Assessing the Importance of Content Versus Design for Successful Crowdfunding of Health Education Games: Online Survey Study.

Background: Health education games make health-related tasks enjoyable and interactive, thereby encouraging user participation. Entrepreneurs and health educators can leverage online crowdfunding platforms, such as Kickstarter, to transform their innovative ideas into funded projects.

Objective: This research focuses on health education game initiatives on Kickstarter. Through an online user survey, it aims to understand user perceptions and evaluate the significance of 8 distinct components that may influence the success of such crowdfunding initiatives.

Methods: A total of 75 participants evaluated games using 8 dimensions: game rules, learning objectives, narrative, content organization, motivation, interactivity, skill building, and assessment and feedback. The survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis, exploratory factor analysis, the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, and multivariate analysis.

Results: Exploratory data analysis showed that, among the 8 dimensions, skill building, content organization, and interactivity were the top-ranking dimensions most closely associated with crowdfunding health education game. The 8 dimensions can be grouped into 3 categories from the exploratory factor analysis: game content-, instruction-, and game design-related components. Further statistical analysis confirmed the correlation between these dimensions with the successful crowdfunding of health education games.

Conclusions: This empirical analysis identified critical factors for game proposal design that can increase the likelihood of securing crowdfunding support.