We spent weeks writing about our rewards, shot an inspiring video, and wrote about our story to educate with fun. Everything was falling into place. The game was in a great spot. We hit go live on our campaign and in 2 days…

We Killed our Kickstarter 🗡️ (This is Good Actually)

Why?

Why would we shut down our Kickstarter? What’s going to happen to the game? Is the Process shutting down just a few months after its inception?

No. It turns out that making a game is a lot of work. We’ve been working on expanding our reach a lot behind the scenes and have, for the most part, been rather successful. There are still things I can’t talk about (yet). But I’m personally optimistic about the success of our debut game and the company’s trajectory.

So let me explain why we decided to terminate our campaign. 😅

Suffering from Success

When I first joined the project, we had very little idea of how we would get the money to produce the game and initial materials. We knew we wanted to help teachers and students but there wasn’t a solid answer on where money would come from or where the game could go. A Kickstarter seemed like the way to go and we weren’t expecting much. It was exciting to think about regular people banding together to help everyone get more engaged in civics.

Now we’re regularly in talks with peers & partners. It’s much more fun than the prototype I first saw when I was asked to help out with the game’s design. The original $2,000 we calculated to make the game is not that much money. (It is a lot of money, actually but) When compared to the funding sources we’re acquiring now, it was quickly becoming less and less of a concern.

Next Steps

I currently can’t give a lot of details, but people like our game. Our partners and educators we’ve talked to see the potential of its presence in classrooms. And, if I’m speaking frankly, the funding we’ve been pursuing through grants and investments is a lot more than what we asked for in the Kickstarter (I really can’t say any more about that, unfortunately 😔).

When we began, we had little direction on where this game would take us. We’re in a great position and want to focus all our resources on making this game the best it can possibly be. So for now, abandoning the Kickstarter and pursuing our other partnerships is what works best for us. Maybe if we have a really solid idea with less institutional buy-in, we’ll ask for your help.

Until then though, we’ll continue working on The Process.

P.S.: I’m excited to talk about a trip we took today as I’m posting for next week’s letter. It was so cool!

P.P.S.: Thank you to the one Kickstarter donor for your dollar! It looks like we won’t be needing it but the thought is very much appreciated. You rock!