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Crowdfunded gaming console Ouya will shut down for good on June 25th
Seven years ago, Ouya was going to change the face of gaming. Now it's dead. Razer, the company that bought Ouya back in 2015, announced today that it will be discontinuing support for the gaming console. Owners of Ouya will have until June 25th to continue using the device. After that, Razer will be deactivating user accounts and shutting down all online elements of its service. Gamers will only be able to play games they have downloaded directly to their console.
FTC sues 'iBackPack' founder for deceiving crowdfunding backers
After a months-long investigation into the practices of the crowdfunding campaign for iBackPack, the Federal Trade Commission announced today that it will sue the company's founder for misusing funds provided by backers. According to the agency, project creator Doug Monahan used much of the more than $800,000 raised via Indiegogo and Kickstarter for personal use, including the purchasing bitcoin, making withdrawals from ATMs and paying off credit cards.
Project Awakened's independent crowdfunding campaign in full swing
Project Awakened came up short on Kickstarter in March, raising $338,498 of a requested $500,000, but the team at Phosphor Games wasn't ready to give up on the game just yet. After a week-long survey that attracted 4,000 responses, Phosphor decided there was enough interest to launch an independent fundraising campaign, with a few new tweaks.Phosphor is using PayPal, one option that Kickstarter doesn't offer its projects, and its first goal is $250,000: the launch of multiplayer, mod-able Project Awakened: Danger Room in November. If Awakened doesn't hit that mark by May 5, all backers will receive a full refund.Donations range from $5 to $10,000, each with unique perks. In Kickstarter-inspired fashion, the Awakened campaign has stretch goals, including for the initial requested amount of $500,000, which sees Phosphor commit to a launch date of June 2014 for the expanded Project Awakened: Subject, rather than the standard window of "around" the end of 2014.So far Project Awakened has raised $44,696 from 764 backers, with 32 days to hit the first $250,000 goal. Check out the fundraising campaign on Phosphor's official site.
Skullgirls' $150,000 Indiegogo goal met in less than 24 hours
Skullgirls developer Lab Zero Games has not only succeeded in raising the $150,000 required to design, develop and implement the game's first DLC character, but in doing so has also delivered crowd-funding platform Indiegogo's fastest and most-funded gaming project to date.The fundraiser met its goal after 22 hours, and is sitting just above $184,000 as of press time, with 29 days of funding still left to go. This means that the project's first stretch goal, a new level and story mode campaign for Squigly, the new character, has also been completely funded. If the fundraiser reaches $375,000 before its completion, Skullgirls' first male character, Big Band, will also be created.Once completed, Squigly will be made available at no cost on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
Keyport Slide 2.0 hits Kickstarter, still has a drinking problem
We were sold on the Keyport Slide when it promised not only to banish key-based clutter, but also incorporated two of our favorite things: flash storage and a beer access device. Now, the team behind it has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Keyport Slide 2.0, which is faithful to the original design but adds more scope for customization. Six slots play host to keys (obviously) and a mixture of inserts, such as the familiar USB drive (up to 32GB) and bottle opener, as well as the new mini-torch and barcode holder. The inserts can be switched out easily, and several others are in the pipeline, including a Bluetooth locator, "aftermarket auto remote," pen, stylus, and the pièce de résistance, a letter opener. An important question remains: how do you stuff keys inside it? If you reside in the US, you'll need to fill out a form, send off pictures of your keys, and you'll be provided with blank "Blade" inserts for making compatible copies. It's a little more complicated for international folks, as they'll need to ship out the actual keys for conversion. This all depends on whether you decide to back the Keyport Slide 2.0, of course, and at the time of writing, over a third of its $75,000 goal has been met, just one day in. Head to the Kickstarter page if you're already interested, or check out the video below for the full pitch.
Guild previews Vendetta iPad 2 build in new video
Guild Software is hard at work on a full port of its long-running Vendetta Online MMORPG for second-generation iPad devices. Guild founder John Bergman demos a prototype build running on an iPad 2, though he says that there is still "a lot of work to do." Current Vendetta players will be glad to know that Guild plans to "ship the iPad version as soon as we can, and then immediately focus all our attention on gameplay enhancements to make the 1.9 goals a reality in 2013." Vendetta's fund-raising effort is about a third of the way to its goal with nine days remaining.
