A Cape Town marketing agency has helped steer the largest crowdfunding campaign in gaming history, as the Cyberpunk Trading Card Game surged past US$28-million — roughly R469-million — on Kickstarter, drawing support from more than 50 000 backers across the globe. For South Africa’s creative sector, the story is bigger than one viral campaign: it is another reminder that local talent is increasingly shaping global entertainment launches from right here at the southern tip of Africa.
The campaign, which went live on 17 March 2026, set out with a modest US$100 000 funding target. It smashed that goal in eight minutes, then kept climbing at a pace few in the crowdfunding world could have imagined. By the time it closed a month later, the project had become a runaway success, with late pledges still flowing through Kickstarter’s pledge manager and pushing the final tally even higher.
At the centre of that momentum is Pulling Power Media, an 18-person Cape Town agency that handled the front-end marketing for the launch. The company worked alongside US studio WeirdCo, which developed the game under licence from CD Projekt Red, the Polish powerhouse behind Cyberpunk 2077. The new tabletop title is the first physical card-game adaptation of the Cyberpunk universe, bringing characters and storylines from both the game and the animated series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners into trading card form.
For fans, the debut set — “Welcome to Night City” — is loaded with recognisable names and factions. Characters such as V, Johnny Silverhand, Jackie Welles and Judy Alvarez appear in the game, while the starter decks “The Heist” and “Embracing Power” pit mercenaries against the Arasaka corporation. WeirdCo’s design team also comes with serious credentials, with experience across Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Lorcana and Marvel Snap.
The funding structure ranged from an entry-level US$49 tier for two starter decks to premium bundles costing US$999 or more, complete with metal cards, custom dice and exclusive promo items. That spread helped the campaign appeal to casual collectors as well as dedicated tabletop players willing to spend heavily on limited-edition merchandise.
According to Kyle Puller, founder and CEO of Pulling Power Media, the campaign’s reach was built long before the public got to click “pledge”. He told TechCentral that the agency has now been involved in the number one, two and three highest-funded Kickstarters of all time in the games category.
Puller said the firm initially underestimated how big tabletop campaigns could become. Its first major games Kickstarter was Frosthaven, followed by Cosmere in 2024, which raised US$15-million and briefly held the top spot before Cyberpunk overtook it. Across the last six years, he says the business has worked on about 150 campaigns, raising more than US$200-million in total, with an average of over US$1-million per campaign.
Cyberpunk Trading Card Game success puts Cape Town agency on the global map
Pulling Power’s role in the Cyberpunk Trading Card Game campaign focused on creative production, paid media targeting and audience attribution in the run-up to launch. The agency also relied on Launch Oracle, its in-house performance-tracking platform, which allowed the team to measure campaign behaviour in far greater detail than Kickstarter’s own tools would normally permit.
That data-driven approach appears to have paid off. The campaign collected 153 000 leads before launch, with around half of those potential supporters funnelled into the game’s Discord community. By the time backers were asked to open their wallets, WeirdCo already had a pre-launch audience of about 63 000 people. The average backer spend worked out at roughly US$500 per person, a striking figure that helps explain how the campaign raced ahead of previous records.
Puller was careful not to present the result as a simple victory for marketing alone. He said the scale of Cyberpunk as a brand mattered, but also pointed out that big intellectual properties do not automatically guarantee crowdfunding success. In his view, the performance came from the mix of smart strategy, strong creative execution and a highly engaged fan base.
He credited the broader ecosystem around the project too, including CD Projekt Red, WeirdCo’s internal community team, international livestreams and the sending of “alpha kit” sample boxes to trading card influencers ahead of the campaign. In a crowded global market, those touchpoints helped build credibility and anticipation well before launch day.
Pulling Power itself turns eight years old this year, and its client list already includes heavyweight names such as Marvel, DC Comics, Warner Bros and The Lord of the Rings franchise. The agency’s team is split across creatives, paid media specialists, developers, account managers and social media staff, but despite its international footprint, Puller says the company remains relatively under the radar at home.
He noted that the agency is better known in tabletop circles abroad than in South Africa, where it has yet to build the same visibility it enjoys internationally. Puller also suggested that local creative talent often operates without enough recognition, even while producing work that regularly impresses overseas clients.
As we reported earlier, South African creative businesses are increasingly punching above their weight in niche global industries, and this campaign is a clear example. Puller believes the country’s reputation is often underestimated by outsiders, who are frequently surprised by the standard of work coming out of Cape Town. For him, being South African has never been a handicap — in fact, he says, it has become a competitive advantage.
That message matters in an industry where creative services are often judged against much larger markets in the US and Europe. Puller argues that the local sector has been innovating quietly, sometimes “in a bubble”, while building the kind of skills that global franchises now rely on. The result is a Cape Town agency helping deliver a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign tied to one of gaming’s most recognisable universes.
For South Africa’s digital and creative economy, the takeaway is hard to ignore. Pulling Power Media has shown that local agencies can compete at the highest level when strategy, data and execution line up. And with Cyberpunk Trading Card Game now officially the biggest games Kickstarter of all time, Cape Town has found itself at the centre of a global entertainment milestone.