Starting from 0, This is a True Story of Perseverance w/ Mindclash Games

[00:00:00]

George: Hi there. My name is George, and I help independent creators launch their products and games. On this podcast. Those creators share their journey from an early idea to an actual product and everything in between. Today’s guest is Viktor. He’s the founder of Mindclash Games. They raised over six and a half million dollars across nine crowdfunding campaigns.

George: Welcome Viktor. 

Viktor: Hi. Thank you very much for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

George: Absolutely. I think you are a crowdfunding legend. So we have a lot of things to discuss, but let’s go all the way back to the beginning. Explain to us like where in life were you, what were you doing when you decided to do your first crowdfunding campaign? 

Viktor: Well, initially, early on I didn’t think that it’s going to end up in a straight up business and something I can build a livelihood on and I can build a company on. 

Viktor: I was working as a media researcher at the media company at Viacom. And, that was actually my first job. I did business school. I have a degree in marketing. But this was the first job I [00:01:00] could find. I was planning to work my way up there, but I was not particularly keen on, on working in media. At least that’s what I found out after two years of working there.

Viktor: It just started with a game idea. I think many people started that way, I didn’t really think about publishing or building a company or building a brand. I was just really keen on publishing the game. Me and Richard my co-founder has been working on, and that game was to carry on and we initially did get around to publishing it on Kickstarter in 2015.

Viktor: But the journey that led there was actually way longer than that. Trickerion has been in development for a good, I would say, three years. And the last year of that was when we actually banked a lot onto that game because we started to see potential and others around us as well started to see potential in it becoming a very popular product on kickstarter, which was up and coming at that time. I think it was a little bit before [00:02:00] Kickstarter’s prime time, I would say. 

Viktor: It was pretty new back then, and it was relatively easy to make a breakout hit, even as an unknown publisher. And even with a new game that was actually pretty heavy for what you usually see on Kickstarter from first creators and, I don’t think that kind of success and that kind of risk I would reasonably take today. But back then, I think we were at the right place at the right time, I should say. 

Viktor: And the fact that we did work on this project on the side was basically what I was getting up for in the morning, when we finally get around to deciding that we will commit and we will publish this game on Kickstarter. I actually quit my job to be able to dedicate a couple more months to, to push the game through the finish line.

George: That early in the process, so not even after the Kickstarter was successful or after you had a second Kickstarter, even before that, you already quit your job?

Viktor: Yes. A couple of months before that. Yes. But yeah, this actually coincided with me trying to looking for something else to do in my [00:03:00] life. I was lucky enough that this something was board games and I was lucky enough to make the break with Trickerion. But yeah.

Viktor: Obviously this could have gone very differently. Fortunately it didn’t.

George: So your first job was your last job. Did you have a moment where you felt, okay, this is something special. This is going to work out? I’m very confident that this is worth quitting my job over, or was it just a leap of faith?

Viktor: It was not exactly a leap of faith. There was a moment and that, that moment was actually Essen Spiel 2014. We decided to go there on our own expense. Basically we burned a bit of our own savings on that trip with just like our own little van and our own little decorations that we brought for our 10 square meter booth.

Viktor: We just had two prototype copies with us, but we were very particular about that booth design. It looked really amazing and really stood out of the rest of the booth because it, it was basically set up as a Victorian stage [00:04:00] Victorian theater, which ma matched the theme of the game quite well.

Viktor: aNd even though we only had two prototypes, we finally were in a, in an environment and with people who actually very much appreciated what we’ve been doing. We had been taking this game to a lot of like game design events. Smaller expos here in Hungary show showed us to a lot of friends, but the feedback that we received was pretty lukewarm , but mostly because those people and those events were made for lighter games and more casual things.

Viktor: So we didn’t really get the appreciation up until Essen but in Essen we, we got a lot of appreciation actually. We got hundreds of signups to our mailing lists. We got a huge amount of interest for the upcoming Kickstarter, and that actually proved to us that it might just have a chance to become a very popular product and a very popular game.

George: So that was a pivotal moment where you saw people interacting with your game. You saw how busy your booth was, and you thought, okay. [00:05:00] This is it. This is gonna be good. 

Viktor: exactly.

George: That’s amazing. You are one of the few creators that has really had big campaigns from the start. So your campaigns have been like, I think your first one was around 200,000, and then you’ve got 400,000.

