With crowdfunding becoming an ever increasing part of the gaming eco system these days we're launching a monthly series of articles that look at some of the more interesting current campaigns as well as a look back at recently finished ones.
Current campaigns
$2,887,000 of $900,000 goal
Torment: Tides of Numenera
InXile Entertainment
InXile Entertainment's second Kickstarter (their Wasteland 2 campaign still stands as one of the more successful campaigns to date) was off to a furious start reaching a million in just a few hours. A new record and a testament to the importance of going in to Kickstarter with a community eager to contribute. InXile simply sent out e-mails to all the backers of Wasteland 2, and a large percentage of those backers were obviously willing to pledge once again to see the spiritual successor to Planescape Torment realised at InXile.
InXile has been very clever in picking their projects for Kickstarter going with overlooked yet extremely popular properties and concepts. Remains to be seen if they can deliver what backers expect, and while everything sounds great some folks might be hestitant to hand over money to developers of such disappointing games as Hunted: The Demon's Forge and The Bard's Tale (2004).
Outlook: InXile Entertainment have already gotten a healthy amount of money, and there should be enough funds here to make something great. Still it should be noted, that even $5 million pales in comparison to the budgets of modern high-end RPGs. Of course, this is an old-school RPG - and it won't feature some of the fancy production values you'll find in other fantasy properties like Diablo III, Dragon's Age, or The Witcher. If Wasteland 2 turns out well, then InXile will have the blueprint for production of Torment - something that is sure to be of great help.
Shackleton Crater
Joe Got Game
$26,418 of $700,000 goal
Kickstarter page
Joe Got Game is a company founded by industry veteran Joseph Ybarra, one of the co-founders of EA and an executive at both Activision and Ubisoft. Now he's going at it again with a new start up, and his pitch is an intriguing one.
"Shackleton Crater is a tablet and PC (Android, iOS, Windows 8, Windows, Mac) lunar colonization strategy game for one to four players. Using real lunar data and plausible science-fiction, Shackleton Crater tells the 100 year saga of colonization and exploration of the Moon. Ultimately, we want to bring a vision of space travel to the world through the medium of video games. We are currently in the pre-alpha phase of development and we are actively doing pre-production work on the design, technology and art."
Outlook: The Shackleton Crater campaign hasn't really gotten much traction and the $700,000 looks very distant. Even if Ybarra has a stellar record, he's not recognised as a creative force, and his game looks very unique and doesn't really come across as a spiritual successor to anything. Typically you'd want at least one if not both of these factors to succeed with a lofty Kickstarter target. Perhaps Ybarra is mainly using Kickstarter as a means to gauge interest, perhaps they're looking for other ways to finance the project - but for now it looks as if this pitch will fail.
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues
Portalarium
$1,098,096 of $1,000,000 goal
Kickstarter page
Lord British returns to his roots with Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, and he is definitely targetting his old Ultima followers with the effort. Already funded, Shroud of the Avatar now looks to capture some stretch goals. I wonder if there's a stretch goal in there that will send Garriott to space again...
The Gallery: Six Elements
CloudHead Games
$16,231 of $65,000 goal
Kickstarter page
Oculus Rift, the successful Kickstarted VR helmet, is getting software support with The Gallery: Six Elements and CloudHead Games. Described as a "first-person adventure" where you explore and experience six very different worlds - this is certainly something different. The basic target of $65,000 seems within reach, so perhaps it stands a chance. Backers who have spent their hard earned cash on Oculus Rift may be inclined lend a helping hand for some software to go with their fancy headpiece.
The Adventures of Dash
Robotoki
$26,098 of $400,000 goal
Kickstarter page
Robotoki, founded by former Infinity Ward man Robert Bowling, pitched a rather interesting looking platformer. But isn't it ill advised to try and fund a platform title on Kickstarter? Well, yes it would certainly seem so. The campaign is struggling badly at this point and seems to have stalled. The concept could very well find backing in some way as it seems well thought out, but the Kickstarter crowd leans heavily towards long sought after sequels, spiritual successors and games
Last month's campaigns
Dreamfall Chapters
Red Thread Games
$1,538,425 of $850,000 goal (funded)
Dreamfall Chapters is an interesting Kickstarter for a couple of different reasons. Dreamfall Chapters is the conclusion of The Longest Journey saga and the rights still belong to former developer Funcom. However, as Funcom came upon rough times (following the launch of The Secret World) and had to let a huge chunk of their staff go - creative director Ragnar Tornquist formed Red Thread Games, and in a deal where he remained attached to The Secret World he was allowed to go ahead and develop the conclusion to the popular Longest Journey/Dreamfall series. It shows that if there's a will to create something, then maybe the crowd can work as a catalyst to finance a game that would otherwise not be made (due to financial strains at the rights-holder).
