How to get More Pledges

If there's one thing that drives people's interest on the internet...it's obviously interactivity. Especially with things that you love.

What I mean is, in the case of the Tex world, Aaron Conners and Chris Jones.

Al Lowe and group just successfully overfunded the rebirth of Leisure Suit Larry. When they were heading into the last 2 weeks they started doing live chats, and adding new perks to the donations. The result was very effective. VERY effective. the results of doing these live shows/chats added an extra 100K+.

This has been true for me as well. When I went to my record label home we did a live show and I started signing my CDs. I told those watching the live broadcast 'if you buy my cd now, i'll include a personalized note with it just for you'. The result was that half the people in the room, who already had the CD, bought it again just for that personal interaction.

In the internet world, when you're asking for money, this is truly a key to success. I believe if this project is to succeed, maybe even exceed expectations, this kind of activity NEEDS TO HAPPEN. Aaron and Chris should be making video updates (another thing the Leisure Suit Larry crew did constantly). They need to live shows. They need to add extra perks exclusive perhaps even TO the live show. Equally as important, the PayPal donations should be open IMMEDIATELY. This also added to the LSL success by having the ability to donate to Paypal open almost immediately. That was another instant 10K or 20K.

It's SUPER early in this Kickstarter, and I wanted to bring this up now. Hopefully someone who can talk to the fellas can offer these suggestions. Kickstarter's generally have a very fast initial take off and then it slows and slows and slows as you end up with less people who either know about the fact that the kickstarter even exists or just simply less people interested in donating to begin with.

Now, I haven't read any messages on the message board so if this stuff has already been suggested...uh, oh well... lol. At any rate I hope that these ideas will get utilized or suggested to them. I strongly believe there should be no issue for the Tex Murphy fellas to get 500K plus so long as the internet knows about it. Thru live show, Video updates, new perks, and of course equally as important... ADVERTISEMENT ON MAJOR GAME SITES!

Anyways, I hope this does not fall on deaf ears. ;)

Love to all!
Just messaged Chris & Aaron via the Kickstarter page with your post. I personally liked the live chat idea. Hope it happens.

Hammerhead
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thanks hammer, I hope they see it and I hope it offers some ideas to them.
Agreed on the live chats. That would be great and really allow people who might be on the fence to know for sure that their particular feature will be included or whatever gripe they still might have.
I'm not sure I understand why having PayPal is contingent on meeting the goal. I suspect it may have to do with processing fees on refunds that would be expected to happen if the Kickstarter goal is not met.
It will only be possible to open paypal pledges only after the project is funded. And the best type of chat I think is the reddit AMA, because it opens the project to a very big audience, but only if they manage to have it as a featured AMA.
I can see how PayPal may deter someone from donating to the kickstarter thus slowing down the process to the goal, however, I would suspect that there's a greater number of people who may ONLY be willing to donate via paypal.

I could be way off on that, but I know enough paranoid about sending money on the web people that only feel comfortable with things like Paypal.

Nevertheless it is a good point. It could detract and make it hard to hit the goal.
my idea on live chats, were primarily video chats. This is what I did when I was selling albums and it's also what Al Lowe and their group did that helped give them such a huge boost toward the end.

Live video chats are the way to go. People absolutely love seeing their questions/comments responded to thru the face of those doing the responses.
Yeah I think they want the goal reached first and money through PayPal would take away from that. However there's nothing stopping Big Finish from dumping the PayPal money they get into Kickstarter except processing tape.
Right now I'm still very surprised that most (almost all) of the major gaming websites haven't covered this kickstarter, yet two months ago it was plastered all over the web (their initial video has over 50k views) I don't know what their reasons could be. I'm sure they were tipped already, but just decided to ignore it?

A few videos could certainly help. Looking at the project objectively from say someone who never heard of Tex and is not an adventure gamer I don't know if the project seems very attractive. I'm not sure that I would pledge if I was in that position. The video looks great. I've watched almost ten times, but is it appealing for a non-adventure gamer? They probably should do something to cater to the let's say LA Noire or Mafia crowd or people who are interested in sci-fi and noir themes, because there is a lot of potential there. More pictures or background info on the people involved on the project page might help (some of the names of the actors involved in past games), because not a lot of people are gonna watch the whole video (it's 8 minutes long).
Hey Overseer, thanks for dropping in and giving some ideas. I love your live chat idea! I wonder what the best method for that would be? I know G+ has a decent "hangout" video chat, and I think FB has a video chat too. (But we've already heard people complain about the voting being on FB.) So - what's a good chat option that most people can get into? Skype? I haven't used it, but I'm sure someone here is familiar with it.
Cathy
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I think I read a couple of days ago that jane received $2,000.00 from paypal not a lot but
helped people who didn't have a credit card.
Lynne
tex murphy is back in town
Regarding PayPal. For LSL Kickstarter I noticed it was kinda initiated by someone in the comments setting something up and the developers ran with it but they may of been skating on thin ice. PayPal's policy is that if its not a product that is confirmed yet then there may be a risk of a lot of chargebacks. So when they find out money is being exchanged via their system for a product that is not confirmed to be made yet they can close the account due to perceived risks. For example with this fundraiser.

The really big Kickstarters only opened up to PayPal after they had reached their goal to avoid problems as then it was a confirmed product. Afterwards they raised e.g. Shadowrun at least $52,969 and Wasteland 2 $108, 578 via PayPal.

PayPal has a crowdfunding thing in place but for a different crowdfunding site, I forget the name of it, but its not as popular as Kickstarter right now I think.

For those who can't pay via credit card a guide is being made from what I know, hopefully up soon.

I'd love some livestreams and stuff, hope they can manage it!
(Ruri_Ayanami from the old Tex Murphy ezboard).
"I don't believe in intuition, don't know why... just a feeling." - Tex Murphy
A fellow over at Eidos Montreal has hooked me with someone from GameInformer. I also posted on their forums, and the eidos community I frequent. Hopefully a few pledges, and maybe an article, will come out of this.
Part-Time Nomad
Short on funds, eh? Problem solved:

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