George: You’ve done a million dollar campaigns. A lot of creators that come on this podcast, uh, typically start with $15,000, $40,000, $100.000. So you’ve been really successful since day one. Maybe for people who are listening, who are starting their journey, could you talk us through, step by step what you do every time to prepare for your campaign and raise those kind of numbers? 

Viktor: Yes of course. First of all, it comes down to having the right product. And I think that starts at the very first steps of game design. When you are designing a product that’s going to be crowdfunded, I think you have to keep that in mind at least somewhat throughout the process.

Viktor: And I know some people consider that, a bit of a, how [00:06:00] to say drawback because I know that some crowdfunded games are considered bloated and are considered over-engineered and over-designed. I would like to think of our own games. Not that way. I we actually really like to make rich games that are, that are reaching content, reaching theme the games that really feel, well, rich and and I think that’s a very important thing on crowdfunding in general. That I think that richness and the depth is something that people can really connect to. Another thing that we. do. And that’s something we, we’ve done from the very beginning, not very consciously in carry on but more and more consciously since then is that we design theme first because I really feel that if you wanna be successful in crowdfunding, you have to have a game that people can connect to.

Viktor: And obviously a lot of people can just connect to a game that plays well. But, But when you have 10 or maybe 20 seconds to grab someone’s attention, who’s just scrolling through your page, [00:07:00] you have to have some sort of instant connection, some sort of instant trigger that keeps them there.

Viktor: And maybe explore uh, the game, your game a little bit more on the project page. Uh, so, So we are really we, we really try to to crowdfund games that have this central core thing that you can fall in love with. That’s I think, very important. Obviously it is also important to, to have your target audience and, and uh, to know who you are selling your game to.

Viktor: Our target audience it actually built up gradually starting with Trickarion and continuing with Anachrony and Anachrony was basically our breakout hit I, I should say, and I. There are a lot of people following us ever since and backing all our games. But those people are heavy gamers, I should say.

Viktor: They are really, uh, they know a lot of games. They’re very particular of, of what they like. They’re very, uh. They have very strong opinions, which is great actually because [00:08:00] Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general is also great venue for feedback. And when you have people with strong opinions and if you can tolerate those strong opinions, there is actually a lot of great feedback to be had from these campaigns.

Viktor: Obviously you have to stick to your vision but, to a point. We do actually listen to these feedbacks and there are a lot of, lots of elements of our games that came from great ideas during our our crowdfunding campaigns. But circling back to the core audience it actually formed around our our first games.

Viktor: And it’s a quite stable audience, I would say by now. And that’s actually very helpful because you can rely on those people again and again if you are designing the same kind of games. But it’s also a difficulty because it locks you into a genre and it’s, it makes it a little bit harder to, to divert from that and to explore new areas and new mechanisms and new, weight categories I would say.

George: So you’re saying you build a very rich game. You have a central theme that is [00:09:00] appealing and you know your audience well. And so basically that allows you to then repeat your success over and over again if I understand correctly. 

Viktor: exactly.

George: How did you start early on? Because was like going to a spiel, like a conference.

George: Was that the first time that you were actually able to find your target audience? I’m trying to find out, like once you’ve had your first successful campaign, you’re able to repeat it, but what is needed to have that first successful campaign? Like how do you even get there? What is it? Do you I guess back then times were different as well, but do you think it’s more about, 

Viktor: Yeah, yeah. 

George: Yeah. 

Viktor: Yeah, frankly it comes down to that more than you would think. I’d say, because the times back then were different and there were way fewer games published at that time, and it was way, way easier to, to uh, to actually stand out with what you’re doing, especially in the heavy game market.

Viktor: It’s not super [00:10:00] crowded even today, but back then it was . Way less crowded. And people were like you said, were trying with smaller, lighter games on on Kickstarter. We didn’t, and I, for us, it worked and it worked because it was easier to differentiate and to tell apart.

Viktor: But when it comes to your first project, I would say it’s mostly about building audience through hard work. It’s there, there’s no easy way or shortcut to this. I can’t say that. And for us, it’s we experimented with a lot of things. We tried uh, BGG posts. We tried local events.

Viktor: Obviously if you’re living in a, in an area like, like the US or Germany where, where the, where the board game environment is more active and, and uh, you can, you can get a lot more exposure with, with your games. That’s, That’s great. Here in Hungary that was really not the case, so we try to rely on our Hungarian audience, and we still do actually. We are very proud to have a lot of Hungarian backers consistently throughout [00:11:00] all our campaigns, but that alone wouldn’t have been enough to to basically make a breakout success at first. 

