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The Mog Log: You've got to make a living in Final Fantasy XIV
There's a lot of stories to be told about Final Fantasy XIV now that I'm back up at the endgame. Amdapor Keep is an interesting dungeon, for example, and the mechanics of tomestones as a whole are fascinating to me. But it also brings me within spitting distance of what some have described as the true weakness of the game, which is that there's no way to actually make money in the endgame. That your repair bills mount and you don't get any further money to back you up, thus opening a drain that never really closes. I honestly find this kind of amusing, because I've made more money since the relaunch than I had when it started. And that's with buying relic precursors, gear, repairs, and so forth. There are some issues with the game's economy, definitely, but some of those issues simply come from people being unfamiliar with how the game handles things like making money. The past several years have taught us how to make money in an MMO, but Final Fantasy XIV doesn't back those ideas up. It's a different paradigm here.
Ouya removes family-funded Kickstarter game from Free the Games program
When Golden Axe-inspired Dungeons: The Eye of Draconus met its funding goal thanks to help from a family member and was just two days from seeing the end of its Kickstarter campaign, Ouya removed the project from its Free the Games Fund program. In an update on the project's page, SuckerFree Games developer William McDonald wrote, "If we had remained silent we very likely would have received the funds, our transparency and honesty apparently was our undoing." That transparency came from a backers-only update on the project last week, which explained how the project ultimately reached $54,067 with donations from just 180 people. McDonald states in the update that although his family and friends initially refused to offer financial support, his father spent a large retirement check to help fund Dungeons: The Eye of Draconus' three episodes, thereby making it eligible for rewards earned from Ouya's Free the Games Fund. "It appears we were thrown under the FTG bus. Ouya gets their fall guy and Grid Iron keeps their money," McDonald wrote regarding Ouya's decision, referencing Gridiron Thunder, a game that received $171,009 on Kickstarter from just 183 backers as part of Ouya's program. Due to Ouya's decision, McDonald said the team opted to cancel the Kickstarter project, noting that the developer has "no plans to develop for Ouya further." This isn't the first time Dungeons: The Eye of Draconus has received funding, as it earned $5,177 on Kickstarter back in May 2011. In an August 18 update on that project's page, McDonald notified backers of his plans to enter Ouya's funding program, and that the developer had invested over $10,000 of its own money into the project since the first Kickstarter campaign ended. We've reached out to McDonald and Ouya, and will update as we learn more. For a brief summary on the Ouya Free the Games Fund's issues so far, check out our recap video.
PayPal adjusting policies to be more crowdfunding-friendly
PayPal recently announced plans to "overhaul" its policies to become more crowdfunding-friendly. This comes after a number of startups had their funds frozen by PayPal after successful crowdfunding initiatives. Examples of such issues include the momentary pause in the release of Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm's funds earned during its Indiegogo campaign, as well as that of Lab Zero Games when it crowdfunded DLC characters for Skullgirls in April. PayPal VP Risk Management Tomer Barel wrote in an update on PayPal's site that while there are no policy changes to announce today, "in the meantime, we will ensure that each crowdfunding campaign is reviewed by a senior member of my team before any action is taken."
Gridiron Thunder Ouya Kickstarter concludes with $171k, many questions
Gridiron Thunder's Kickstarter project ended over the weekend, earning $171,009 in its 30-day campaign. Gridiron Thunder was under suspicion when it first met its funding goal in late August, thanks to curious funding spikes witnessed by backers. To reach its goal, it received more than $10,000 apiece from a limited number of funders, as revealed by Kicktraq. It was one of two games that reached its goal as part of Ouya's Free the Games Fund, a program that rewards successful Kickstarter project creators by matching the crowdfunding results in exchange for six months of Ouya exclusivity. The game had just 183 total backers, making for a rate of $934.48 per person. In recent months, the closest any project has come to that average is Yargis, which had an average of $275.05 per backer thanks to a lone $5,000 pledge. The results of 84 projects in the past three months revealed a mean average of $50.59 pledged per person, making Gridiron Thunder a statistical anomaly. The other Ouya game in question, Elementary, My Dear Holmes, was suspended by Kickstarter on Friday after the developer addressed concerns to both Kickstarter and Amazon surrounding "suspicious accounts" that backed the project. The game's creator, Sam Chandola, said the developer "wanted to get on top of this and did not want anything to do with any of what was happening as it was an extremely negative campaign for us." Kickstarter declined to comment on the project's suspension.
