Crowdfunding Campaigns That Capitalize on 80s and 90s Nostalgia

It was 21 years ago when the first successful campaign to raise funds for a cause happened online.  Even with the first inception of crowdfunding, the one thing that contributed to its success was nostalgia.  It was in 1997 when British rock band Marillion that was popular during the 80s, created a method to raise funds via the internet so they could have money to organise a reunion tour in North America.  With their fans feeling so much nostalgia, the band was able to raise as much as $60,000.  What Marillion didn’t know back then was that they had started an innovative idea that would later become known as crowdfunding.

Nostalgia over Innovation

When crowdfunding finally became a great place for startup businesses and companies, many great innovators made their works more visible through crowdfunding platform or sites, hoping to turn them into reality and then earn profits upon achieving the needed funding.  Said platforms that are popular today are Indiegogo and Kickstarter. One major key that experts point out for startup companies to become successful with their crowdfunding campaigns is to have a product that’s ground-breaking and original – preferably something people have never seen before.  Well, that was before and this is now – some recent major successful crowdfunding campaigns were for things we have seen before.  We are talking about products that were popular in 80s and 90s being revived through the help of crowdfunding campaigns.  It seems the advice of being innovative does not apply to this scenario.  It is safe to say that with crowdfunding, sometimes you also have to ride with the trend.

Atari VCS Retro Console

One of the many past times of today’s kids and young adults these days is playing video games via their mobile phones, tablets, computers, or gaming consoles such as Sony Playstation, Nintendo Wii, and Microsoft Xbox.  Before the birth of these gaming innovations, there was the Atari home gaming console first, called the Atari Video Computer System.  People – young and adult alike – went gaga over Atari VCS in the 80s.  However, the company faced decline when the ‘Video Game Crash of 1983’ happened.  Also called the ‘Atari Shock’ in Japan, the industry that was selling video games in billions abruptly declined in sales because of market saturation.

A worldwide trend to bring back things from the 80s and 90s is happening these days – from fashion to television shows, and of course, video games.  One demand from people is to bring back the Atari VCS, and the company has heeded the call and launched a crowdfunding campaign last March 30, 2018 on the Indiegogo website.  The target of the campaign is $100,000, and perhaps nostalgia has pushed people to donate more because they want to bring back the father of the gaming consoles. In the end, the campaign broke records and earned an approximate $2 million.  The new Atari VCS still maintains its retro console design, is built on Ubuntu Linux, and will have a tag price of $299 for the base unit and joystick, while the base unit alone costs $199.

Bringing Back 90s Pogs through the POGs Augmented Reality App

If you are a kid of the late 80s and early 90s (or should I just give a shout out to all the millenials out there?), you very well know what Pogs are.  Show them to oldies and they will probably tell you that they are designer milk bottle caps.  To play the Pog pieces, you have to throw and slap them on the ground, with the intent of making your opponent’s pieces flip.  Well, if you have them stored somewhere, it’s definitely time to take them out again because you will soon be introduced to the new face of Pogs game play, the new Pogs augmented reality app.  How does it work, you ask?  You will need a phone to install the app, as well as physical Pog pieces.

Compton Technologies, a company based in London that started the crowdfunding campaign to make the app available to everyone, has created a new version of Pogs game play where you scan your Pogs to create digital versions of them on an app in your phone.  Cool, right?  The goal amount of Compton Technologies’ crowdfunding campaign is $50,000, and just a week after its launch it has already collected $6,000.  With a few days days to go, we are pretty sure the company will reach its target amount, probably more since they are capitalizing on nostalgia.  Are we looking at another mobile game craze like what happened with Pokemon Go?