I recently started a poll on BoardGameGeek asking how people looked at a Kickstarter page and what they thought was most important. At the moment of writing this, 184 people have answered the poll. So, how do people see your Kickstarter page?

I asked people what the first thing was that they looked at on a page. This means that if it didn’t past muster, they were going to leave.

The largest and overwhelming amount at 43.5% said that game-description-text was the first thing they read. It’s important to note that some people indicated that the players, time, and age that got 4.3% was part of what they considered to be game-description-text. Almost 50% of visitors are reading that beyond anything else.

The next largest group was artwork at 14.7%. It seems that the description text on your page is extremely important. Maybe the most important for keeping a backer on your page.

SURPRISES

I was stunned to see that video only got 9.8%. It’s at the top of the page and usually the easiest to click, but then I started thinking about how I look at pages. Half the time I’m on a mobile device in public. I don’t play videos in public. You know what’s right under that video on the mobile site though… game description.

It’s my guess that in a mobile situation, game description is looked at even more than anything else.

WHAT’S NEXT?

I asked the pollsters what the second item was that they looked at on a page. Game description got a 22.8% in this category, strengthening it’s position I think. Still, it wasn’t the highest. The cost of tiers got a 34.2% as the highest. The numbers start evening out a little more as you dive deeper into the page, but the cost of tiers stands out.

I’ve seen many times the complaints about cost by backers on other projects. There’s a feel that they should be getting a deal if they’re backing a game that others won’t when the game goes out for sale. I can’t argue that. As a backer they should get something more than just a game before others get it. Still, board games are extremely expensive to make with a low profit margin for the designer and publisher compared to other products.

If you’re arguing with yourself if you should make the game a little bit cheaper than you had planned, based on the poll, I’d say do it. Not only is it the second thing most in the poll look at, but it also hold the top position in the third item looked at with a 22.4%.

In the end i asked what the most important component for helping make that big decission was and cost of tiers again proved to be the most important at 21.5%. Still, game-description-text came in second at 14.4%.

CONCLUSION

Before the poll I would have guessed the video and reviews to be the biggest part of viewing a Kickstarter, but from the comments and the poll, it seems that the video is often looked at as fluff and the reviews cherry-picked.

It’s important to note that artwork remained important to a lot of people throughout as well. I think we all know the importance of great artwork as far as selling a game goes.

In the end, I’ll be paying a great deal more attention to how I describe and keep backers interested in that first paragraph under the video.