Inside Steve Jackson Games’ Record-Breaking Munchkin Big Box Campaign on BackerKit

Steve Jackson Games has been publishing games, game books, and magazines for more than 40 years. They’re also one of the most prolific game creators in crowdfunding, having launched 90+ campaigns. They are perhaps best known for Munchkin, the top-selling fantasy card game in which players compete to kill monsters and steal treasure.

To commemorate the 25th anniversary of this iconic game, which has many expansions and spin-offs and won numerous awards since its release, the Steve Jackson Games team has created the Munchkin Big Box — an ultimate collector’s edition of Munchkin jam-packed with an obscene amount of goodies. Dice, bookmarks, an enamel pin, new boards, standies, 650+ cards – you name it, the Munchkin Big Box has it. They launched the crowdfunding campaign for their Big Box on BackerKit in April.

You’d expect a fan favorite like Munchkin to have a wildly successful campaign. But the Munchkin Big Box was not only a success, it also shattered Steve Jackson Games crowdfunding records, raising $1,313,127 with 9,197 backers.

Big Box, Big Wins

Steve Jackson Games made their crowdfunding debut in 2012 with the Ogre Designer’s Edition, a follow-up to a popular line of miniature wargaming tanks. The campaign raised $923,680 with 5,512 backers and was their highest-funded campaign before the Munchkin Big Box. After being a longtime user of the BackerKit Pledge Manager, they launched their first crowdfunding campaign on BackerKit – Ogre Miniature Set 4 – in January. That campaign far surpassed its $5k funding goal, raising $87,071 with 1,091 backers.

On the heels of that success, Steve Jackson Games launched the Munchkin Big Box. As the name would suggest, the Big Box is the biggest edition of Munchkin ever, and the game’s legions of fans showed up early to celebrate its release and support the project. As a result, Steve Jackson Games had the biggest Day-1 of any of their 90+ campaigns, raising over half a million dollars in 24 hours on BackerKit.

At the 24-hour mark, Steve Jackson posted an update speculating about the future of this campaign, saying that at that point, the Big Box was already the third highest-grossing crowdfunding campaign his team had run!

“If you folks beat Ogre,” he wrote. “I will be delighted and flabbergasted.”

Well, the Munchkin Big Box did beat Ogre, and by the end of the campaign, it had:

Become their most funded crowdfunding campaign to date, out of 90+ campaigns
Raised nearly 30% more funds than their most successful campaign
Gathered 40% more backers than any previous campaign they’ve ever run
Become the #7 most-funded project on BackerKit
Unlocked all of their planned stretch goals (and a few they hadn’t planned)

We love repeat success and want to help facilitate that for all creators. BackerKit has specifically designed our crowdfunding platform and services to help creators scale and launch campaigns that are better every time. It has been thrilling to see Steve Jackson Games’ continued success over the years, and we couldn’t have been more excited to see the Munchkin Big Box launch on BackerKit and reach so many impressive milestones.

“I ultimately made the call to bring Munchkin Big Box to BackerKit to see how well they could handle such a beloved title. I knew they would be able to reach fans of past campaigns, but what was equally important was finding – and bringing aboard – fans who were new to backing our campaigns. BackerKit scored a critical hit with this!”
– Meredith Placko, CEO of Steve Jackson Games

Engaging the Community

The campaign was a win for the whole fanbase. The Steve Jackson Games team was great at taking their community along for the ride, engaging with them, and asking for their input throughout the campaign.

Collaborating with backers through polls

After quickly unlocking so many stretch goals, the team reached out to their backers for ideas and collected their input through comments and polls on BackerKit.

In an update posted 20 hours before the campaign ended, Jackson joked:

“The backer base (i.e., YOU) represents a huge source of ideas. Some of them, I won’t lie, are absolutely terrible, and some of the neatest ones are financially unfeasible, at least within the timeline. But a lot of them are great. ‘All of us together are smarter than any one of us.’”

In this way, the backers helped shape the project, and the entire campaign became a collaboration between the team and their supporters.

They also used polls to stir up conversation and get a pulse on their audience with general Munchkin chat and poll questions like “Do you ever create your own cards for Munchkin?”

Building excitement through livestreams

The Steve Jackson Games team used BackerKit to host a pre-launch livestream a week before the campaign. They spent the stream hyping up the launch, answering viewer questions, and giving a peek into what backers could expect from the Big Box.

They also did several other streams throughout the campaign, including a Launch Party where they shared updates on the first few hours of the campaign, answered campaign questions, shared fan-submitted stories about their experiences playing Munchkin over the years, interviewed artist John Kovalic, and unveiled their initial stretch goals.

The Munchkin Big Box campaign was about more than raising funds; it was about creating a shared experience with fans.

One backer said of the experience:

“I really appreciate the transparency in this campaign. I’ve enjoyed reading the updates and the comments to the community about our ideas! I am so glad to have backed this campaign. I learned Munchkin early in my board game hobby and have loved it since! I knew I needed the Big Box in my collection. I’m so glad I could be a part of this as you realize the overwhelming love for this game by having so many of us back it! The stretch goals rock!”

This relationship and interplay between creator and backer is what makes crowdfunding so special. It was wonderful to witness the campaign that the Steve Jackson Games team built with their supporters, and we can’t wait to see what they cook up in the next 25 years!

“It was so wonderful to see the love fans have for Munchkin and to bring people back to the game with this collector’s edition. I do not believe we would have reached as many people as we did without BackerKit’s help and guidance from the pre-launch through the close of the campaign.”
– Meredith Placko, CEO of Steve Jackson Games