Viktor: I would say that if you have a chance to go to conventions. I Think you should take that chance, even if it’s a smaller convention with less people, but with more involved people. There are a lot of local conventions where you can both get good feedback on your games and also you can start spread, spreading the word of mouth about your game.

Viktor: The other thing is that, of course you could spend on advertising as well once your campaign is going, but but I, what I keep seeing is that the, there’s. So much noise these days in the, basically there’s no dead season in crowdfunding these days. Every Tuesday, every Thursday.

Viktor: There are dozens of campaigns launching on three platforms now, and it’s really hard to, to have your voice heard and, and, and it’s actually hard even to get the conventional marketing methods work and get enough attention. 

Viktor: As a summary, a as first [00:12:00] steps, I think you, as a designer, should rely on your own personal passion for the game.

Viktor: You should be your first advocate to the game and present it in person to as many people as possible. Go to local conventions, . Grab as many opportunities you can to showcase your game. And yeah that’s about the best I could say. But obviously if you, if your game has this selling point this very definite core that you can put out there and differentiated by that helps as well a lot.

George: Yeah, I think it’s great advice. I get asked this question a lot by creators, especially those living in regions that don’t have the big conventions there. And I think now more than ever, there are local meetups, however small that you can just go to and you can just get started.

George: The other day I was at there’s a meetup in Amsterdam Amsterdam, board game design. They meet every. Thursday night, for example it’s just a tiny room at the university. Maybe there’s 20 people there, [00:13:00] but those 20 people may be like, 10 of them might be like your first backers.

George: And that’s a starting point. And they might 

Viktor: Exactly. Exactly. And they’re like, like-minded people who are just nice to be around. And also the feedback you get from them is not to be underestimated, because if you are just on your own designing your own game, it’s very easy to get stuck in that box, and it’s just hard to look at your game objectively.

George: Yeah, absolutely. So if you’re listening to this and you’re in a place where you think, I am not near Germany or near the US just find your local meetup. And just, and get started. I think that’s very. Very wise words of advice. So you mentioned the three platforms, Kickstarter Gamefound and BackerKit.

George: I assume you’re referring to you recently made the switch from Kickstarter to Game Found. Talk to us about the difference, why you made the switch and how you’re finding it. 

Viktor: Oh, of course. Happy to. It was a very difficult decision and [00:14:00] it was also a bit of a leap of faith, to be honest, because we knew game fund was growing. We knew that, it was the place for people who are looking for more expensive and more involved games, specifically, and for people who know what they want.

Viktor: And that actually proves true. Now that we are running the campaign there, I think . The people who back the game know what they’re getting into way more than they do on Kickstarter. I can tell that there is a lower organic reach on Gamefound. I should say that, but there are also a lot fewer pledge cancellations. For example, I.

Viktor: A lot fewer. It’s not even close. So that tells me that people who are here do actually take some time to look through the page. Take some time to consider and and make an informed choice and they stick to it, which is great. This is what we need for, for our games.

Viktor: Obviously I would give everything to peek into a parallel universe when I could see a Kickstarter campaign running [00:15:00] episode three and four, perseverance and see how that does. But yeah, of obviously that ship has sailed. think, it was a good call to, to switch to Gamefound.

Viktor: There were objective reasons too to be honest. One, one of these is very, plain . It’s the fact that we are Hungarians and we have a Hungarian company and we can finally use that Hungarian company to launch crowdfunding campaigns. We cannot do that on Kickstarter. So if you’re planning to launch a Kickstarter, be sure to check if it’s available in your region because it’s not guaranteed.

George: And just outta curiosity I, I feel like BackerKit crowdfunding platform seems not really like a consideration for most people right now, which I, I. I think when they came out with their crowdfunding platform, I thought, wow that’s gonna be big. Obviously they are huge in, in board games, in the pledge manager.

George: They’ve been around for a long time. They have a solid reputation there. Yet everyone I speak to is like Kickstarter or Game Found. Have you considered BackerKit or why hasn’t it been a consideration for you? 

Viktor: Not [00:16:00] really, to be honest. I think to me it was the. well-known environment of Kickstarter, which honestly, I think could really use some improvements. They’re being made now that they have competition. So it’s great that they have competition finally. But, but we’ve been struggling a lot with, with the lack of some functionality in our earlier campaigns.

