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Funcom nets additional $1.6 million to fund Lego Minifigures Online
Online game developer Funcom has received an additional 9.7 million Norwegian krone ($1.6 million) to continue developing its upcoming kid-friendly MMO Lego Minifigures Online, the company announced this week. The funding arrives as part of a standby equity facility agreement with Yorkville Advisors, a firm that agreed to provide Funcom with additional capital if requested within 36 months of the contract's signing. "We are very pleased to have increased the company's financial flexibility with funds that will be used in preparing for the launch of Lego Minifigures Online," Funcom CEO Ole Schreiner said. "We have several times expressed a need for additional equity and have considered different alternatives to secure this. This facility has been available to us since 2012, but the timing has not been right before." An open beta for Lego Minifigures Online is due to launch in June. [Image: Funcom]
Omni VR treadmill gets $3 million in seed funding
Following Virtuix's announcement earlier this month that its virtual reality treadmill will arrive in July for its early adopters, the company revealed this morning that it received seed funding. Virtuix received $3 million to "expand production and distribution of the Omni," the $500 platform that has players strapping in to a harness and wearing special shoes to run, walk and jump using their real-life legs in games. The seed investment round was led by Tekton Ventures and Maveron. One of the other investors onboard with the Omni is Radical Investments, a venture capital firm founded by Mark Cuban. Virtuix took a trip to the entrepreneurial ABC reality television series Shark Tank, which Cuban stars on, in an episode that aired in December. In it, Cuban pointed out that Virtuix's Omni is "pretty much based around Oculus Rift" and that "as Oculus Rift goes, you guys go." Virtuix valued its idea at $20 million, which Cuban and the rest of the cast didn't buy into. "I could see you creating 20 million in sales, 25 million in sales with this, but you're competing just like headsets are going to be competing," he said. "You haven't told me that there's a way to get to 50 million in sales." Given Facebook's recent acquisition of Oculus VR for $2 billion, which was cleared by the FTC this week, Cuban now appears to see more hope for the Omni. Aside from private investors, the other groups that funded Virtuix's efforts this week are Scentan Ventures, Scout Ventures and StartCaps Ventures. [Image: Virtuix]
Twitch funds chat-driven game Choice Chamber
Twitch matched funds pledged to Studio Bean's chat-driven Kickstarter project, Choice Chamber. The developer's crowdfunding campaign ends Sunday evening and raised nearly half of its $30,000 goal, and Twitch's contributions put it near the finish line. According to the project's reward tiers, the game is expected to launch in December. Following up the success of Twitch Plays Pokemon, Choice Chamber is a PC and Mac game that is designed to be played while streaming live on Twitch. Described as a "real-time, crowdsourced, procedurally generated game," it allows stream viewers to use Twitch's chat functionality to either aid or hinder the progress of the game's primary player by voting on game-changing polls. The player, who can choose to go the single-player-only route with offline mode, navigates an "endless series of dangerous chambers" while wielding a variety of weaponry with which to defeat enemies. In the prototype version of Choice Chamber, viewers vote on said weapons in addition to powerups, abilities and special maneuvers, though Studio Bean plans to add many more modifiable elements. [Image: Studio Bean]
PAX East 2014: The Repopulation's Josh Hall on the future of the game
If you're looking for Kickstarter success stories, The Repopulation definitely qualifies. While the game hasn't yet been released, it's managed to run not one but two successful campaigns looking to fans for funding, and it's managed its development carefully to keep itself on track for release. The game feels like a well-managed professional affair. And it's been a bit more quiet, but that comes down largely to the focus on getting the game out of its current alpha state and into its first beta. At this year's PAX East, I sat down to talk with Josh Hall, one of the core team members on the project, about where the game is in development and what it's heading for in the next few months. While the final alpha stage has taken slightly longer than originally planned, the team is on track for launching the first beta phase at some point over the summer, and it's eyeing further release plans.
