From "Meh" to "Why didn't I look at this sooner?"

In the crowded world of Kickstarter campaigns, creators have to do everything they can to get attention.   This isn't easy but one of the first places you need to look is your widget, or as I like to call it, your flashcard.  In this case, look at Man Vs. Snake's "flashcard:"

What's sad is I've seen Man Vs. Snakes Flashcard at least three times I can remember, and each time I rolled on by.  Why?  Because it didn't grab me!  From the picture, to the title, neither grabbed me enough to keep on reading and that's a problem.  Let's compare it to a similar campaign that I actually talked to a while back: King of Arcades: 

Now when you just look at them like this you might not catch the difference, but lets analyze them a little.  Sure both are about the classic arcade era, and both are documentaries, but King of Arcades has one big thing going for it that Man Vs Snake doesn't: Simplicity.  Put simply the King of Arcades Flashcard is more effective because it's less wordy, the title doesn't have a subtitle for instance, and the picture is more effective.  These are important things when dealing with weirdos like me who cruise Kickstarter's listings on a regular basis.  The question I don't have an answer for is, how many people discover Kickstarters the way I do, by cruising the listings?  

Then I see this poster and go, why wasn't this image a part of the campaign?  Even after it was launched I'd try my best to make an edited version of this image (without the Man Vs Snake half basically) and slap it onto the video below and the flashcard above.  I think it's more effective and interesting than the large block letters and old 80's photo.  

They are entering their last week and simple changes to their campaign I don't think are going to cut it.  I think they need to go 2 minute drill, full court press, insert your own favorite sports ground game last minute drive metaphor you want here.  They're going to need to post blog entries where they can (I suggest Gamasutra and the Verge as two high traffic ones that they could post on) either on their own or by fans and interested parties such as myself.  They should be doing "Ask Me Anything" type interactive discussions, Google+ Hangouts, chat rooms, message boards, twitter back and forth pretty much anything and everything they can to drive attention to their campaign in these final days in interactive and interesting ways.  Simple links and blurbs won't cut it this late in the game. (Unless it's like Wil Wheaton or someone tweeting about them)

I think once you get the "butts in the seats" as it were and get people to see the video and look at the campaign they'll have a shot as there is a story here.  A story I think is worth telling and if King of Kong and King of the Arcades can do it, so can Man Vs Snake.  Good luck guys and I hope you're ready for crunch time because your final hard push is upon you!