Some Assembly Required: Kick(start)ing the sandbox genre
Sandbox aficionados are known to reminisce about the "good old days." You know, that time long lost in the past when the greats of open-world play like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies (pre-NGE of course) enjoyed their heyday. Many a lamentation has also been heard about how things have never been the same, or how nothing has filled that void. Of course, the sandbox never died. In 2012 we started the year off with a guide to games sporting sandbox features to scratch a variety of virtual world itches and we ended with a look at some promising upcoming titles for 2013. With plenty of choices abounding, why are sandbox fans still decrying the lack of a home? It could be because they want one home for everyone to settle in together, basically one game to rule them all. But how realistic is that? Even with the plethora of offerings now, many folks want to play their ideal sandbox, and everyone has their own idea of what the perfect one would be (and conversely, what would kill it). Perhaps the answer, then, is to forget about a single universal home that accommodates the masses and actually create a number of niche games where people find exactly what they are looking for. Wait, that's already happening? Enter Kickstarter.
Crowdfunding collective TinyLightbulbs shows off its iOS products
Last year, e-commerce site TinyLightbulbs formed in Denver, focusing on products that are funded via crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. TinyLightbulbs brought five of the products available on its site Macworld/iWorld 2013, including: SlingShot: This smartphone stand received more than US$70,000 in funding on Kickstarter and acts as a combination tripod and cradle for your iPhone. An attached handle helps create smooth panning shots. Erica Sadun took a look at it in October. Ultima: A smartphone stand for the car that is made with an aluminum body with a suction cup that is use to secure it to your car's interior. It raised more than $64,000 on Kickstarter. CableKeeps: This was my favorite of the products offered at this booth. These fish-shaped rubber cable holders were funded in 2011. Insert an Apple iPhone or iPad charger in one end, then thread the 30-pin or Lightning cable through the tail and wrap it around the fins to keep the cable in one place. When it's in use, you can use the fins as a stand for your iOS device. The CableKeeps are offered in three styles: two for iPad adaptors and one for the smaller USB adaptor used with iPhones, iPods and the iPad mini. SoundJaw: Steve Sande reviewed the SoundJaw in 2011. Originally developed for the iPad 2, this clip attaches to an iPad near the speaker and boosts the sound by directing the sound waves forward. It raised $17,000 on Kickstarter and is compatible with the iPad models that came out in 2012. Soft Touch Flex: This iPad mounting system is available with a clamp or a mic thread to fit it to a microphone stand. It comes in white and black.
Code Hero's buggy Kickstarter has backers preparing to draw legal lines in the sand
Code Hero's Kickstarter concluded on February 24, 2012, with 7,459 people pledging $170,954, almost doubling the project's requested amount and pushing that cash straight to developer Alex Peake. Peake described Code Hero as a game to help people, especially kids, learn how to code, and said he would use the money to launch a version of the game on August 31, with a Code Hero webseries and MMO also in the works.Ten months later, on December 12, Code Hero had yet to launch in any form and Peake was absent from the Kickstarter conversation. Backers of the Code Hero Kickstarter fumed in the comments, informally requesting their money back, asking Peake where their rewards were, and questioning if Code Hero was a legitimate project at all. Leading the comment swarm was Dustin Deckard, a backer who had given Code Hero $300, but was now considering legal action against Peake and his studio, Primer Labs.That night we spoke to Deckard and Peake in a Google Hangout. Peake expressed regret over his poor communication and promised he would launch alpha 2, a new version of Code Hero, as an update on its Kickstarter the next day, and that he would provide updates to the Kickstarter on the first of every month.By January 8, 2013, the second alpha had yet to materialize on Kickstarter or the Primer Labs website, and January 1 passed without a whisper from Peake.
Code Hero: The dangers of a Kickstarter success story
"It's totally not abandoned," says Alex Peake, developer of Kickstarter project Code Hero, his face filling the screen of a Google Hangout window. Late on the night of December 12, Peake responds to comments on the Code Hero Kickstarter page, inviting backers and journalists to join him in a video chat if they have any questions, and apologizing for a lack of updates on the project.In the chat, he answers our questions directly. "Code Hero is my reason for living. It's not like –"One of Peake's friends jumps in. "I can second that," he says. "I can second that."Peake continues, "No matter what, I will make Code Hero because that's why I live. That's my purpose in life."Peake finds himself defending his commitment to Code Hero following a string of events that began when he established the Kickstarter late last year – events that, for his backers, represent some of the greatest concerns of Kickstarter funding.
