Kickstarter has become a vital part of the tabletop gaming industry. It serves both the start up dreamers who want to make their first game and larger interests that want to reach a broader audience while also gaining advance capital to offset costs of a big release. Many games and gaming companies would have never gotten off the group withut the help of Kickstarter.
That makes the Head of Games at Kickstarter an important position. Asher McClennahan joined the company in that position a few months ago. He sat down with me for an interview where we discussed how he views his role and what he can do to help tabletop creators no matter the current economic climate.
“The thing that is constantly running through my mind,” said McClennahan, “what I am always talking to people internal to Kickstarter about and people in the community is being of service to them. It is very important to me that Kickstarter as a platform and just me as a person are actively serving this community.”
Part of McClennahan’s concept of service is giving back to a hobby that helped him. During the strange days in which we live, it’s important to step away from the constant feed of troubling news. Tabletop games give people a chance to break away for a few minutes or hours and reconnect with those most important to their lives.
“I think that in a post pandemic world,” said McClennahan, “with the climate, the economic political climate that exists in 2025. It is really easy to spend a ton of time doom scrolling or trying to find ways to escape and cope with whatever it is that we are dealing with as humans. The thing that really saves me from a lot of that was games and so creating opportunities for play I think is one of the most important things that we as people and as a society can do.”
One of the first steps that McClennahan took to help creators to use the platform was integrate pledge manager assistance after the ledge drive was completed. After a Kickstarter, the creator either had to manage getting the product to their backers on their own or to turn to a third-party service that took an additional cut of the pledge money. Now backers can use an integrated service to help fulfill their promises.
I think the big one is how streamlined everything is not just from crowdfunding to pledge manager,” said McClennahan. “Obviously there’s huge benefits and just being able to stay in one ecosystem. I am so impressed by really genuinely they are very, very cognizant of how easy it would be to over inundate creators with pledge management features and guides and walkthroughs that sort of overcomplicate the reality. What I really love about our pledge manager is how simple and streamlined it is. I think the right buttons are in the right places that you expect them to be. From a feature perspective, the big reason that the Kickstarter pledge manager is so useful and helpful is that it has all of the sort of table stakes features that most creators expect.”
The main feature he was excited about was helping creators figure out taxes on whatevr funds are raised. It’s a common misperception that the end number of a Kickstarter is just a big pile of money for the creators to use however they wish. In reality, creators have to pay start up costs, give Kickstarter a cut and then keep some aside for when the IRS comes calling next year.
“It is really robust in its reporting and in remitting of of taxes to try to make that Process much, much easier for creators,” said McClennahan.
McClennahan sees room for all kinds of scales of Kickstarters under his watch. Some supporters enjoy being ablr to easily be notified when their favorite creator is preparing something new. Others like to wander the site like a physical store and see what new things they can help fund.
“In terms of what we see on the platform in like a macro view I’m really excited about what’s happening on Kickstarter,” said McClennahan. “Tabletop games are at an 80%+ success rate so far on Kickstarter this year, which is incredible. There is there is a group of people who expect sort of more high fidelity Kickstarter pages and things like that. There were also still a lot of people that go on the website. You know, we have many millions of people hitting this website every single, every month and I think what’s cool is like there are still lots of people who are on Kickstarter, backers who are there for the discovery aspect, to see a small game and really let it come to life, and I think that’s one thing that I really love about Kickstarter. You can have both. There is like a dichotomy that exists within Kickstarter itself, where it’s like these huge campaigns featuring major IP or very well known creators that are making these really high fidelity pages.”
Recent years have been a challenge to tabetop creators. Shipping has become more expensive and less reliable, the market is full of games vying for attention and the current state of the economy is very volatile. There’s no easy solution but there are steps creators can take to minimize their vulnerability.
“If you’re a creator and you’re looking at tariffs I think the reality is just pay attention,” said McClennahan. “There’s amazing communities of people out there that are really talking about it every day. They’re being very public and vocal about what the status of all of this is, and you know we have a couple of articles to help you understand. Tariffs shoot up. Don’t panic, we’ve seen that go back and forth many, many times already. We don’t know how it’s all going to end up. There’s like, thereyour shipping costs that you will you will dictate there? There’s a couple of levers that you can pull. There is the tariff manager if you using the Kickstarter pledge manager. There are ways that you can pass those costs on. When you’re doing the budgeting and the projections after your campaign, before you launch, consider all of the scenarios that are possible including the worst case. You should have a sense of understanding where the tariffs are today. Build it in your calculations that looks at those manufacturing costs with a with a 30% tariff, with a 54% tariff, with a 45% tariff. Just so that you can more deeply understand what situation you might be walking into. Try to build your tiers and pricing model such that provides value to your backers but also honors the fact that there is a little bit of unpredictability. Now, I’m not saying double the price of your your tiers and call it a day, but I think really being eyes wide open before you launch your campaign will help decrease the level of panic that you might experience afterwards. If you can arm yourself with the knowledge of your costs and and potential outcomes, you are most well equipped to weather any storm that is coming.”
