Whether you break out a board game for game night with friends or to combat boredom during a city-wide power outage, we can all agree there are some fan favorites in the game (pun intended). Would you be surprised to learn that several of today’s most popular games got their start on Kickstarter? Here are a few popular games that owe their start to crowdfunding.
#DYK Kickstarter Games
1. Cards Against Humanity ($15,570)
Cards Against Humanity is arguably one of the most popular tabletop games to date – heck my 85 year old grandmother has even played it!
The Chicago Sun-Times estimated that CAH earned at least $12 million in profit, and according to the company, customers have downloaded the PDF file 1.5 million times in the year since they began tracking the numbers. For an undeniably awkward yet super fun card game that lets you combine totally unrelated cards to create wildly inappropriate phrases, that is pretty impressive.
Now you have to remember, CAH launched on Kickstarter back in 2010 way before KS was super successful!
2. Exploding Kittens ($8,782,571)
Exploding Kittens launched in 2015. And it is still one of the most successful games on Kickstarter! The rage I experience when I draw an Exploding Kitten card has no equal.
It’s almost as bad as when I stub my toe walking up stairs.
And now, there are a dozen games and expansions available under the Exploding Kittens brand!
3. Joking Hazard ($3,246,588)
For those of you who don’t know (I was one of those poor souls unfortunately) Cyanide & Happiness is a webcomic that debuted in 2005 and used stick figure art to present graphic, dark, and often surreal humor, covering topics such as abortion, suicide, violence, and necrophilia.
Hitting Kickstarter in 2016, the creators behind Cyanide & Happiness launched a card game where players compete to finish an awful comic strip such as playing “Awesome!” in response to a card that says “I have cancer.” Seems quite fitting to the brand if you ask me.
4. Million Dollars, But… The Game ($1,353,024)
In Million Dollars, But, the group must create wild scenarios with their cards and debate who is crowned with the most outrageous of them all. One reason their campaign may have been so popular on Kickstarter could be that their campaign video is absolutely hilarious and is filled with gems like:
“Our cards are handwritten in China by laser printing machines in mass quantities, where they’re then placed in the most advanced storage technology on the market… a box.”
5. What Do You Meme?™ ($229,579)
What Do You Meme? is another game that if you haven’t at least heard of, we’ll assume you woke up from a 10 year coma.
This game resembles CAH but with memes and can be found at almost any pregame, sorority house, game cafe or sports bar across the country.
P.S. Apparently 2016 was a great year to launch super popular games….too bad you’re now seven years too late!
6. Unstable Unicorns ($1,865,140)
Unstable Unicorns is a strategic card game that will destroy your friendships (but in a good way)! The game resembles Exploding Kittens with a few cool twists.
Players play cards in “Stables” which everyone can see so you can attempt to stop the friend who is about to win and brag about it for a week!
Whether your go to game is Cards Against Humanity or What The Meme, it’s nice to know that these game giants started off just like us normal folk once upon a time. Have a game idea that you think could raise a million dollars on Kickstarter?
