‘Exploding Kittens’ Raises $8.7 Million In Record-Breaking Fundraiser

Exploding Kittens is “a card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats.” It is also described as “a highly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette.” If that sounds appealing to you, perhaps appealing enough to throw money at it, you aren’t alone.

The card game’s Kickstarter campaign initially asked for $10,000, but after an outrageous amount of attention, the campaign closed at nearly $8.8 million from almost 220,000 people. The campaign broke two records: It became the most-funded game project ever as well as the most-backed project. The number of people who helped fund the Exploding Kittens card game more than doubles the number of people who funded the Reading Rainbow campaign. It is now the third most-funded project on Kickstarter in the site’s history.

Exploding Kittens was created by Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal fame, Elan Lee, and Shane Small. They, along with their social media manager, now face the gargantuan task of sending the game and all its extra rewards out to over 200,000 people.

During the team’s Reddit AMA, when asked how many people it would take to produce and distribute the game, Elan Lee replied, “Dunno, right now there’s just four of us. So we probably need more than that.”

Max Tempkin, co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, also replied in the AMA.

“We’ve been talking to Elan from the beginning about how to produce the game in a memorable and excellent way, and if there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s making a lot of dumb stuff and getting in the mail… I think we’re in a good position to take on the biggest Kickstarter project in history! But also I’m a little terrified.”

Small was responsible for the creation of the original game, although Inman jumped in to add how he came up with the exploding kitten part.

“When we were playing the original version of the game, instead of a kitten there was a bomb card, so the whole time we played everyone was stressing and worrying about ‘the bomb.’ I thought it’d be funnier to make the bomb a kitten instead, that way you wind up with a room full of people all living in fear of a kitten. Plus it’s right in the nexus of funny and horrible, which is my favorite place to be.”

Depending how much people offered, those funding Exploding Kittens will receive one deck at $20 each, a copy of the NSFW deck, and a deck signed by the creators. Five backers who contributed $500 or more will get a custom card, plus everything in the lower tiers.

Luke Crane, the community manager for games on Kickstarter, added, “Until Exploding Kittens came along, we hadn’t seen the Internet at large descend on a project and embrace it at this crazy scale.”

For those who missed the Kickstarter and still want to get their hands on an Exploding Kittens deck, the creators don’t yet have any plans for selling it outside of Kickstarter at the moment — for now their priority is getting the game to those who backed the project.

[Photo by Exploding Kittens/Kickstarter]