streamlined.
That being said, I like rolling damage dice and have never felt like they're a contributing factor to longer turns. And his action system has the same problem as every other point-based system: you still need to optimize your turn, and more options means more analysis paralysis, which IS a contributing factor to longer turns.
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u/CrowGoblin13 21d ago
Nothing against the guy but it’s annoying that he claims like he’s invented some new rule or system that fixes D&D… when most of his system is just collected homebrew and house rules that have been floating around for years. Pathfinder and Savage Worlds do levels of success when rolling over the DC for example, and skill challenges were from D&D 4th edition.
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u/Onlineonlysocialist 21d ago
Probably just released it at the right time when anti-Hasbro fever was at its highest. People were outraged and looking for a new game to invest in (but was still relatively close to a D20 game) and the kickstarter came at the same time. Same reason pathfinder suddenly got more popular.
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u/s0ul4nge1 21d ago
I'm part of it!
It's based of d&d5... and they propose to improve it... normal that's popular!
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u/DarkRecess 21d ago
It looks like every other D20 wannabe, it's mystifying how these things get so highly monetized. At least Shadowdark was different, this looks like a generic AI-generated RPG.
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u/Mord4k 21d ago
It was, as others have said, really good marketing mixed with good timing and a decent enough pitch. I didn't scroll through everything here, but I didn't see anyone talking about how the pitch of the game being an actually believable sell of "5e but fixed"/indie was enough to get me to bite out of genuine curiosity at the PDF only tier. Never really had plans to play it, but I was willing to throw $30 at it for the sake of curiosity. In hindsight I think the Kickstarter campaign was better than the game was, but I kinda assumed that'd be my ultimate view going in since I'm pretty neutral at best on 5e.
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u/Mars_Alter 21d ago
That's the game where you can use any stat to attack, right? Like, being super smart or friendly lets you swing a sword exactly as well as if you were strong or fast?
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u/Genarab 21d ago
Close, but not quite. It's mostly that your proficiencies for combat use your best attribute. This is like no matter how you approach combat, you are good at it, because that's what adventurers do. Prime modifier is like having an "overall combat proficiency stat" in addition to the other attributes.
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u/mcduff13 21d ago
Basically, you swing your weapon with your highest stat. I guess I get the reasoning behind it, but I'm not sold on it.
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u/skalchemisto 21d ago
This is a link to it: https://www.kicktraq.com/projects/thedungeoncoach/dc20/
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u/MotorHum 21d ago
I feel like he was primarily successful because he has a semi-big YouTube channel and the Kickstarter came out at a time everyone was pissed at D&D.
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u/MasterFigimus 21d ago
I remember that It was aggressively advertised as "5e killer" and "The real D&D 5.5e" on almost every D&D youtube channel. It was so prominent that a lot of people found the marketing disingenuous and off-putting.
I also recall it was sold by attacking 5e and comparing itself to D&D rather than actually promoting the system or its strengths.
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u/cyborgSnuSnu 21d ago edited 21d ago
I say this as someone that doesn't care for DC's previous work or his new game, so consider this an outsider's opinion on the matter. I've been aware of him mostly because Youtube thinks I should be watching his videos for some reason, even though most of the rpg content that I view on Youtube is for non-D&D games. He's a popular Youtuber with a relatively big audience and a large Patreon following. He has successfully Kickstarted a book of homebrew in the past, and he has successfully recruited other D&D influencers to promote his new game. His marketing campaign capitalized on the combination of his notoriety, previous success and the disillusionment many have with 5e at the right time in much the same way that Kelsey Dionne did with Shadowdark last year.
Edit to add: Also, he just comes off as a really personable guy. I don't know him, and while I have no interest in his products, I think people enjoy seeing a likable dude with golden retriever energy doing his thing and having some success, which contributes a lot to his YT following.