Star Citizen's Roberts: 'We'll compete with any AAA game out there'
Star Citizen wasn't always first on Chris Roberts' to-do list as he pondered his eventual return to the video game industry. The Wing Commander guru originally thought he'd need to make some sort of console game to reestablish himself while developing Star Citizen's technology concurrently. In a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Roberts explains how and why he skipped the appetizer and went right to the main course. "I was thinking, 'Do I really want to spend three years working on a next-gen console game that would ship just after the new consoles are out to a very small customer base?' It would get a month's worth of play and they'd be on to the next thing. So I cut out the first step," Roberts explains. The emergence of crowd-funding enabled the rapid realization of Star Citizen's development team, and the project's success has also given rise to new notions of community involvement with gamemakers. "We're going to treat our backers essentially as we would a publisher, where you work towards milestones and then have a show-and-tell on the new features and the latest build," Roberts says. "The community has financed the game, so it should get that level of respect." Going it alone, or at least without a publisher, will also allow Cloud Imperium Games to eliminate slow decision-making and get more value out of SC's $7 million in pledges. "I'm confident now that we'll be able to compete with any AAA game out there," Roberts says.
Star Citizen finishes gaming's biggest crowd-funding drive ever
"The traditional publishers don't believe in PC or space sims. Venture capitalists only want to back mobile or social gaming startups," wrote Chris Roberts back during Star Citizen's October reveal. "I say they're wrong. "I say that there is a large audience of PC gamers who want sophisticated games built for their platform." Boy, was he right. As of 2:00 p.m. EST, the game has secured over $6.2 million and over 89,000 pledges. Star Citizen is now the highest-grossing crowd-funded gaming project ever, and more importantly it has met a laundry list of stretch goals over and above its initial $2 million target and unlocked a slew of additional features (including more ships, star systems, mod tools, base types, and voice-acting). Roberts' Cloud Imperium firm has also released a new video that shows off some very early spaceport test footage. Click past the cut to get a look at the work-in-progress environment inspired by the concept art above.
Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter page updates with early procedural footage
Elite: Dangerous has updated its Kickstarter page with another video featuring creator David Braben. Normally this would be exciting news, but since the game is little more than theory at this point, the video is little more than seven minutes of Braben talking about how awesome it's going to be. There is a wee bit of footage featuring procedurally generated rocks, stars, and clouds (all of which look, well, early), but it seems as if we're a long ways from proper gameplay footage and feature sets. The good news is that Braben is quite enthusiastic and that the project is about halfway to its fund-raising goal with 49 days to go. You can view the video in its entirety after the break.
Star Citizen makes final crowd-funding push, dogfight video released
There's less than a week to go in Star Citizen's crowd-funding push, and Chris Roberts has produced a new video short in which he challenges space sim fans to help his company over the $4 million hump. If the new stretch goal is met, it will allow for more mod tools, an expanded version of the Squadron 42 single-player component, and a larger free-roam universe for the multiplayer game, which is apparently still two years away. Roberts has also released an early gameplay video showing off a cockpit view, wingman AI, and a brief dogfight. He says the video is far from representative of the final product but useful for gauging the progress of Star Citizen's advanced AI system. "The Squadron 42/Star Citizen pilot AI will be the most sophisticated AI that I've attempted on any of my games. My goal is to take the ideas that I pioneered with Wing Commander and later games -- distinct personalities, dynamic learning, signature moves -- to the next level with the power of modern CPUs," Roberts explains. See both videos in their entirety after the cut.
