Kickstarter was only 10% of Trash Goblin's budget, says Spilt Milk

Crowdfunding covered just 10% of the development budget for Spilt Milk Studios' Trash Goblin, according to Product and Strategy Director Nicolas Lovell — despite the game being widely labelled a crowdfunding success story. Players still funded over a third of the total, through the Kickstarter campaign and reinvested Early Access revenue. UK government support made up roughly another third, via the Prototype Fund, the Content Fund, and Video Game Tax Relief (VGTR) or its replacement, VGEC. The remainder came from company reserves, work-for-hire margin, and Microsoft's support for the Xbox port.

The numbers sit behind a blunt argument Lovell makes in an opinion piece: asking "what's the budget for your game?" doesn't make sense in 2026, because a modern indie budget is a moving target set by milestone-by-milestone commitments, not a fixed sum signed at the start.

How Trash Goblin got made

The funding story nearly didn't happen. Three years ago, 74 publishers had turned down the cosy shop sim — one withdrew during a meeting Spilt Milk believed was to sign the final publishing contract. The studio put its team on redundancy notice and launched a last-ditch Kickstarter in November 2023.

The timeline since then:

• November 2023 — demo release and crowdfund
• November 2024 — Early Access launch
• May 2025 — 1.0 release on Steam
• May 2026 — console release

Trash Goblin has since shipped on Steam, Epic, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, iOS and Android, with a mix of free and paid DLC.

Why Kickstarter isn't publisher replacement

Many developers treat Kickstarter as a substitute for publisher funding. It isn't, Lovell argues. Publishers are project financing: they typically pay for the majority of development, recoup most or all revenue first, then share with the developer. That model lets teams focus on making games rather than marketing and financing — but it can also kill studios, as Hooded Horse's Tim Bender has argued, when a publisher decides a project is no longer a priority.

Kickstarter, by contrast, works better as one step toward launch: a marketing tool, a community builder and a market test. Occasionally a campaign funds an entire game. More often it validates demand.

What does Gobble Inn's budget look like?

Spilt Milk's next title, Gobble Inn — a cosy rogue-like Lovell describes as "Diet Dave the Diver" — illustrates the flexible model. The answer to its budget question: "The budget for Gobble Inn is anywhere from £250,000 to £2.5 million, depending on when you ask."

The spread reflects staged commitment. A three-day game jam prototype last Christmas proved the gameplay. A polished demo followed, because Lovell believes the era of crowdfunding off a PowerPoint and the team's track record is long over. If the crowdfund succeeds, the team commits to Early Access. If Early Access demand is weak, they keep promises to players but hold back on new features. If demand is strong, as with Trash Goblin, they push to a fully localised 1.0 across platforms, plus post-launch support.

The team behind this stands at 10 people, supplemented by freelancers and specialists in audio design, marketing and merchandising.

Survival over single-source funding

Lovell frames the strategy as survival mechanics. Spilt Milk commits a set amount to the next milestone, executes on development, publishing and marketing, then adapts — Plan B, C or even D — based on player and market feedback. Publisher funding and new investment funds still exist as alternatives, but the studio wants to control its own destiny rather than let "a person in a suit" shut a game down.

Gobble Inn is currently live on Kickstarter, seeking £50,000 — the same sum that once saved Trash Goblin, and roughly a tenth of what that game actually cost.