Viktor: And we have all that in Gamefound then. I know that we potentially also have that on. We would potentially also have that on BackerKit. But on the other hand, this was one role that I told about earlier that this is a veteran audience, so to say. They’re veterans to crowdfunding. They know what they want.

Viktor: They are this is their final destination when it comes to, to, to getting novelties in the board game genre. And also I liked, that Gamefound has this very specific vision that they just don’t, they don’t just want to be a crowdfunding platform, but they actually want to be the go-to place when you wanna buy a board game online.

Viktor: And I think everything they do is really, working towards that and [00:17:00] contributes to that a lot. And actually it would be great if we had a platform like that down the line. Plus I have to say that we ha we received a lot of direct support from Gamefound. It’s not, and that’s just technical stuff like helping to set up our campaign or any, or anything.

Viktor: But it’s just also . Feedback on the project page. They help us with the advertisements. They really, it’s just they’re really just an email away and I appreciate that a lot.

George: It’s interesting. It’s just like I never, I just, I, I do this podcast every week. I work with creators every day, and BackerKit just never comes up. And I’m just so surprised. I know. a lot of people don’t, just don’t like them. I think a lot of people at the same time, a lot of people still work with them, but It’s, just it’s just so interesting to me that there’s three platforms and the one that has been around As long as Kickstarter almost is just not even a consideration. But yeah. I, on the other hand, you could just say [00:18:00] that game Found just does a great job at what they do with their creator outreach. 

Viktor: I’m very happy with what we’ve been getting there. Again, I think in terms of organic reach, there’s still room to grow because that’s something you still can beat Kickstarter in. But otherwise, I think everything else is a big plus on, on Gamefound’s account.

George: Good. Speaking of Gamefound, your latest project you are live right now with Perseverance Castaway Chronicles. You’re just over half a million right now. It looks beautiful campaign, beautiful game. It’s a game where players fight and tame dinosaurs on a mysterious island. So speak about a strong theme that draws you in.

George: Tell us a little bit about this campaign. What have you done to prepare so far? What are you doing still, and what can potential backers expect as this campaign unfolds over the coming few days? 

Viktor: Yeah. So I think it’s, it goes without saying that this campaign is the continuation of a previous [00:19:00] one. This saga of four games is something we’ve been working on for all things considered is over six years, I would say. And it’s the biggest project that we ever embarked on. I can easily say that, and also the one I’m the proudest of because like we discussed earlier, you have to lean onto your core audience.

Viktor: You have to know what you’re doing. You have to know what you’re selling to them, and then you can repeat your success over and over again. But, . Beside that, we would we do what we do because we want to innovate, we want to experiment, and we want to try new things. And this experimentation basically perseverance is the magnum opus of that sort of experimentation.

Viktor: It’s a series of games where we have shared common core mechanism that you can easily learn and just, build upon on a, in every four, in all of the four episodes. But we do did want every four episode to have its own identity with, with other side mechanisms. And we want these four episodes to tell a story of how a group [00:20:00] of shipwrecks survivors ending up on a dinosaur island eventually discover its secret and also discover its former hostile inhabitants and basically fight for their right to remain there.

Viktor: It’s a very interesting story, but it’s not like a story-driven game. It’s a game that tells its story through its mechanisms, and that’s something we are very proud of because that’s not something that’s been done a lot before. I don’t think, everything we design is really theme first in this universe, in this, in this game.

Viktor: And we want you to feel, like really present in that particular part of this survivor’s life. That’s the episode is about, essentially. So episode three is about you having settled in already, you having discovered the first mysterious buildings and structures and ruins that the, this ancient civilization left behind on this island and you basically embark on your.

Viktor: Quests to explore the entire island to inhabit it, and also to turn the [00:21:00] dinosaurs that inhabit this island into your allies. And the mechanisms in episode three really lean into this because you can tame various dyno types and they can become basically your workers that you can send out to the map.

Viktor: They’ll have different attributes and different bonuses that you can use. There’s a lot of discovery. There is, there are adventures as well. So basically it’s, while it’s a Euro game at its heart, it’s very thematic and it’s, and it does have this sense of adventure that we wanted to convey with this episode.

