In today's update, we have a variety of new features to go over, but before we get to the rest, I want to focus on the Stable Pledge. With the state of the world in a higher degree of flux than ever before, with inflation hitting record highs in many countries, with the cost of materials increasing, the cost of freight constantly fluctuating, and the cost of fuel and other shipping charges constantly in motion, crowdfunding has become a trickier beast to navigate both as a creator and as a backer. The Stable Pledge is our new initiative designed to, in some way, help counteract the instability these fluctuations impact on crowdfunding.

Too many of us have been there, that moment when you get an update that there are increased costs on a project you thought was bought and paid for. Or that time, you check into the pledge manager and see that the shipping estimates are significantly higher than the project page said they would be. It's never a fun moment, neither for the creator nor the backer, and the end result hurts both. It results in frustration, the feeling of being stuck, an increase in $1 pledges over actually committing to the project, it results in a lack of confidence. And yet there are no easy answers. Creators are in a tough spot, trying to juggle costs and estimates while the world moves too quickly around them. But backers need those answers to make an informed decision. Everyone is in a hard place, and we're all trying to navigate it together. Here at Gamefound, we've seen the problem getting worse, and we want to help backers and creators alike.

The Stable Pledge is an opt-in program that creators crowdfunding their campaigns on Gamefound can sign up for. It's effectively a guarantee from the creator that should costs change, you will have a possibility of a full refund with no fees taken out. For creators that opt-in, at the start of the campaign, the creator has to declare the cost of products, general shipping cost, and any other costs, such as VAT, on the project page. If these estimates increase by more than 10% in value after the crowdfunding's end, the creator guarantees a full refund to those backers who request a refund within 2 weeks of the change. For those requesting a refund, the creator will refund 100% of the backer's pledge.

Gamefound will do its own part and will refund (to the creator) its provision for that pledge. But this is not all, we also want to make sure we will help creators with functionalities that will aid them in these changing times. As an example, in upcoming weeks, we will introduce a special functionality for creators, allowing them to open pledge manager/late pledge without charging for shipping. That way, creators will be able to charge shipping closer to final dispatch (when full costs are known). The labels and descriptions of Stable Pledge will be visible to all backers after the campaign's launch, including the pledge manager.

While this is the first time that any crowdfunding platform has offered such a program, we believe this is a step in the right direction for the long term, and we want to do our part in providing help for creators and stability for backers.  

You can expect to see the first instances of the Stable Pledge on the Keyforge: Winds of Exchange campaign, as well as on Tainted Grail: Kings of Ruin. It is our hope that this initiative, the Stable Pledge, will be embraced by creators as a way to continue to be able to plan in the face of the unknown while giving backers the confidence they need to continue to invest in the projects they love.

Read on to see what's new on the platform. We've introduced payment reports, made some cosmetic changes to project statistics, and added an option to define sublocation taxes.

In our continued effort to improve the accessibility and ease of use of the platform, we implemented a redesigned login page with new options to register or log in to Gamefound. Now, you can log in with just one click using Google or Facebook signup.

It’s always our goal to match backers with the right projects, and now there’s one more tool to help us do so. Going forward, backers will receive emails about new projects based on campaigns they have previously followed. More specifically, if you have followed a project in the past, and the project creator launches a new project, you will receive a single notification email about the new project. This should give more early traction to some projects while ensuring that backers don’t miss out on campaigns that might be of interest.

Backers can opt-out of these notifications if they find them unhelpful.

Now you can generate a file with payment details of pledges made in your project. This functionality works only if you have your project funded on Gamefound. You can find this option under "Orders." When you click "Payments," you'll see general information about orders. You can select which orders to export. You can read more about this functionality in this article.

The export file also contains the payment ID, project currency, Gamefound commission, payment processing fee, the amount due for the creator, and more.

We've added the possibility of defining tax value for each sublocation. You can specify the default value for the location and propagate it in sublocations or enter a different tax rate for different sublocations. This way, you can define a different tax rate, for example, for each state in the US. The option is available in project settings, under "Shipping" -> "Locations" and "Sublocations" and is described in this article (section: "locations" and "sublocations").

We've added a small label on the project card on the main page. Now everyone can see how many followers a project has and start following the project they like with one click. It is also required to log in to follow a project.

We wanted to make the statistics easier to read, so we introduced cosmetic changes to their presentation. Clearer statistics are now available for your pledge manager.

We're ramping up on our feature development here at Gamefound. It's our goal to continue to lead the way in the crowdfunding space as much as possible. We recognize that new challenges require new solutions, and together with yourselves, we aim to provide those solutions. Expect features to be added every few weeks as we continue to try to make Gamefound the best platform that it can be.

 

Thank you for being with us,

Alex Radcliffe, CMO of Gamefound