Xsyon reaches the top 100 in Steam Greenlight
It's not surprising that a title as odd as Xsyon has had a hard time receiving much funding. The game has a dedicated community, but it launched a Kickstarter campaign last year that failed rather thoroughly. But the team at Notorious Games is still swinging for the fences, this time by putting together a pitch for Steam Greenlight in the hopes of getting on Valve's popular digital retail client. And as of this writing, that's going pretty well. Greenlight is Steam's process for vetting smaller games in the community, allowing new developers to submit a game and the community as a whole to vote it up or down based on whether or not they want to play it. Xsyon has made it into the top 100, ranked at #83 of over 1,000 games currently looking for approval. Players and fans who want to see the game succeed can head over to Steam and vote for the game now.
Black Gold Online secures $97M in funding from Chinese banks
After the successful launch of Age of Wushu, Snail Games is looking ahead to its latest MMO title, Black Gold Online. And thanks to a recent $97 million loan from four Chinese banks, the future of BGO is looking brighter. Snail Games and publisher Shanda Games will also be chipping in a cool $32.6 million for marketing the steampunk MMO title. Black Gold Online is currently in closed beta in China with a North American launch to come next year. If you'd like to read more about the game, check out our impressions from E3 this year.
Insert Coin: Canary, a one-stop shop for securing your home
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. If recent trends are any indication, there's a strong possibility that a cylindrical computing device will be in your future. Canary is the latest curved component to make its debut this year -- this one's focused on security. The vertical computer includes a high-def camera and mic, along with infrared motion, temperature, humidity and air quality sensors. It's an all-in-one solution for securing your home (or perhaps just a room in your home), providing video feeds and sensor readouts to your Android or iOS device in real time. You can automatically arm or disarm it when your device comes within range of a pre-selected location, and there's even a siren that can be triggered remotely, should you need to wake up a roommate or terrorize a pet. Canary is currently up for grabs on Indiegogo. The $149 and $169 early bird specials have already reached their 200-unit caps, so pre-ordering the device will now set you back a cool $199. That offer includes a white finish and shipping within the US -- expect it to reach your doorstep by May. If you're willing to jump up to $249, you can snag a Canary in matte black or silver, or, if you're really feeling generous, you can pledge $1,000 and walk away with a beta unit, which should arrive in February. Hit up the source link for a video demo.
Crowdfund Bookie, June 30 - July 6: Tobuscus Adventures, Void Destroyer
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the week and produces pretty charts for you to look at. This week in crowdfunding, the Kickstarter campaigns for Void Destroyer, GhostControl Inc, Harvest, Tesla Breaks the World, Dormant Sky and Endica VII: The Dream King as well as the Indiegogo campaign for Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards came to a close. Tobuscus Adventures: Wizards earned the most dough this week ($642,779) as well as the most backers of the funded projects (11,584) and highest average pledge per person, with each funder averaging $55.49. The game will be the first in a series of RPGs for iOS, Android and Steam based on the popular YouTube shows of the same name by Toby Turner. Check out the results and our dandy little charts after the break.
Double Fine's Broken Age goes to Steam Early Access for additional funding
In order to make the version of Broken Age that it has planned, Double Fine needs more capital than the $3.3 million it crowdfunded in March of 2012 through its historic Kickstarter campaign, founder Tim Schafer has said in a backers-only update on Kickstarter. "Even though we received much more money from our Kickstarter than we, or anybody anticipated," Schafer said, "that didn't stop me from getting excited and designing a game so big that it would need even more money." Thus, a new plan was formed: Double Fine will release a refined version of the first half of the game through Early Access in January of 2014, which is expected to generate enough income to sustain production until the rest of the game is completed. Development costs will also be offset by the profits made from other Double Fine games. Folks that backed the original Kickstarter campaign will be given beta test access before the Early Access launch. They'll also get the first half of the game through Steam Early Access and a copy of the full game once it's completed.
