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Make My MMO: Crowdfunding July 28 - August 10, 2013
Ah, the joys of bringing more games into the fold. Sadly, we don't know whether this will be just a brief passing in the night or a more permanent stay; that all depends on how newcomers Project Snowstorm and Legends of Firestorm do on their respective Kickstarter campaigns. Will the community help them make their MMOs? We'll keep watch and keep you informed. Speaking of keeping informed, a few of the funded projects found themselves in the news lately -- and we mean more than just crowdfunding king Star Citizen! And we've got it all rounded up right here for your perusing pleasure.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding July 14 - 27, 2013
Another fortnight down; another MMO hopeful lost. The casualty? Story Quest Online, which didn't come close to meeting its Kickstarter goal. The newest addition to this list, Realms of Creation, is still moving toward its goal and has another 34 days left to reach it. To see more about it, check out the new video after the break. In other news, Pathfinder Online also has a new video, and Star Citizen's Chris Robert's talked at length in an exclusive Massively interview. Even controversial Greed Monger headlined with a demonstration of its house building feature. Catch all the links to these stories right here in Make My MMO.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding June 30 - July 13, 2013
The last two weeks haven't been quiet on the crowdfunding front. While Star Citizen takes the lead with the most news (from ever-expanding coffers to just "finding ways to make the game more awesome"), other titles had their own snippets to report as well. There's also some upheaval in our ranks: We gained a new MMORTS/MMORPG mix project but lost two others from our list when both Skara: The Blade Remains and Anthym didn't meet their goals. And yet another title makes its final appearance before moving on to Betawatch! That's right, folks; TUG is saying hasta la vista to Make My MMO in favor of alpha land. Curious as to what all else has transpired? Then check out the details after the break.
Frontier teases first Elite: Dangerous screenshots
Frontier has released the first batch of work-in-progress screenshots for Elite: Dangerous. Senior producer Michael Brookes posted them on Frontier's forums earlier today, though the shots initially found their way to Elite Kickstarter backers via an email blast. Elite: Dangerous raked in over £1.5 million during its fundraising drive that began in November, 2012 and ended in early January, 2013. The game is scheduled to release on PC and Mac platforms next year, and it is the latest iteration of the venerable space trading sim first published in 1984.
Elite: Dangerous studio Frontier Developments set to go public
Frontier Developments, known around these parts as the studio behind crowdfunding success story Elite: Dangerous, is about to enter a different brave new world: that of the London Stock Exchange. The company is set to launch its IPO on July 15th with around £4 million ($5.9 million) in shares. Elite: Dangerous's Kickstarter campaign raised £1.6 million and Frontier snagged an additional £2.8 in provate funding. The studio has about £7.2 million in the bank. A statement from founder and studio head David Braben accompanied the announcement, outlining his excitement to list Frontier at "a time of such strong momentum in the business and the sector." He also noted that the IPO "gives us the necessary financial impetus to continue operating at the forefront of the continually evolving and expanding global games market."
Some Assembly Required: Your guide to MMO sandboxes in 2013 and beyond
Welcome to Massively's guide to MMO sandboxes in 2013 and beyond. I've collected the essential details on all the major sandbox titles releasing this year and in the near future in one easy-to-reference article. If you're wondering whether ArcheAge forces you to PvP, or if you can't tell The Repopulation from Origins of Malu, this is your post. I'll be updating it as game features are added, removed, or revealed, so be sure to use the comments to let me know if I've overlooked a particularly noteworthy item. Finally, I want to point out that this isn't an exhaustive list because of the sheer number of sandbox projects ongoing. For now, I'm choosing to focus on the ones that will be playable in 2013/2014 as well as the projects that have a big-name developer attached.
2012: The year of the MMO Kickstarter
Kickstarter is perhaps the biggest story in the world of gaming since the birth of the home video console or the integration of online components into consumer entertainment. No new product, innovation, or invention has carried with it such immense potential for shifting the way the industry plans, builds, and delivers its products. And with projects covering everything from hardware to companion apps, it's almost impossible now to imagine a gaming world without Kickstarter, even though it was our reality just a few short months ago. The legacy of Kickstarter is one that we're witnessing in real-time. Most of the major successful projects are slated for late 2013/early 2014 releases, giving us plenty of time to speculate on what may or may not go wrong with the crowd-funding model and the products it bears. Over the next year, games will either make it to market or they won't. Developers will squander their budgets or release on time. It's all up in the air. With that in mind, we thought now would be a good time to look back on some of the biggest MMO Kickstarter projects of 2012. The fate of some of these titles is inexorably tied to the fate of Kickstarter as a viable game-creating platform -- and maybe even crowd-sourcing as a whole.
