The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2015
Exploding Kittens: a joke card game raises $8.78M — Kickstarter's most-backed project
Three creators turned 'Russian Roulette with kittens' into a card game for people who hate card games — 219,382 backers pledged $8,782,571.
Exploding Kittens, LLC
What it had to solve
In early 2015, cartoonist Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal), game designers Elan Lee and Shane Small wanted to publish a physical card game with no publisher and no retail shelf — just Inman's huge web-comic audience and a 30-day Kickstarter.
How it works
In January 2015, cartoonist Matthew Inman, whose web comic The Oatmeal had millions of readers, teamed up with game designers Elan Lee and Shane Small to crowdfund a party card game. Its one-line pitch — 'a card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats' — came with Oatmeal-drawn cards and a 30-day Kickstarter.
The game plays like Russian Roulette: players draw cards until someone pulls an exploding kitten and loses the round, while action cards let players defuse the kitten, skip a turn, attack opponents or peek at the deck. The campaign ran from January 20 to February 19, 2015, with stretch goals unlocking new cards as pledges climbed.
It ended as the most-backed project in Kickstarter history: 219,382 backers pledged $8,782,571, more than doubling the previous backer record and making it the most-funded game the platform had ever seen. Kickstarter announced the record the night the campaign closed.
The first roughly 220,000 orders shipped in July 2015 from Exploding Kittens, LLC, the company the three creators formed around the project — a joke about exploding cats turned into a real, order-fulfilling business.
Why it lands
- The pitch was one absurd sentence anyone could repeat, so fans did the marketing for free.
- A famous web-comic audience already trusted the creators, converting fandom into pledges.
- Russian Roulette mechanics were instantly explainable and fun to demo in a two-minute video.
- Stretch goals turned funding milestones into new cards, giving backers reasons to share the campaign.
What it did
The campaign closed at $8,782,571 from 219,382 backers — the most-backed project in Kickstarter history, more than double the previous record, and the most-funded game ever on the platform. Decks began shipping in July 2015, starting with roughly 220,000 orders.
What you can take
Free web comics built the audience; a one-line joke sold the product. Fans can't distribute what they can't explain, so keep the pitch absurd, visual and instantly playable.
Since then
The 30-day campaign closed on February 19, 2015, and decks began shipping in July, starting with roughly 220,000 orders. The three creators incorporated as Exploding Kittens, LLC, and the deck became the seed of a game company that kept publishing expansions. The campaign's backer record became the benchmark for creator-led crowdfunding on Kickstarter.
Sources
- Exploding Kittens Is the Most-Backed Project of All Time
- Exploding Kittens, the most-funded game in Kickstarter history, is now shipping
- Exploding Kittens — A card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats
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