Australian government supports local indie devs with $6M grant
Australia's government-sponsored media funding body Screen Australia announced its support for local indie game developers, promising to pay out a $6 million grant over the next three years. The stimulus arrives in response to a sharp decline in industry income and employment. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, local game industry employment dropped from 1,431 to 581 people between 2011 and 2012. Screen Australia announced its funding in the hopes that local developers will "grow the business, retain intellectual property, keep a skilled workforce and raise the necessary finance." The following ten indie studios will share the grant:
Oculus Rift using its millions to hire more staff
The Oculus Rift creators recently secured $16 million in funding from investors, on top of their September Kickstarter bounty of $2.4 million – and they're going to use that cash to bulk up the team. "We're using the funding to ramp up on hiring more smart people, the best and brightest that we can find," Oculus Rift CEO Brendan Iribe told Engadget. "The dev kit as it is now, that we're shipping, will stay the same, and the software side will just keep getting better." Oculus Rift currently employs fewer than 50 people, and the new hires will be mostly engineers, Iribe said. Right now the headset is in development for PC games, but that doesn't mean other platforms are out of the running completely. "We're always looking at other platforms, looking at consoles; we're also looking at Android and the mobile side in a big way – but right now we really are focused on the PC platform," Iribe said. Sony President Shuhei Yoshida said he loves the Oculus Rift, though the PS4 doesn't currently support the VR headset. Yoshida wouldn't say if the PS4 will support Oculus Rift in the future – and he said it with a big smile, Engadget noted.
Paper for iPad developer receives $15 million in funding
What do you do when your one and only iPad app is a runaway success? If you're FiftyThree, the development firm behind the beautiful journal / art app Paper (free, many in-app purchases available), you get funding for expansion into new areas. FiftyThree announced today that it received US$15 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreesen Horowitz, with such stellar investors as Twitter's Jack Dorsey, Bright Capital, Highline Ventures and SV Angel joining the party. Paper has been profitable from day one; it's usually in the Top 10 Paid Apps on the App Store, and over 80 million users have downloaded the app. What's FiftyThree planning on doing with $15 million? Co-founder and CEO Georg Petschnigg says that he wants to add to his team of employees in Seattle and NYC, and create a suite of software, hardware and services. GigaOM's Erica Ogg talked with Petschnigg and although he wouldn't elaborate, the idea of a Paper-branded stylus is a natural outgrowth. Petschnigg's big picture for the firm appears to be collaboration: "We've been focused on iPad there, but the next part we're working on is services that will start to answer the question of how people work together and collaborate." All secretive talk aside, we're looking forward to seeing what's next from the team at FiftyThree.
Oculus Rift secures $16 million in first round of investor funding
The first round of investor funding for Oculus Rift brought in $16 million, with contributions from Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, Founders Fund and Formation 8, the Oculus team announced today. This funding is separate from the Oculus Rift Kickstarter campaign, which asked for $250,000 and concluded with $2.4 million in September. Spark founder Santo Politi and Matrix general partner Antonio Rodriguez are now on the board of directors for Oculus Rift, after they led the first funding round. "In this business, there are only a few rare companies that can so perfectly embody the future you read about in science fiction novels," Rodriguez says in a press release. "What Palmer, Brendan and the team are building at Oculus so closely matches the Metaverse, we had to be part of it. Working with them to get this platform to market at scale will be enormously exciting." A mere $16 million gets you access to the Metaverse. Not bad.
Roku takes $60 million in funding, wants to be the front end for your TV
Despite its image as an underdog, Roku knows how to court some heavy hitters in the TV business: on top of a total $80 million in previous investments, it just received a $60 million boost this week. The new funding round has BSkyB and News Corp returning with checkbooks in hand, but it also includes a fresh contribution from Hearst, which wants Roku's help in building services for its TV channels. The media hub maker is getting more than partnerships in return, however. It's using the cash to expand its Roku Ready program, which now includes 24 hardware partners. The company's Anthony Wood ultimately wants Roku software to be commonplace -- it can be an "operating system for televisions," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. While there's no guarantee that Roku will reach that kind of ubiquity, it may well have the cash to get there.
TUG hits its Kickstarter goal
Good news, friends! Or more specifically, friends who are also fans of TUG. The indie sandbox exploration game has hit its funding goal with two days to go, meaning that development can continue on the title. While its success was somewhat in doubt over the long weekend, fans made up the last bit of funding and ensured that the game's unique philosophy will have a place to expand. Of course, just hitting funding isn't usually the end goal; you have stretch goals and such, after all. With that in mind, Nerd Kingdom has announced a 30-day PayPal donation drive after the Kickstarter funding concludes to continue building toward stretch goals, as well as the option to add new benefits to the accounts of backers. There's still a little more time to back the project, so now's the time to do so. [Thanks to Jose for the tip!]