Elite: Dangerous is well and truly Kickstarted
Elite: Dangerous fans can breathe easy -- the game has hit its £1,250,000 goal with more than two days to spare. While that's excellent news for the folks at Frontier Developments, they're not resting on their laurels. There are two stretch goals, at £1.4 and £1.5 million, that could feasibly be hit in the last 51-ish hours of the project's Kickstarter window. Those stretch goals will add in a Mac version of the game (within three months of the Windows launch) and an extra ten playable ships, respectively. In case some people are still on the fence about throwing money at the project, the team has added in a new £25 reward tier that'll give backers a digital copy of the game and 500 credits. Everyone already pledged at a higher tier will also receive those 500 credits.
Frontier teases Elite: Dangerous scavenger hunt video
Another day, another Elite: Dangerous teaser video. But hey, this is a good thing, right? Yes, yes it is, especially because every little reveal helps build a bit of momentum for Frontier's crowdfunding project that's closing in on crunch time. Today's clip is called Scavenger Hunt, and it's exactly what it sounds like, albeit with a satisfying explosion at the end. Elite has exactly 14 days remaining on its Kickstarter drive and it's coming up on £900,000 (the goal is £1.25 million). Check out the vid after the break and then head to the fundraising site to learn more about the project.
Frontier releases first Elite: Dangerous trailer
UK-based Frontier has released the first Elite: Dangerous teaser trailer as its crowdfunding project nears the two-weeks-remaining mark. Eurogamer reports that Elite needs approximately £30,000 per day for the next 15 days in order to meet its £1.25 million goal. The company has also added a PayPal option to Elite's Kickstarter page. As for the trailer, it's an atmospheric in-engine look at Elite's profession possibilities. The clip plays up the opportunity to be a trader, bounty hunter, pirate, or explorer over the course of its brief running time. View it after the cut.
Star Citizen's Roberts supports Elite, Project GODUS, says you should too
Star Citizen head honcho Chris Roberts may be busy heading up the revival of the space sim genre, but he's not too busy to make a case for a couple of high profile Kickstarter projects. In a lengthy post on SC's official site, Roberts shows his support for Elite: Dangerous and Peter Molyneux's Project GODUS and urges backers of Star Citizen to do the same. Roberts outlines a number of reasons why SC's overwhelming Kickstarter success has invigorated the dev team, chief among them the sense of satisfaction stemming from the ability to send a message "to the business and marketing machines that normally decide which games are made. You said they are not the taste makers for you, that you want your voice heard on what kind of game you play and you want to have a greater involvement and connection to the development of that game." Both Elite and GODUS are well short of their Kickstarter goals and nearing the end of their fundraising window. Roberts outlines what each game brings to the table and even touches on Molyneux's tendency to over-promise and under-deliver before ultimately concluding that Elite and GODUS are worthy of support for both gameplay reasons and the opportunity they're affording gamers to continue changing the industry. With crowdfunding you cut the middle man out. No retailer. No publisher driven by the demands of its shareholders for quarterly profits. Instead you build the game directly for the audience that wants the game for the right reasons -- because they want to play it. This is an exciting shift in the dynamic and something gaming needs unless everyone wants no other choice other than to buy yearly sequels to one of a limited number of gaming brands that the big publishers focus on. [Thanks to Ken for the tip!]
Elite: Dangerous developer Frontier has layoffs in middle of Kickstarter
Adding a whole new level of unintended guilt to Frontier's Kickstarter for Elite: Dangerous, the company went through a round of layoffs late last week."Frontier regretfully has given a total of 14 people (from a staff of 233) notice that their roles are redundant, across art (9), animation (3) and audio (2) disciplines. This is due to the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects – it is not a reflection on the company's prospects, which remain healthy," Frontier managing director David Walsh told Eurogamer.The developer's Kickstarter for Elite: Dangerous is currently at around £782,000 of a £1.25 million goal, with 18 days to go.
Elite: Dangerous developer lays off 14 staffers
Elite: Dangerous developer Frontier handed out lumps of Christmas coal to several staffers last week according to a report at Eurogamer. "Frontier regretfully has given a total of 14 people (from a staff of 233) notice that their roles are redundant, across art (nine), animation (three), and audio (two) disciplines. This is due to the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects -- it is not a reflection on the company's prospects, which remain healthy," said company managing director David Walsh. Frontier was founded by Elite co-creator David Braben in 1994. The company's Kickstarter project has raised nearly £800,000 against its £1,250,000 goal with 18 days left to go.
