Social media is strange.

I  heard stories of people with huge followings who couldn't get one person to show up for a meet and greet.
I heard  plenty of stories of people who went viral and even got donations over a rant.

I believe I  have a solid prototype and a great game concept, but I  have never had an internet following ever no matter what I  produced.    My GoFundMe for my game has got 3 donations, 2 of which come from ppl I know.    So I have not tried a Kickstarter.   

 What are your thoughts on this topic?    Thanks.

https://ronaldaam.itch.io/playturtlegame

I don't know about needing a following, but I absolutely would not give money to a game developer when the first impression I get of them is a set of instructions for how to make their game fit on my monitor. That just does not inspire confidence that they can actually finish a good product.

Indie games are a crowded market and there are a lot of them on crowdfunding websites. Of course you need to stand out in some way if you want people's money. When crowdfunding in particular, you expect people to give you money in advance for a product that does not yet exist. You need to convince them that this is a good idea. Having some sort of portfolio, or a good prototype that will make people want to see more of it, can do that. A prototype that doesn't even have its technical fundamentals in place is not going to do that. You're also not going to get a "following" without something to show people that will interest them.

The reality is that earning money in indie game development is difficult and you cannot expect the first thing you ever publish to be immediately popular and financially successful. And if you have already failed to raise money on one crowdfunding platform, taking the same pitch to another crowdfunding platform is very unlikely to improve your situation.

Money can guarantee you you fix all the technical issues in a game.  But it doesn't mean you have a good idea, a fun game to play,  or a cool character to follow.  I  obviously don't have a lot of money, which I mentioned in another thread.   However I  stand  10 toes down next to my character, my ideas for a game,  and (with money) my ability to hire talent both for technical issues and creativity.   Thanks for sharing your personal priorities, but know that I've gotten positive reviews before and I have young fans, but they are broke, which is why I made this thread.

Money can guarantee you you fix all the technical issues in a game. 

No. It absolutely cannot. Making a finished game takes technical skills, management skills and dedication. Meanwhile, if you cannot get absolute basics like "making sure the game works on the most popular size of computer screen in the world" right without a budget, a budget is not going to fix your issues.

Like I said: you need to demonstrate that you have the ability to deliver before people will give you crowdfunding. You have already seen that crowdfunding does not work for you at this point in time. If you are not willing to think about why that is and are going to reject criticism, there is no point to this thread.

Social media is weird honestly. A lot of people may like or follow something casually, but very few actually spend money or support projects. Usually people start caring more when they keep seeing consistent progress and real gameplay over time.

The truth is, I'd love to help you, but I don't know anything about this... I think, as another user mentioned above, it's very rare for strangers to contribute financially to your projects. 

Your game looks great, by the way, as I told you a while back 😉

I don't think it's about "strangers vs. knowing people".  I  think there's a certain swagger to influencers   that prompts people to donate to them, whether they know them or not.   Politicians, athletes, influencers, pop stars, celebs, socialites, people that don't need money and might not even ask for money get donations and gifts all the time.   But in some ways, their personality, aura, swag, or presentation governs this.   For artists as myself, I've never had that.  My talents in life do not include marketing, selling, or the like.  This is the best I could do in this video to promote my game, and across Tiktok, Youtube and IG I think I've gotten 3 likes.   So it's not a strength of mine to be an influencer.

With money I  can compete with mainstream games.    I know that.

Sorry. But this is delusional naive. 

No. You absolutely do not know that. You hope that. You believe that. But you do not know. You have no precedent of such a thing happening to you of a similar nature, so you can accurately predict the outcome of you having money. Or do you?

Also, not even mainstream games can compete with mainstream games. Professional game developing companies go broke all the time. They sink money all the time on projects that just fail. Or simply cost more money to make, than the game will generate.

So, even if you have an extraordinary amount of funding money, enough to simply buy an established game developing company and you just tell them: make me a game that makes a profit ... you can still fail. So please, do not claim you know.

Your whole thread is about the notion that some people can do a crowd funding thing, while others fail. And that this is strange, or in other words: unpredictable. Don't you see the irony here, in you claiming you know you could?

Kickstarter without massive advertisement or a huge following is pointless. A kickstarter campaing only runs a short amount of time. And you need a specific thing to fund. Like a webcoming trying to come to print for the existing readers. Or funding artists to exchange your prototype art in an existing and established game.

Merely hiring talents to make a game that does not even exist is problematic. You cannot predict, if it will be any good. Even if you manage to hit the target audience, that said target audience can be the harshest group to criticise the project and be disappointed.

So to answer your thread's question: Trivially, you can just dump money on adverstising to maybe meet the kickstarter goal, instead of having an existing following.

 But neither advertising, nor a huge following, nor a huge load of money pumped into a project will make that project automatically succeed. There is always risks. And the most "benevolent" risk is, that the project might appear successful, but simply generates less money than was put into it. This is more visible and discussed at movie projects. Most movies are flops. And what is a flop is judged by the amount of money put in vs the amount of money it made. So even popular movies can be flops.

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I would also remind younger audiences about this one here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos No amount of money thrown at funding a thing can overcome certain limitations. Granted, video games usually do not have technological impossibilities, but often unrealistic expectations from unexperienced creative minds.

There was also that thing with the ultrasound wireless charging. And countless solar powered gadgets and other kickstarter projects that promised everything and delivered nothing. Some intentional. Some just failed on reality.

And to put forward a successful kickstarter with a video game, there was this one https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlcatgames/pathfinder-kingmaker

Especially look at what they actually asked the money for, and what they could present at the time they opened the kickstarter. They had a playable alpha version. And bascially asked for pre-prepurchases, and the money would just bring the game from alpha to release. They did not present an idea and ask for financing all the creative work.

But even they were naive. They got screwed over by their publisher at the time and lost their own game shortly after publication.

Consistent progress shown publicly over time matters more than follower count at the launch moment. People back confidence in a creator's ability to deliver, and that comes from seeing regular updates, a playable demo, and honest communication about where the project stands. A small engaged community of 500 people who genuinely care about your game will convert to backers far better than 50,000 casual followers who barely remember hitting the follow button.