When I got my eyes on Dinosaur Island for the first time, I couldn’t help but feel puzzled. Chaotic looking boards. Meeples straight from some ancient game lost in the depths of your childhood basement. And a kaleidoscope of neonlike colors attacking you from all sides.
The game managed to collect 500 000 USD in its first Kickstarter campaign, only to get yet another one a few months later, since it was sold out everywhere (apart from overpriced online auctions). It seems that even the authors were surprised, especially considering their initial goal of 15 000 USD. What’s the reason for phenomena like this? And how is the game itself? Let’s find out.
A Nostalgic Journey
Tamagotchis. Power Rangers. Macarena. Neon slap bracelets. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Fortune tellers. Feeling it already? If you grew up during the 90s, you almost certainly do. Most of current thirty somethings have a soft spot for these things. We keep coming back to some of our pleasant childhood memories and put on a nostalgic smile. The nostalgia business is getting bigger and bigger. Just look at Netflix in the past few years. Stuff like “Stranger Things” or “Everything Sucks” keeps popping up and gets more and more popular. Dinosaur Island seems to target a similar audience.
Prehistoric Obsession
I still haven’t mentioned one of biggest crazes of the 90s. You guessed already, haven’t you? Jurassic Park was one of the largest franchises at the time. The movie started a worldwide obsession with prehistoric animals. Kids kept collecting figurines, plastic skeletons and comic books. And let’s not kid ourselves: “Dinosaur Island” sounds oddly similar to “Jurassic Park”.
The game takes inspiration not only from the prehistoric beast theme, but also from board games popular 3 decades ago. Dino shaped meeples feel nostalgic and cute, like something straight out of a cereal box. Dinosaur Island looks like a game you’d play on saturday with your siblings and friends.
A Perfect Commercial
The way authors promote Dinosaur Island is also a sight to behold. They seem to take everything kitschy and silly that the 90s TV had, and use it as a fuel for the campaign. Boxart complements the game perfectly with its violet, neon, poster-like appearance.
Promotional video for their second Kickstarter campaign is the best example of this. A bunch of people play the game together. Each of them overreacts a lot and looks almost drunk on excitement. It feels like some long lost 90s sitcom scene or a forgotten toy ad taken to the extreme. Effect? Fantastic (and hazardous for your sides).
Available in Limited Quantity
Apart from stylistic choices, there is one more factor to the success of Dinosaur Island. Exclusivity. While the game was available in stores for a while, the edition offered there was the most barebones one. Every upgrade, from better meeples and dice to additional cards, was left in Kickstarter versions. And even the basic retail box quickly became a rarity. The feeling of an exclusive, hard to get product stayed with the game and works as an ongoing motivation for people who are on the fence. Who knows how much It’ll cost a year from now?
Dinosaur Island – a Marketing Case Study
Finally, let’s have a look at the game itself. Despite all visual chaos, the rules aren’t actually that hard to grasp. After a few plays Dinosaur Island starts to feel less overwhelming and grows on you. The mechanics aren’t anything to write home about but you’ll still get plenty of hours of fun from it.
Dinosaur Island is a great study of how to sell your game in a creative way. Mixing nostalgia for good old 90s, with tons of humor and creating a product that’s available only for a limited time works wonders. The second campaign, that involves the superior Kickstarter version of the old game, with one singleplayer and one multiplayer expansion added is currently sitting on more than a million dollars, doubling the previous result.
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