Square Enix opens its curation and funding program to all indie devs
Square Enix opened the doors for all developers to submit game ideas to its Collective platform today, which curates ideas and pushes them forward to the crowdfunding space. The publisher previously tested the waters with three games, two of which received a thumbs-up from the voting community: World War Machine and Moon Hunters. Crackdown 2 developer Ruffian Games received 60 percent "No" votes for its project, Game of Glens. New submissions going forward will be published every Monday. The Square Enix Collective allows indie developers to submit their projects to the community for a Steam Greenlight-esque voting process, which takes place over the course of 28 days. Once a project gains approval by the community, Square Enix assists the developers in crowdfunding the game via a partnership with Indiegogo. Of the three test-phase projects, only Tuque Games' World War Machine (which received a 90 percent positive vote from the community) will move forward to the funding part of the program at the moment, and is scheduled to do so near the end of the month. Square Enix announced the Collective program in October, at which point it revealed plans to open up older IPs from Eidos' backlog for prospective designers to toy with. The publisher is still hammering out the details of this option, so it is only accepting original IPs from developers for now, but will start with the Gex, Fear Effect and Anachronox properties when the time comes. Developers interested in joining the program should check Square Enix's terms and conditions. [Image: Square Enix]
The Behemoth offers aid to indies with The Research Centaur, Gold Egg
In the indie world, Castle Crashers studio The Behemoth lives up to its name, and now it's using that awesome reach to benefit the larger development community. Two new divisions, The Research Centaur and the Gold Egg Project, aim to help out smaller studios by providing QA resources and financial support, respectively. The Research Centaur offers The Behemoth's user experience and QA teams to a limited number of outside studios at a time. So far, The Research Centaur has helped out Supergiant Games on Transistor and Bastion iOS, Capybara Games on Super Time Force and Alientrap on Apotheon. The Gold Egg Project is an alternative funding source for developers that The Behemoth hand-picks out of gaming competitions and general buzz. Developers don't apply to become a recipient of the Gold Egg Project; The Behemoth simply keeps its eye on competitions and contacts developers they find promising. The Gold Egg has helped out Tyler Glaiel and Jon Schubbe on Closure, and it's currently providing aid to Asteroid Base for its adorable death-dealing game, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. "Born out of necessity and past experience, it provides an optional lifeboat in the sea of scary options currently out there," The Behemoth says. "It's your game, we just clear the roadblocks. No strings attached."
China's Alibaba bets $215 million on chat app Tango
Facebook has made it a pretty darn good time to be a messaging app maker -- just ask Tango. It's received $280 million in funding including $215 million from Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, which is looking to bolster its forces against competitor Tencent. That gives it a minority interest in the video chat app, which has 70 million active users and 200 million in total. Tango has also stretched out recently with a social platform SDK for other apps that makes it easier for users to invite friends, for instance. According to Bloomberg, Alibaba could go public as soon as next month and its investment means Tango could be worth as much as $2 billion. We'll write a witty conclusion in a second, but first we're going to go learn some coding. Update: Reuters has corrected its article to underscore that Alibaba led a $280 million investment round, but only bet $215 million of its own cash. We've updated our post to reflect that.
Kickstarter reaches $1 billion in pledges
Kickstarter backers have pledged over $1 billion to projects on the funding platform in the lifetime of the site, which first launched in late April 2009. That monumental chunk of change was pledged towards 135,344 projects, according to Kickstarter's perpetually-updated stats page. Of the money pledged, $859 million was deposited into 57,133 successfully-funded projects. The games category led the crowdfunding service with $215.82 million pledged, $189.89 million of which was invested into 2,945 successful video game and tabletop game projects (the games category includes both). Games were also fourth-worst among the categories in terms of their success rate, which Kickstarter listed as 35.15 percent. The big numbers offered by Kickstarter only say so much about crowdfunding as a whole. Our Crowdfund Bookie data found that $23 million was raised on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo in a six-month span last year, and that crowdfunded video game projects earn roughly $25,000 on average. Funding projects is one thing, but launching them is another, as previous research from Evil as a Hobby indicated a delivery rate of 37 percent for video game projects on Kickstarter. [Image: Kickstarter]
SOE's John Smedley blames Rhode Island government for 38 Studios closure
So who's at fault for the 38 Studios debacle? It's a question that's been thrown around a lot with no clear answers. But John Smedley of Sony Online Entertainment thinks that it's a pretty clear case of the state of Rhode Island getting involved in something it shouldn't have and then backing out at the worst possible time. He stated on Twitter that having seen the game himself, it had potential and it could have been something if it had actually made it to release. Smedley agrees with Governor Lincoln Chafee that the funding deal was a bad idea and should never have taken place, but once it had taken place, it was in the state's best interest to aid the studio rather than letting it fail. Chafee's comments and naysaying for the project doomed the chances of the game getting any additional funding, ultimately shuttering the studio altogether. Despite that, Smedley also notes that in the long run it was a bad idea that should never have taken place and that SOE was approached for funding on the game and declined, which he suggests should have been indication enough for Rhode Island not to make the deal. [We've updated the title to make utterly clear that of course we (and Smed) were talking about the government of Rhode Island, not some random people in Rhode Island, many of whom obviously did not vote for said government. After the break, we've also quoted the relevant tweets, among them the one in which Smed declares that but for Chafee's actions, we'd be playing the game right now.]