George: The Dinos it also just looks so beautiful and so cool, like the Dinos and the Minis and everything. It’s it’s so visually appealing. But now that we’ve learned that, that is part of your strategy as well. 

Viktor: Yeah, absolutely. Production and production qualities is not something we skimp upon ever . It’s very important and it’s also very important to to work with, partners in the industry who can deliver that quality ’cause. ’cause it’s one of our hallmarks and it’s not something we are willing to compromise on.

George: And is this a game that will ever [00:22:00] come into retail, or is this only on crowdfunding ?

Viktor: It is not a game that will ever come to retail, I should say. iT’s again, it comes down to the vision and it comes down to, to not really want, willing to be, to make compromises. Okay. Obviously never say never, but but the way it’s structured, the reason why we are releasing two episodes at once is that there are some shared components between these games and this.

Viktor: These are fairly big games on their own, so presenting them like this actually allows us to put a reasonable price tag. For a game price tag on, on, on all these games. And I think that’s also part of the appeal. But no, for now we really think that we would like to deliver the whole package as we envisioned it and crowdfunding and basically selling them, selling it directly is the only way to go because otherwise the, yeah, the price would be pretty astronomical.

George: The diversification post crowdfunding’s golden era and post covid ID how are you [00:23:00] managing that as a business?

Viktor: I think crowdfunding is still a solid source of income, don’t get me wrong, especially if you are established in the era and we in the scene and we would like to continue doing that. But we would also like to become a little bit less reliant on a successful project because you can’t always rely on that. 

Viktor: Sometimes things just don’t go your way and don’t work out as you expect them to, and you can’t bank your entire revenue and your entire cashflow on that. About a year ago, or it’s almost two years now, we started a side brand a sub-brand called Mind Clash Play And with Mind Clash Play we specifically want to publish games straight to retail.

Viktor: And these games are games that we would like our core audience to enjoy, but also to, to open up with these games to new audiences, more casual ones. We are still completely committed to having these as high quality and enjoyable and deep games. But, we try to [00:24:00] do good with that without the relying on crowdfunding.

George: And is there a big difference in running your organization in a way that isn’t crowdfunding independent? Because crowdfunding has this rhythm where it’s like you develop something, you do pre-launch, you run the campaign, you execute, and there, that has a way of running your business.

George: So what changes for you and your organization when you start doing retail. 

Viktor: We work. In a very similar structure on, on, on those projects as well, because obviously there are activities and things that you don’t have to do with those projects. You don’t have to build a robust campaign page. You don’t have to do as much marketing, you do, but not the same kind of marketing.

Viktor: So we just use our biweekly sprint structure that we are working in for our crowdfunding structures. And we . Tweak it and implement it to those projects as well. But we do try to keep separate teams and separate people as much as possible on, on the straight retail games and on the Kickstarter games.

George: [00:25:00] So am I correct in summarizing that to build really big elaborate games, you need to do that through crowdfunding. Otherwise, if you do that through retail, they become too expensive. But in order to have a revenue stream outside of crowdfunding, you need some ongoing retail, which are simpler games. So.

George: that way you structure your company, and correct me if I’m wrong here. By having these big releases of really elaborate games they are extremely special and that brings a lot of value to your brand as well. And then you have this other line of simpler games that are just an ongoing basis just to keep your cash flow consistent.

George: Is that what you’re doing? 

Viktor: Exactly. Yes. And it’s not just about cash flow, it’s also about trying to get more, more new people on board and trying to broaden our audience and the reach of our brand. Because I think that you can you can have huge success on crowdfunding but when it comes to like a true [00:26:00] retail hit when it comes to sales numbers, it’s not even close. So I, there is actually a ceiling that you can achieve in crowdfunding and the rest is only possible through, through retail and through products that can hold their own in retail 

George: Viktor, thank you so much for your time. If you’re listening to this, the links to Perseverance Castaway Chronicles on Gamefound are in the description of this podcast. Wherever you are listening, we will also have links to Viktor’s. Website where you can see all the projects that he’s done and also links to his previous Kickstarter campaigns.

George: So if you’re listening to this, you might still be in time to snatch one of the last copies of Perseverance Castaway Chronicles on Gamefound, because it will not come to retail. And any game with Dinos I think is worth not skipping. So go there, support the project, and thank you so much, Viktor, for sharing all your wisdom with us. 

Viktor: Thank you very much for the opportunity. It was a pleasure.