Adventure games are, along with role playing games, the most successful genres (well space is another popular genre) on Kickstarter and for crowdfunding in general. So it came as no surprise that Red Thread were able to find the money they were looking for. At the start of the project they received some grants for a start up Red Thread appear uncannily stable. They came up short of the stretch goal with Android and iOS ports, but frankly I think we'll see those at some point as it makes financial sense. It's the typical trapping of stretch goals - something that makes sense for developers to create may not entince backers to spend more money down the stretch.
Victory
Petroglyph Games
$29,471 of $700,000 goal (cancelled)
No. It wasn't to be for Petroglyph Games and Victory. What sounded like a nice idea - a slightly cartoony (think of Battlefield Heroes or Team Fortress 2) take on the African front of World War II. Pitched as a team-based real-time strategy game with heavy emphasis on tactics (as there was no base building). Perhaps the ill-fated End of Nations project turned people off of Victory, perhaps the genre just didn't have the same nostalgia factor as some of the more successful Kickstarters. Petroglyph have the heritage of the Command & Conquer series, the music of Frank Klepacki, and a bunch of fairly successful games in the last decade or so. But perhaps they haven't nurtured a fanbase large enough to help them when they most needed it.
The final update on the campaign page gave us a glimmer of hope:
"We want to gratefully thank all of our backers for your support of the game, and to thank everyone who sent us feedback about it. We've listened carefully to what the Kickstarter community has said, and it has given us many ideas of games we could do in the future. Additionally, multiple game publishers have expressed interest in Victory, based on your support, and we hope to still bring Victory to you with their help."
Petroglyph has been forced to lay off staff following the loss of the End of Nations contract, and not being able to find funding for Victory wouldn't help matters. Perhaps Petroglyph can find a publisher for Victory (and I would assume the game would then be transformed into a free-to-play offering - as seems to be the formula these days) or perhaps they will go down the same route as another recent Kickstarter failure - Gas Powered Games who were picked up by Wargaming following their failed campaign.
Death, Inc
Ambient Studios
Kickstarter page
£122,711 of £300,000 goal (Funding unsuccessful)
Guildford-based indie developer Ambient Studios' ambitious and visually appealing grim reaper sim may have failed to reach its target, but having almost 4,000 strangers pledge money towards your game is nothing to scoff at. Hopefully the team will find another way of funding this game as we're intrigued to see it reach its full potential and if the last message on the campaign page is anything to go by the lads haven't given up.
"We would like to assure you all that you haven't seen the last of Death Inc! We are working extremely hard to make this beautiful, bonkers, original game a reality for you all."
At the Gates
Conifer Games
Kickstarter page
$106,283 of $40,000 goal (funded)
At the Gates, or Jon Shafer's At the Gates, achieved more than twice the funding it went looking for and perhaps that should come as no surprise. Shafer, lead designer on Civilization V, has a decent following in strategy circles and his modest asking price for a game that would appear to be a more focused Roman era Civilization style game that focuses more on individual units and delves deeper into certain areas was sure to find backers amongst the hardcore strategy crowd. The very lengthy, personal and well written updates were also a bit different than most updates you'd find for campaigns - a nice change of pace, and not as focused on features or selling the product. This category of niche product is a good fit for Kickstarter alongside some of the more ginormous efforts of larger studios.
Back to Bed
Bedtime Gaming
Kickstarter page
$13,312 of $12,000 goal (funded)
Back at Nordic Game last May we met some of the indie competition finalists, including two members of the student dev team behind Back to Bed. Recently they took to Kickstarter to find funds in order to fully realise the concept and release it commercially across various platforms. It's a small game, it's something different and new, and it would seem they pretty much asked for what they could get. Obviously $13,000 wouldn't have gone far towards creating a game from scratch, but thankfully Bedtime were already well on their way.