Star Citizen crowd-funding tops $3 million with 10 days to go
The news keeps getting better and better for fans of Chris Roberts' new Star Citizen space sim. Cloud Imperium just issued a press release trumpeting the fact that SC's crowd-funding initiatives have surpassed $3 million with 10 days to go. The company initially launched a self-managed fundraiser on its own website that has generated over $2 million in pledges to date. This was supplemented by a Kickstarter drive that has taken in over $1 million. Roberts' pre-alpha demo reel has attracted nearly 45,000 backers as of press time, and the Wing Commander creator says that the crowd-funding success will allow the dev team to work on additional features. "This is extremely exciting for me and our team because it will enable us to create the game we've been talking about to our fans over the past month," Roberts explained. "But we can do even more. I'm still hoping that we'll reach four million dollars before we close. This will allow us to do more sooner, especially on things like our modder tools." Cloud Imperium has also announced a pledge referral program to help reach its new $4 million goal. [Source: Cloud Imperium press release]
Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter page updated with video, concept art
What is it with super-cool space sim reboots and their gooftastic titles? First it was Star Citizen, and now there's Elite: Dangerous, which, with a name like that, should probably feature a soundtrack by Kenny Loggins. In any event, Frontier's Kickstarter page has updated with some concept images and a new video. This is quite a step up from last Tuesday's announcement that was heavy on nostalgia and light on everything else. The video is mostly David Braben talking, though to be fair, he does chat up some cool stuff including procedural generation and adding do-anything-you-can-imagine multiplayer to Elite's vast universe. Head to the official Elite Kickstarter page for further info, and have a look at Braben's video after the break.
Star Citizen well ahead of crowd-funding schedule, stretch goals added
Chris Roberts' Star Citizen is one of the more successful gaming-related crowd-funding projects to date, and even though there's still two weeks left until the Kickstarter drive closes, the title has already exceeded its $2 million goal by almost $800,000. What's going to happen to that extra money, then? It's partly up to the game's community. The Star Citizen site boasts a new poll with additional stretch goals. Choices include more ships, star systems, NPCs, an enhanced FPS mode, Linux and Mac clients, and some sort of tactical command mode for capital ships. As of press time, new flyable ships and additional star systems were leading the vote.
MechWarrior Online: The story of how one MMO got crowd-funded without Kickstarter
Kickstarter is kind of A Thing now. Oodles of companies are turning to it for all their crowd-funding needs, to varying levels of success. MechWarrior Online has distinguished itself by raising over $5 million in crowd-funding without touching Kickstarter. If not Kickstarter, where could all that money have come from? Fans, of course! MWO has the advantage of belonging to an existing franchise with fans, and those fans bought over 70,000 of the game's Founder's packages. The Founder's program allowed fans to buy in at any of three price levels ($30, $60, and $120) with varying perks at each level. Nick Foster, CEO of Infinite Game Publishing's parent company 7G Entertainment, explained some of the rationale behind this approach to funding. "The product will be a lot better for players because of the crowdfunding. It's allowed us to maintain a higher level of ongoing development in the product than if we were waiting for momentum to build immediately after going live. In the next few months, we'll be able to release a lot more features." MWO hit open beta today, which means you have the perfect opportunity to see for yourself whether they put fans' funds to good use. To read more about MWO's road to funding, check out Gamasutra's full article.
Origins of Malu secures funding, cancels Kickstarter project
So, forget that whole thing we said yesterday about Origins of Malu's new Kickstarter project. Burning Dog Media has canceled the funding drive less than a day after it began, but the situation isn't as dire as it sounds. In fact it sounds pretty positive, as the indie outfit has secured funding for its sci-fantasy sandbox title and lead developer Michael Dunham has updated the Origins website with an explanation. "We did not want to disappoint anyone. We know this seems like a strange turn of events, but we are learning just how fast the game industry can change. And all I can say is this will give us the ability to deliver what you have been asking and begging for for years," Dunham writes. Burning Dog will refund the pledges of Kickstarter contributors and provide them with a substantial list of in-game bonus items for their trouble.
Origins of Malu Kickstarter launches today [Updated]
Hey look, it's another Kickstarter project! We know, it's a cliche at this point, but we thought we'd point out Burning Dog Media's foray into the space because its Origins of Malu title predates the whole crowd-funding phenomenon. To recap, Origins is a sci-fantasy sandbox with an ambitious feature set that aims to give players full control over an expansive open world. It's also more than a pipe dream, and we've already gotten our hands on a build of the title to prove it. All that said, indie sandbox development is expensive, and Burning Dog is looking to raise $1.2 million to help fund the project. The Origins Kickstarter initiative just launched today and it concludes on December 8th, so you've got plenty of time to learn about the game and the various pledge-related incentives. [Update: We've added a new trailer past the cut!]
