Unlocking the Power of ChatGPT and AI in Testing - A Real-World Look, present...
CAH Presentation @ PAX East
1. Cards
Against
Humanity
Thursday, March 10, 2011
I’m Max, one of the creators of Cards Against Humanity. Talk about our project, what we did well, what
mistakes we made, and how having a strong brand helped our project.
Cards Against Humanity is a party game for horrible people.
2. Thursday, March 10, 2011
We made the game a few years ago and offered it as a free download on our website. This first version
was made at Kinkos for about five bucks and hours and hours of cutting.
3. Thursday, March 10, 2011
To our surprise, the game caught on. It was translated into other languages, and people shared the
link on college campuses. We got a few thousand downloads, and some great feedback, and we
decided that we wanted to try to make a more professional version of the game.
4. Thursday, March 10, 2011
This was the product we designed - we planned to print 500 copies of the game. This version
was designed to be as cheap as possible, we figured that it would be an uphill battle to get
the game funded for any amount. Our fundraising goal was $4,000.
5. Thursday, March 10, 2011
Going in to the project, we decided to keep Cards Against Humanity as a free DIY download
on our website. For a few months before Kickstarter, we asked people for their email address,
voluntarily.
This is our Kickstarter funding graph. So you can see for the first few days there, we just
promoted the game personally - Facebook, personal websites, asking our parents to give us
$15.
• After about a week (once we had some momentum on the page), we sent an email to all of
our website subscribers telling them about the project.
• About a week after that, Kickstarter featured our project on the front page, and we really
took off.
• The other huge bump we got was the 48 hours left notification Kickstarter sent out.
6. Thursday, March 10, 2011
Going in to the project, we decided to keep Cards Against Humanity as a free DIY download
on our website. For a few months before Kickstarter, we asked people for their email address,
voluntarily.
This is our Kickstarter funding graph. So you can see for the first few days there, we just
promoted the game personally - Facebook, personal websites, asking our parents to give us
$15.
• After about a week (once we had some momentum on the page), we sent an email to all of
our website subscribers telling them about the project.
• About a week after that, Kickstarter featured our project on the front page, and we really
took off.
• The other huge bump we got was the 48 hours left notification Kickstarter sent out.
7. Thursday, March 10, 2011
Going in to the project, we decided to keep Cards Against Humanity as a free DIY download
on our website. For a few months before Kickstarter, we asked people for their email address,
voluntarily.
This is our Kickstarter funding graph. So you can see for the first few days there, we just
promoted the game personally - Facebook, personal websites, asking our parents to give us
$15.
• After about a week (once we had some momentum on the page), we sent an email to all of
our website subscribers telling them about the project.
• About a week after that, Kickstarter featured our project on the front page, and we really
took off.
• The other huge bump we got was the 48 hours left notification Kickstarter sent out.
8. Thursday, March 10, 2011
Going in to the project, we decided to keep Cards Against Humanity as a free DIY download
on our website. For a few months before Kickstarter, we asked people for their email address,
voluntarily.
This is our Kickstarter funding graph. So you can see for the first few days there, we just
promoted the game personally - Facebook, personal websites, asking our parents to give us
$15.
• After about a week (once we had some momentum on the page), we sent an email to all of
our website subscribers telling them about the project.
• About a week after that, Kickstarter featured our project on the front page, and we really
took off.
• The other huge bump we got was the 48 hours left notification Kickstarter sent out.
9. Thursday, March 10, 2011
After our project took off, we wound up with nearly four times our original goal. We went
back to the drawing board and redesigned the entire product. It’s actually being printed at an
industrial printer in China as we speak.
10. What did we do well?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
First thing we did was put a lot of thought into how we were going to present the game. This is really
important for us because we were pretty sure we had created something that nobody would want.
11. Games
Thursday, March 10, 2011
1. It’s a board game.
2. It’s a party game that you need to play with a bunch of other human beings.
3. It’s thoroughly anti-social.
12. Games
Other
people
Thursday, March 10, 2011
1. It’s a board game.
2. It’s a party game that you need to play with a bunch of other human beings.
3. It’s thoroughly anti-social.
13. Games
Other Anti-social
people humor
Thursday, March 10, 2011
1. It’s a board game.
2. It’s a party game that you need to play with a bunch of other human beings.
3. It’s thoroughly anti-social.
15. “A party game for
horrible people.”
Thursday, March 10, 2011
First thing we did was admit upfront exactly what the game was. This became a great catch phrase that
our parents hated, so we knew it was just right for us.
16. Thursday, March 10, 2011
But we couldn’t get too silly - at the end of the day, people on Kickstarter need to accept on
faith that when they back you, you’ll deliver on the project. So we used a very safe, corporate
design - the black and white helvetica - (that wound up making the cards even more
hilarious) and we incorporated Kickstarter’s branding into our own materials. Here the pre-
order button on our website is co-branded with Kickstarter’s interface.
17. Thursday, March 10, 2011
Second thing we did really well was keep our backers engaged.
We had a two-month campaign, and we wanted to make sure that our early backers helped
us promote the project as we got towards the end. So we up the $10,000 challenge - we’d
add 10 cards - and the $15,000 challenge - we’d add 50 cards. As soon as we announced
this, our backers started posting about us on BoardGameGeek, Reddit, Tumblr, Something
Awful and Twitter.
18. What did we
do wrong?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Finally, a couple of things we did wrong.
19. Thursday, March 10, 2011
Finally, a couple of things we did wrong.
The first thing we did was make a $15 reward where backers needed to add $5 in shipping.
This frightened and confused people and it was a horrible mistake. We’re still sorting this
out.
STRONG ADVICE: For the love of god - build shipping into the reward cost.
20. Thursday, March 10, 2011
Second, plan for every possibility. We thought a lot about what we would do if the project
failed, but we didn’t even entertain the possibility that it would be really successful. As a
result, we lost weeks of time as we had to scramble to find new printers and improve the
quality of the game.
21. is amazing.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Our best guess is that about half of our backers found us through the Kickstarter ecosystem
- that’s not something we planned for, and it was a great surprise.
