Author Brandon Sanderson, the creator of The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn series, has achieved a remarkable feat by shattering the record for the most crowdfunded tabletop games on Kickstarter. In partnership with developer Brotherwise Games, Sanderson’s Cosmere RPG campaign managed to raise a whopping $14,558,854 on Thursday from a total of 52,658 backers, translating to an average pledge of $276.48 per participant. And the campaign is still accepting late pledges, currently standing at over $14.7 million in earnings.
This accomplishment has catapulted the Cosmere campaign past the previous record holder, Frosthaven, the sequel to Gloomhaven by Cephalofair Games. That campaign raised nearly $13 million back in 2020. It also serves as a positive sign for Brooklyn-based Kickstarter, which in 2023 experienced a second consecutive year of declining revenues in the tabletop category, a segment that traditionally accounts for a third of the company’s overall crowdfunding revenue.
The popularity of the game among Sanderson fans is not at all surprising, given the vast universe at play. The Cosmere refers to the expansive universal umbrella within which many of Sanderson’s fictional series take place, including Mistborn, The Stormlight Archives, Elantris, Warbreaker, and numerous others. According to the Kickstarter description, the Cosmere RPG will initially focus on the world of The Stormlight Archives and then branch out into Mistborn down the line.
The success of the Cosmere RPG is Sanderson’s second record-breaking campaign on Kickstarter, and his third overall on that platform. His project for four secret novels remains the most-funded campaign of any kind on that platform, having amassed nearly $42 million. A campaign for Stormlight Archive-themed miniatures also raised over $4 million. Additionally, Sanderson successfully ran a wildly successful $24 million Backerkit campaign for leather-bound books earlier this year. All in all, that amounts to approximately $85 million raised through crowdfunding since 2022.