A small crowdfunded survival game has become an enormous Kickstarter success thanks to the magic of Harry Potter. And also Google.
Day of Dragons from new developer Beawesome Games launched its modest funding campaign on 2nd September. It asked for $12k.
“Have you ever thought it’d be cool to play as a Dragon? How about online with other players who are also Dragons?” the game’s campaign page reads. “Have you ever thought, it’d be cool to breathe fire, fly, survive as a Dragon? Welcome to Day of Dragons.”
Day of Dragons – It’s snowing in the Redwoods Trailer Watch on YouTube
Over the first 48 hours, the campaign raised $1300. Things looked pretty good, although interest had begun to… tail off.
And then Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, from Pokémon Go maker Niantic, launched its “Day of the Dragons” in-game event. Suddenly, a lot of people were searching for the term on Google. And Day of Dragons’ Kickstarter page became its top search result.
As industry analyst Thomas Bidaux noted, 7th September – the day of Niantic’s event – saw Day of Dragons rake in $13k on Kickstarter, more than enough to hit the campaign’s month-long target on a single day.
By the time the month was up, Day of Dragons had raised $500k, 41 times its initial target.
It’s fair to say the developer was happy by the response – though it has not publicly thanked Harry Potter for lending a helping hand.
“Thank you all so much for your amazing support to our game. Wow,” lead developer Jonathan “Jao” Slabaugh wrote. “$500k?? That’s unbelievable. We only asked for $12k! We never asked for this! You all are so incredibly generous. Thank you so much.