The page http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012#category might be confusing

Kickstarter (KS) always defined on their pages that a successful project is a "successfully funded" project.

It’s hard to know how KS can calculate a successful project by the way we understand it : a project that have at least delivered all its rewards and "shipped" the product advertised.

"KS's terms of use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill." But KS do not track those data. They are the responsibility of the creator.

Hence the column "successful" just mean "successfully funded". And the column Launched just mean "launched on KS and asking for funding".

Near the end of the presentation they show the numbers on launched/successful http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012#category

Art 49% Comics 46% Dance 74% Design 40% Fashion 26% Film & Video 41% Food 38% Games 33% Music 56% Photography 36% Publishing 30% Technology 38% Theater 67%

Same data, but sorted and formatted.

  Dance         74%
  Theater       67%
  Music         56%
  Art           49%
  Comics        46%
  Film & Video  41%
  Design        40%
  Food          38%
  Technology    38%
  Photography   36%
  Games         33%
  Publishing    30%
  Fashion       26%

I assumed that in this context 'successful' just meant 'met their funding targets', as opposed to 'successfully delivered the promised product/service in a timely manner'.

Thank you for pointing out the numbers. I guess I should clarify: I wonder if the spike in the volume of Kickstarter projects has any impact on the percentage of successfully completed projects. My prediction would be that the percentage of finished projects declines a bit in 2013. Again, I hope I'm wrong.

It was certainly a big year for Kickstarter videogames, with Double Fine starting a major trend early in 2012 that just grew and grew.

I don't think it makes sense to consider "Kickstarter projects" as a whole when looking at success rate. Hardware projects are very different from software projects, which in turn are entirely unlike most tabletop RPG books which have been funded. The method of funding is the same, but the paths to completion are nothing alike.

I've been curious about percentage of success as well. I've seen numbers on this for the first time in this slideshow. See this slide: http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012#category

(Note that Kickstarter has a fairly selective application process, these figures pertain only to projects accepted on the platform. No idea what percentage of projects are accepted on Kickstarter)

You can check out Outgrow.me, a marketplace I created for successfully funded Kickstarter projects. While I haven't featured every project, I'm working on it!

Your website Outgrow.me is a very good idea.

Bravo! I wish you a lot of success and certainly redirect my friends to it.

I always thought a real shop was the missing link at KS. I understand KS concern to stop their "service" at the funding level, but from a user point of view, it’s a bit short. And from a creator point of view, KS fees of 5%+taxes+etc. might be a bit steep. One example is once the project has been funded, KS could at the very least display the link of the website creator without "nofollow".

To me it looks like KS is missing tools to help creators to really understand how they can manage their backers and their fulfilment after the funding. It would give KS so much data in this critical phase.

But it looks like KS is already working addressing this issue. In 2012 they’ve implemented the deadlines for creators and made clearer the refund for failed rewards.

On any case there is an opportunity here for third party services to KS projects that have been funded (and maybe failed as well).

I don't think it matters if it's high, I think what's more important is that it's comparable to other forms of funding. I'd rather see a few amazing non-traditional projects come to fruition and a high failure rate of funded projects than a high-success rate of mediocre and low-risk projects, though I suspect that's not a true dichotomy.