Crowdfunding the resurrection of ADOM Classic

I'm in the final stages of preparing the goals, stretch goals and reward levels for a crowd funding campaign in order to resurrect ADOM Classic development (what you have known as ADOM before ADOM II was born). Here are some more thoughts about it...

I'm right now working hard on calculating the correct amount of money to request. I'm going for an all-or-nothing Indiegogo campaign (either it gets funded or not - Indiegogo has another option I personally don't like as IMHO it does not make much sense to get less than the required amount of funding and then fail to deliver good work). I had wrestled with starting the campaign on Kickstarter in some way (by standard they only allow US citizens to start campaigns but there seem to be a few ways around that, e.g. incorporating in the US - in the end I decided that the complications do not seem to be worth the perceived advantage of Kickstarter versus Indiegogo - either there is enough of an ADOM community left to make the effort worthwhile or there isn't... both answers are ok even if I'd prefer the first one - but the platform shouldn't make much of a difference from everything I read; it's about the community).

There are quite a few things to consider in order to get that amount to fund right:

• Taxes. Above and beyond everything else. I'm still trying to determine the right taxation, the answer from a professional accountant seems to cost several hundred euros, right now I'm investigating with the tax administration itself. Anything between 0 and something like 42% so far seems a possibility. I'm really curious for that answer. Anyone have specific experiences with that in Germany (not just hear-say)?
• The crowdfunding platform costs. Indiegogo takes 4% for all-or-nothing campaigns.
• Credit card processing fees. Another 3% gone. Plus maybe a one-time fee of $25 but we can neglect that.
• Part of the funded amount usually seems to get lost due to unsuccessful payments... roughly another 5% account for that from what I can glean from blog posts (e.g. this one).
• Rewards cost money. Currently I mostly prefer virtual rewards but there will be a few physical one (e.g. a reversed postcard quest where you can get an autographed limited edition postcard, a print out of the source code for high profile donors). Again see Star Command for how they blew $10.000 of more than $34.000 just for the prizes... probably not figuring in the lost time. Or this advice here. Basically I figure that the extra donation for a reward must be at least twice its cost - otherwise the effort is just not worth it as far as I am concerned (from the funding point of view). Obviously the question is "how many donations do you lose if there not many (or no) physical rewards at all?". No answer to that yet. So costs for rewards are an extra and don't further the project directly. Thus I need a good cost estimate for all physical rewards.
• The right motivation to back a project with varying amounts of money is important. As ADOM Classic currently is free this raises a number of issues: Should future releases be pay ware and as a donor you get the game at a reduced discount (violates ADOMs current philosophy)? Should donors receive a deluxe version of the game with more features (what would the community say to that)? Should donors get early access (is that worth money)? Should potential tablet versions be paid (handling that e.g. with Apple is not trivial as they do not look kindly upon games that collect money first and then are free for some people; don't know how this is with Google and Android)?

The "losses" mentioned above that a project probably needs to be priced at least 12% above what you really absolutely need to counter losses. Plus reward costs. Not trivial to calculate as far as I am concerned.

There are many additional things to consider.

• Pricing and duration for the campaign: rewards in the $25 to $75 usually seem to be most popular (although Kickstarter absolutely recommends having rewards below $20), campaigns of slightly over 30 days usually seem to be more than enough (currently I tend towards 60 days knowing from the old days that many roguelike fans where not to big on available money thus allowing interested people to save before donating; this article seems to indicate that 30 days are more than enough - hmmmm...).
• Number of tiers and pledge amounts: According to varying accounts pledge levels below $25 do not seem to be used much, surprisingly levels like $50 and $100 get chosen more than expected (and even higher ones like $250) - so it definitely seems to be worth considering exciting higher pledge tiers.
• We still need a great and compelling video - some help already was offered since I have zero competence in making videos and I hope to get some nice art and music up, too.

And then it will be all about spreading the word and getting you, the community, involved. Exciting, very exciting... will ADOM Classic make a comeback :-) ?