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Make My MMO: Crowdfunding February 23 - March 1, 2014
This week's Make My MMO adds Trials of Ascension's Light the Forge campaign, which is Chaos Forge's company-specific (i.e., non-Kickstarter) bid to raise $40,000. The fantasy sandbox canceled its initial Kickstarter campaign because it "failed in showing its true potential," according to a news posting on the ToA website. If the Light the Forge drive is successful, the devs will use the $40,000 to finish the game's demo and return to Kickstarter in the hopes of attracting additional funding. Head past the cut for a breakdown of other crowdfunded MMO projects for the week ending March 1st, 2014.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding February 9 - 22, 2014
In the world of MMOs, no news is not necessarily good news -- especially when it comes to crowdfunding. Silence often denotes a lack of progress on a game, and that can certainly make investors nervous. Thankfully, many games provide players with updates that we, in turn, provide for you here. If no news is bad, then news is good, right? Unfortunately, this doesn't hold true. In the case of Star Rider and Hot Rod Hustle, the news is that neither met its funding goals. So we say farewell to these two games from Make My MMO. And Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's campaign was chock-full of news, but in the end, its Kickstarter didn't succeed either; Pantheon, however, is continuing the fundraising effort on its official site. At least some news is good! War of Omens also leaves this round up, but for different reasons: Players can hop in and play the game! Likewise, HEX: Shards of Fate and StarCraft Universe move on now that both have moved into testing. Another sandbox, Terrayn, also joins the Kickstarter ranks. To hear other good news, keep reading.
Crowdfund Bookie, January 2014: 63 percent nosedive
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the month and produces pretty charts for you to look at. Any momentum maintained in the video game crowdfunding space in December 2013 was dashed just one month later. Gaming projects for the month totaled only $845,876, a 63.71 percent decrease from December's $2,331,061. Just 20 projects were funded during a five-week January period, half the amount that were successful in December. The number of backers for projects also saw a 79.58 percent downturn, plummeting to 12,712 funders. Unlike previous months, there wasn't a marquee project to prop the crowdfunding arena's totals up, as the top earner was Taitale Studios' 4X strategy game Novus Aeterno, which hauled in $268,875. Another game stole our attention for the month: MMA Federation. Much like the infamously suspicious funding patterns of Gridiron Thunder, the MMA-focused mobile social game managed to earn $163,924 thanks to only 159 backers, an outlandish average of $1,030.97 per funder. As expected, the odd funding averages of MMA Federation significantly impacted the end results for January, as removing the game's data for the month drops the mean average pledge per backer amount from $66.54 to $54.33. Without MMA Federation's sales data, January's projects also added up to 281.3 percent of their funding goals. Both impacted data points show that January's projects still stayed consistent with the funding trends seen in our past Bookies; pledges average out to roughly $50 and backers tend to push projects well past their goal amounts. Head past the break to see the month's top five projects and a breakdown by genre.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding January 12 - 25, 2014
After a sleepy holiday season, the crowdfunding crowd has woken up and gotten down to business. And amidst that new bustle of activity, Make My MMO's ranks are altering a bit. Two games leave our listing, but each for different reasons; the cross-platform space sim Space Unfolding folded after missing its goal, and Face of Mankind moved along to Betawatch to join the ranks of the games in testing. And now that War of Omens' campaign has wrapped up, it moves into the fully funded category. Some campaigns have really kicked into high gear. Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen joined the crowdfunding race and has delivered a slew of nearly daily news. Novus AEterno has nearly tripled its goal and is closing in on yet another stretch goal these final days of its campaign, while The Repopulation has also blown away its initial goal and is aiming for its eigth stretch goal (not to mention revealed plenty of juicy new bits). A smaller title, Tales From The Strange Universe, is more than halfway to its modest goal with a week left. And newcomer Star Rider also jumps on the Kickstarter bandwagon. Unfortunately, others aren't faring as well. Things aren't looking promising for Antilia or Universe Rush, whose campaigns end soon and are still over $85K and $98K short of their respective goals. Want more details on these stories or an update on all the already-funded projects? We've got the round-up right here.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding December 29, 2013 - January 11, 2014
Was 2013 the year of Kickstarter? Whatever you think personally about the funding model, you can't argue with the fact that over $480 million was pledged through the crowdfunding platform in the last calendar year. That's definitely one hunk of change! But whether or not that figure translates into a tidal wave of awesome games has yet to be seen; the jury will remain out until even more funded games actually release and players get to experience what they backed. As for specific MMO news this past fortnight, the bulk of it involves new titles vying for a slice of 2014's crowdfunding pie. The CCG War of Omens has already grabbed a piece; it met its goal and has moved on to stretch goals for the last couple of days. Other hopefuls include more two space strategy games. Learn more about all of these, as well as the news from the funded front, right here in Make My MMO.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding December 15 - 28, 2013
'Tis the season... but not for news! With minds focused on the holidays, it looks as if not much happened in the realm of crowdfunding since our last Make My MMO update. Just how slow was it? It was so slow that Star Citizen did not announce earning another $2 million. A few tidbits did, however, did trickle out. Novus AEterno met its goal within 102 hours and still has a month of funding ahead. On the other hand, Empires of Tahn followed what seems to be the new norm: cancel the project before getting the dreaded "unsuccessful" label. And one title that is already strong in its development has jumped back into the crowdfunding realm; The Repopulation aims to incorporate even more features into the sandbox. There are also a couple dev blogs to speak of and a few odds and ends, all of which you will find rounded up for you below.
Novus AEterno announces Kickstarter campaign, expected to launch in 'next six months'
Taitale Studios has announced today that its upcoming MMORTS, Novus AEterno, is nearing completion and is "expected to launch within the next six months." In order to gather funding for the final stages of the game's development, the studio has launched a Kickstarter campaign that aims to raise $200,000 US over the course of the next 30 days. Of the campaign, Taitale CEO Nick Nieuwoudt states that the studio is "excited to make the supportive gamer community part of the [development] process and part of our success." If Novus AEterno sounds like the kind of game at which you'd like to throw some of your money (in exchange for some nifty backer rewards, of course), you can check out the official Kickstarter at the link below. And of course, to learn more about the game itself, just head on over to the official site. [Source: Taitale Studios press release]
PAX Prime 2012: Our first look at MMORTS Novus Aeterno
The MMORTS genre is a relatively unexplored one, generally relegated to free-to-play titles that tend to be mediocre at best and warcrimes at worst. It's beginning to pick up some steam these days, though, with titles like Trion Worlds' upcoming End of Nations. But I'm not here to talk about Trion or other big AAA studios; I'm here to talk about one guy who got bored and decided he'd make the game he wanted to play. That's Nick Nieuwoudt, the mastermind behind in-development MMORTS Novus Aeterno. As a hardcore StarCraft II player, he realized that he enjoyed the RTS playstyle but was left wanting something more. So as any sensible person would do, he gathered together a team and got to work creating the game he wanted to play. Many months of work later, TAITALE Studios has put together the foundation of Novus Aeterno. And as luck would have it, I had the opportunity to take a look at the game at PAX Prime 2012, so if you'd like to take a look behind the curtain at a potentially promising new MMORTS, follow on with me and I'll give you all the details.