Elite: Dangerous dev diary talks about plans for development
Elite: Dangerous is about halfway to its Kickstarter goal with 21 days left, and it's indubitably time for another dev diary! Frontier Developments founder David Braben took to YouTube to talk about the long-term development plan for Elite: Dangerous. The team has a handful of goals for the game. These aren't features that will be making it in for launch but instead are are being planned for now so that they integrate seamlessly and enhance the play experience. For example, landing on planets will eventually be a possibility, but not until those planets are stocked with flora, fauna, and sprawling cityscapes. There are also plans for players to experience the ships' interiors, to see incoming fire and lost cargo from the perspective of the ship's crew. Skip below the cut to let Braben speak for himself. [Thanks to intrepid explorer Mattias for the tip!]
Elite: Dangerous video dev diary discusses roles, demonstrates dogfight
Last month, we learned that David Braben, founder of Frontier Developments, launched a Kickstarter campaign for the development of Elite: Dangerous, a successor to the deep sci-fi sandboxes Elite and Frontier: Elite II. Over the last five weeks, new concept art and videos have been released showing off various aspects of the multiplayer space sim. Now, Braben treats fans to a third video dev diary in which he discussed player roles while a dogfight with other devs plays out across the screen. In the video, Braben and the devs demonstrate the variety of roles in Elite: Dangerous. Players can earn their funds in-game from such activities as mining, shipping, pirating, and bounty hunting. Roles are also fluid: A player who normally protects convoys can be flagged as a pirate when attacking one, and the folks defending said convey can take on on the additional role of bounty hunter and collect the bounty on the pirate. To keep roles balanced in game, the team is dedicated to ensuring that no one particular role is the ultimate way to generate cash. Braben stated, "If you get very good at a particular role, it shouldn't be massively better than if you get very good at some other role." To hear more about the roles (and see the first live footage of the Anaconda), watch the video after the break.
Elite: Dangerous developer diary details evolving galaxy
Elite: Dangerous, the Kickstarter project by Frontier Developments, has a new developer diary video from Founder David Braben discussing the ways in which the game's galaxy evolves over time. In the video, Braben describes the development of planets and the various contracts that players complete in the game, including the transportation dignitaries that may have bounties on their heads.The Kickstarter project is at the half-way point of its nearly $2 million funding goal with 33 days left before its January 4, 2013 deadline. Providing the goal is met, Elite: Dangerous is set to launch on PC in March 2014.
Frontier adds new Elite: Dangerous pledge options, multiplayer ship video
Elite: Dangerous still has a goofy name, but now it's got a smidgeon of game footage to go along with it thanks to a newly released multiplayer dogfight video. Well, technically the clip features some gun camera footage of the game's lead programmer chasing David Braben's ship through an asteroid field. It's not quite a dogfight, but it's closer than many a fledgling Kickstarter project has managed. There's no sound, so Braben spends all of the clip's five-minute running time talking about various and sundry Elite: Dangerous possibilities. He touches on the inevitable griefing that comes with free-form sandbox games, too, saying that Frontier has "lots of strategies" for dealing with undesirables. Finally, the game's Kickstarter page has introduced new pledge options including the Writer's Pack (which enables aspiring fanfic authors to pay a chunk of change and get their stories in the game) and a couple of boxed editions. Click past the cut for the dev diary video.
EVE Evolved: How would you build a sandbox?
Themepark MMOs and single-player games have long dominated the gaming landscape, a trend that currently seems to be giving way to a resurgence of sandbox titles. Though games like Fallout and the Elder Scrolls series have always championed sandbox gameplay, very few publishers seem willing to throw their weight behind open-world sci-fi games. Space simulator Elite was arguably the first open-world game in 1984, and EVE Online is currently closing in on a decade of runaway success, yet the gaming public's obsession with space exploration has remained relatively unsatisfied for years. Crowdsourced funding now allows gamers to cut the publishers out of the picture and fund game development directly. Space sandbox game Star Citizen is due to close up its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter tomorrow night, adding over $1.6 million US to its privately crowdfunded $2.7 million. The creator of Elite has also launched his own campaign to fund a sequel, and even the practically vapourware sandbox MMO Infinity has announced plans to launch a campaign. While not all of these games will be MMOs, it may not be long before EVE Online has some serious competition. EVE can't really change much of its fundamental gameplay, but these new games are being built from scratch and can change all the rules. If you were making a new sandbox MMO from the ground up and could change anything at all, what would you do? In this week's EVE Evolved, I consider how I'd build a sandbox MMO from the ground up, what I'd take from EVE Online, and what I would change.
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.
Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter gets video and concept art
Frontier Developments updated its Kickstarter page for Elite: Dangerous with a few pieces of concept art and a video. The video shows Elite co-creator and Founder of Frontier Developments David Braben discussing the history of the series and his vision for Dangerous.The Kickstarter project is about a third of the way to its nearly $2 million goal with over 50 days to go in its funding cycle. %Gallery-170654%