Indiegogo raises $40 million in second round of venture funding
San Francisco-based crowdfunding platform Indiegogo announced that it has raised $40 million in a second round of venture financing, following up on a $15 million Series A funding round in 2012. Indiegogo said in a statement that it plans to springboard off its Series B financing to focus on "making key hires, expanding globally and improving the user experience with a focus on mobile, personalization and trust." While the bulk of gaming-related crowdfunding projects turn to rival platform Kickstarter for support, a number of high-profile indies have found success with Indiegogo. Lab Zero Games earned almost $1 million when it debuted an Indiegogo campaign to fund the creation of DLC characters for Skullgirls last year, and the newly-launched Square Enix Collective will use the platform to fund new projects from developers Ruffian Games, Kitfox Games and Tuque Games.
Firefall developer secures $23 million in funding
Bright skies might be ahead for Red 5 Studios: the Firefall developer announced today that it secured $23 million in additional funding. Red 5 said that it entered into share purchase agreements for the funding from Shanghai Oriental Pearl Culture Development Co. and shareholders. Red 5 Acting CEO James Macauley pointed to the influx of cash as a sign that the battle-worn company is moving forward: "This additional round of funding will offer us the means to execute on our plan for successfully launching Firefall in 2014. This is the year Firefall takes flight. The entire Red 5 tribe is focused on creating top quality content that will take Firefall to the next level and we are excited for this next stage of development." The studio has plans to create a new story campaign for Firefall, take the fight to the Chosen, and reveal some of the burning secrets that have been in the game. [Source: Red 5 press release]
Star Citizen still raking in cash, funding now at $37 million
Roberts Space Industries' in-development spacefaring MMORPG Star Citizen earned over $5 million over the last two months of its extended crowdfunding campaign, reaching a grand total of $37 million as of this week. The latest funding milestone nets players an additional in-game star system located in the middle of a rectangular planetary nebula. The nature of Star Citizen's final system, which will be unlocked once the campaign reaches its $40 million stretch goal, will be decided by community vote. Star CItizen earned over $2 million when it turned to Kickstarter for ancillary funding in 2012, and developer Roberts Space Industries continued to solicit backer support via its official website in the months afterward. Star Citizen will offer persistent-universe, moddable multiplayer gameplay following the launch of its individual gameplay modules throughout 2014.
The Repopulation discusses design goals after its second Kickstarter
Six days remain until the second Kickstarter for The Repopulation closes out, and it's already doubled its funding goal. That prompted an interview with Kickstarter Conversations regarding the game's design principles and its second successful funding run. The development team attributed the success to reasonable financial goals and to setting the bar low and expecting to exceed it rather than setting the bar high and struggling. The interview also goes into more detail regarding the game's design goals and how progression will work. As stated before, the game is entirely skill-based, with older characters having a wider variety of skills rather than being inherently better. Grouping is meant to be painless and advantageous rather than mandatory so that there's no disincentive to grouping up with other people while taking on content. Take a look at the full interview for more details, and if it sounds like the sort of development you'd like to support, you still have six days to jump in and help fund the game.
Another stretch goal hit for The Repopulation, another short story chapter posted
The second Kickstarter for The Repopulation is humming along at a decent clip at this point. It's already met its target goal, and now it's just a matter of smashing down stretch goals. The latest mark has funded the addition of calprate mounts to the game; they're the vaguely deer-goat-thing displayed in the header image, for the record. Except that one doesn't have a player-shaped bit of cargo on its back. Baby steps. In addition to looking forward future stretch goals, the team is also posting chapters of a short story to the official website. Chapter 4 of "Evening Star" is available to read now, detailing more of the world and feel of The Repopulation for existing backers and potential future backers. Or just people in need of a science fiction story to read on a Friday afternoon -- they're welcome as well.
