monetization - Crowdfunding an indie game. What should I offer back?

I have seen many indie games making money for development using crowd funding (Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, et cetera). Some of the games will offer something back. For example, in an RPG game, you might get an NPC character based on you. Some other projects simply give you the final version for free.

Apart from actually finishing the game, which is probably the main reason why anyone would want to give you the money, what should my reward strategy be?

Answer

First of all you obviously need a game that people would want to play. Without that, no matter what you offer you will likely not get much support. So lets assume you have such a game and now you want to attract people.

Looking at the most successful game projects on Kickstarter (like Torment: Tides of Numenera or Planetary Annihilation) you will see a common pattern:

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  full game for some basic pledge (about 15-25$) - this is the bread and butter and kind of obvious. You simply offer the game for "retail" price.

  
  


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  full game + some goodies (soundtrack, artwork, developer diary) for a bit larger pledge - might not be the best thing for an indie game (i doubt you are going to bring a world class composer to make a soundtrack for you, but hey, who knows?) but you can still consider this.

  
  


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  full game + goodies + slight involvement in development - now this is what you should probably definetly do. Allow the early backers to get into some "backers only" forum where you can discuss game design, where they can come up with suggestions etc. A bit of a higher pledge should ensure you will get only people seriously interested in your game which will not flood your forums with bad ideas.

  
  



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  full game + goodies + more involvement in development - allow them to name characters or something, add them to credits. Many people like this kind of things and are willing to pledge quite a bit of money. And its also a nice thing to do.

  
  


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  full game + goodies + early alpha/beta access - this is pretty much self explanatory. If someone is willing to invest so much into your project you should really allow him to see the product as soon as possible so he can see how good his investment was!

  
  

Obviously, depending on the size of your project some things might not be doable for you, but i think the general idea is clear. If you can also have some stretch goals which will up the tension as the funding campaign progresses that can help a lot too.

Best of luck!