The Realm fails to meet Kickstarter goal, plans US-based relaunch later this year
Atomhawk Design and Lantern Interactive's Kickstarter for its point-and-click adventure game The Realm has failed to reach its goal of £195,000 (about $300,000), but it says the project isn't dead yet. Despite not getting the money it needed, The Realm ended up as one of the top UK-based game Kickstarters to date. Being based in the UK was one of the main issues, however, as users in the United States weren't able to contribute directly due to Kickstarter's funding rules. So Atomhawk and Lantern have decided to relaunch the campaign later on this year, this time from a US-based account. Potential contributors were also asking to see gameplay footage, so that will be a priority next time around. In the meantime, the team asks that anyone interested in getting more updates on the game sign up to a mailing list. "We may not have have won the battle," says The Realm team's post, "but the war is not over yet!"
OUYA delaying retail launch to June 25th, altering controller to fix button sticking issue
The OUYA game console is shifting its launch from June 4th to June 25th, the company revealed in a press release this morning. Speaking with our friends at Joystiq, CEO Julie Uhrman explained the decision to push the console's retail launch back as a measure of keeping up with retail demand. "We've had incredibly positive reactions from our retail partners," Uhrman said. The date shift, "will allow us to create more units and, basically, have more units on store shelves." The company also revealed that it's altering the existing controller's button holes to ensure that retail buyers don't run into the same sticking issue that Kickstarter backers have been dealing with. And despite those two pieces of news sounding an awful lot like they're connected (the delay and the controller alteration), Uhrman claims they're not. "We made that change very early so all the units are being produced with those larger button holes," she said. At this point, it's not clear if OUYA will hook up early backers with a new controller upon request (or perhaps just new faceplates), but we've asked for more information.
Project Awakened on hold due to 'alternate funding options,' donors receiving refunds
Phosphor Games has cancelled its self-powered crowdfunding initiative for Project Awakened and will be issuing refunds to everyone that has contributed to the drive thus far, according to a missive of the game's official website. "At this time we need to put our funding endeavor on hold effective immediately. Everyone who pledged money will be receiving a full refund," the message reads. "There have been some alternative funding options that have recently been presented to us, so please continue to keep an eye out on our Facebook page for future updates." Phosphor turned to DIY crowdfunding after its initial efforts to raise capital on Kickstarter fell short of the company's goal.
Camelot Unchained secures an additional $3 million in funding [Updated]
Last night, Camelot Unchained surpassed its $2 million Kickstarter goal, but if you've been following the Kickstarter for the last month, you know that reaching $2 million means a lot more than reaching $2 million. As originally promised when the Kickstarter launched, the game will now receive an additional $3 million in funding, $2 million of which comes from City State co-founder and MMO industry veteran Mark Jacobs. The remainder comes courtesy of unnamed investors. "The last 30 days have been an incredible journey," Jacobs said via press release. "We believed there's an audience for a highly focused game like ours, which has now been proven. What we didn't expect was how our community would come together so quickly and avidly. Not only is our average pledge off the chart, our backers have been just as intensely supportive in other ways, from providing immense amounts of helpful feedback to translating information into four languages (German, French, Japanese and Korean), and more." Camelot Unchained will use a proprietary engine optimized for large-scale battles and already battle-tested to the tune of 200-plus frames per second while displaying 1,000 simultaneous characters rendered with 12,000 polygons. The three-faction PvP-focused fantasy MMO also boasts a building-block crafting system that will allow players to construct individual cells and larger segments before assembling them "in nearly limitless ways." [Source: City State press release] [Update: We've clarified that the additional funding was promised as a Kickstarter goal from the start.]
Amazon's payment systems go kaput, taking Kickstarter with it
Were you planning to be the brave soul to bring Camelot Unchained's Kickstarter project to its goal? You might have missed your chance. Amazon Payments, the system which Kickstarter uses to accept pledges from browsers, started having trouble earlier today, meaning that several Kickstarter projects have run into trouble attracting more pledges or processing pledges for otherwise successful funding. That's bad news for anyone looking to make the last few dollars on a project before the project ticks over the last deadline. There's currently no ETA on service restoration; quite notably, the payment service is currently the only Amazon service listed as having difficulties. Camelot Unchained is put into a particular pickle with this development, as the project is still more than $200,000 away from its goal with less than two days remaining. Hopefully the service errors will be cleared up before several projects start to feel the sting. [Thanks to Mark for the tip!]