Cyanogen gets serious about its OS aspirations, ponders a future in TV and wearables
It's been three months since Cyanogen announced it was stepping out as a profit-seeking business. Flush with $7 million in funding, the company has been pushing harder than ever to achieve its goal of making CyanogenMod the third major mobile ecosystem, after iOS and Google's Android. Now with "tens of millions" of installs, the company announced today that with help from VC firm Andreessen Horowitz it's added a further $23 million to its funding pot, and with this investment it believes has everything in place to bring in more talent and expand CyanogenMod to other devices like TVs, wearables and even cars. Cyanogen's mission is to refine the Android experience while still giving consumers (and pro users) the things that made it stand out in the past: freedom from manufacturer and carrier update cycles, and the ability to customize their device just how they like it. That focus is evident in its open-source software, which is now based on Google's Android 4.4 KitKat and has recently gained encrypted text message support and built-in screencast video recording.
Oculus Rift gets $75 million in funding from Netscape founder's firm
Oculus VR received $75 million in funding from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, led by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. Oculus VR previously secured $16 million in its first round of funding in June. The company's Oculus Rift augmented reality hardware also earned $2.4 million on Kickstarter in September 2012 after reaching its $250,000 goal in 24 hours, which in itself was a testament to the appeal of the headset. "Over the past 16 months, we've grown from a start-up to a company whose virtual reality headset is poised to change the way we play, work and communicate," Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe said in a statement to VentureBeat. The company's growing support isn't just measured in dollars, as Iribe said the company sold over 40,000 Oculus Rift kits to developers that are working to create games and apps for the headset. Additionally, id Software Co-Founder John Carmack joined Oculus VR in August as the company's CTO before officially leaving the Doom developer in November.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The super news of October
October was a pretty big month. I don't mean that just because it was a month filled with all of the classic horror you could ever hope for, although that was certainly welcome. But October also saw two big superhero games ramping up and doing things in a big way, one for a console launch and one for a big fan-pleasing rally... which was pretty cool to see, all around. That's not to say that the other superhero games available sat around and did nothing during October, but you couldn't match the energy surrounding City of Titans and DC Universe Online. Let's look back at the past month of capes and cowls.
City of Titans wraps up Kickstarter project with over $675,000
When a company shuts down your favorite game, what do you do? Raise more than half a million dollars in funding to build a spiritual successor, apparently. City of Titans, the fan-conceived inheritor of City of Heroes' legacy, has finished its Kickstarter campaign with a grand total of $678,189 raised. That means several stretch goals unlocked, a huge pile of additional content for the game at launch, and a lot of fan expectations about what the game will contain. As a quick recap for those who have not followed the game's stretch goals, the net result is that the game will launch on both PC and Mac, with iOS and Android versions of the character creator available as standalone apps. The game will also contain wings, extra costumes, and more powers beyond the base version that was budgeted for $320,000. It's quite an accomplishment for the team at Missing Worlds Media and a testament to how deep the passion for a City of Heroes revival remains.
Square Enix 'Collective' partners with Indiegogo, opens older Eidos IP
Square Enix is partnering with Indiegogo for a indie development curation program it's calling Square Enix Collective. The platform allows creators to post their ideas to Square Enix's community, garnering votes over the course of 28 days. Project pitches are evaluated by Square Enix, and providing the community approves the idea, can then be taken to Indiegogo to potentially raise funds for development. Square Enix stays in touch through each game's development process, assisting in distribution once the game is ready. The publisher says that while submitting a pitch costs nothing for creators, they "will need to accept some terms and conditions" when placing their ideas in front of Square Enix's community. Square Enix also added that creators "could have the chance to work with some of the older Eidos IP from our back-catalogue," indicating that its own properties are on the table for prospective designers to toy with. Square Enix will have more information on the program's requirements and submission guidelines at November's GDC Next even in Los Angeles. Now don't go submitting a new Timesplitters game all at once, everyone.
Neverending Nightmares heading to PC and Ouya thanks to funding drive
Neverending Nightmares' Kickstarter project concluded with $106,722 in funding yesterday. The horror game is both inspired by games like Silent Hill 2 and Amnesia: The Dark Descent as well as developer Matt Gilgenbach's personal struggles with mental illness. It achieved its funding goals, but not without a last-minute financial mishap that momentarily put the project's success in question. The game is also the second project to achieve funding as part of Ouya's Free the Games Fund. The first, Gridiron Thunder, pulled itself from eligibility following criticism over discrepancies in its funding. Gilgenbach offered his thoughts on the program in mid-September, worrying that the controversy within the program might cause backers to lose "confidence in our project and what we are trying to do." Given the developer's crowdfunding success, they apparently did not. Neverending Nightmares is expected to launch in August 2014 on PC, Mac, Linux and Ouya.