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Monaco made good on Indie Fund $100K before launch, what it means
Since 2010, Indie Fund has helped launch high-profile games such as Dear Esther, QUBE and Antichamber, each one recouping investment within days or even hours. The first game in which Indie Fund ever put its faith (and money), Monaco, launched last week and made back its $100,000 investment in negative time, before the game went live on April 24.Developer Andy Schatz opened Monaco pre-orders via the Humble Store in December, and Steam pre-orders went live on April 17. By April 20, Monaco had grossed $120,000, Schatz said, exceeding its Indie Fund investment a full four days before the game launched."For me the most significant thing about the early success with regards to Indie Fund is that it shows that there are many ways of approaching funding, from crowdfunding to investment models like Indie Fund, to personal loans – I know a number of devs that have taken loans from other devs – to the traditional publisher model," Schatz told Joystiq. "More options means the studios can customize their relationships to fit their personalities and their projects."Schatz used the Indie Fund investment partially to pay contractors and then to sustain himself and company expenses, including trips to PAX. Regardless of the cold, hard numbers, we thought Indie Fund's investment paid off particularly well with Monaco.
Google forms the Glass Collective to invest in eye technology entrepreneurs
Google believes that it's naive to build a wearable technology like Google Glass and expect successful businesses to simply materialize from thin air; those firms will need a financial nudge, too. Accordingly, Google is forming the Glass Collective to invest in projects centering on its eyewear. The partnership will see Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers unite on seed funding for those US-based startups which show promise in areas like communication and navigation. The group hasn't named any targets for its cash, but it's obviously very early days for both Glass and the Collective -- Google needs more developers in the field before it can shower companies with support. Update: According to TechCrunch, Google mentioned during the event that it hopes to get Glass hardware into developers hands "in the next month." Since it started preregistering folks at last year's I/O event, we'd also hope they will arrive in time for this year's Google I/O and inevitable skydive-to-stage live stream.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation racing onto next-gen via $3.5M investment
Stainless Games announced a final "funding round" has brought the total investment for Carmageddon: Reincarnation up to $3.5 million, allowing the studio to bring it to next-gen platforms in addition to PC. After the successful Kickstarter campaign for Reincarnation raised just over $625,000 last summer, which contributed to the PC version, the UK developer says the additional funding comes courtesy of Bullfrog co-founder Les Edgar, who's a shareholder in Stainless Games."We are delighted to have fully funded Carmageddon: Reincarnation without having to go outside of the collective of our own company, shareholders and fans." said Stainless CEO Patrick Buckland. "It allows us to maintain a true independence and creative control whilst not having to compromise quality or content by budgetary constraints."Buckland added, "For an independent, privately owned company to achieve this is a testament to our strength and to the loyalty of our fans."Stainless was named as a PS4 developer earlier this year, which along with today's news all but confirms Carmageddon: Reincarnation for release on the upcoming console.The Kickstarter funding also allowed Stainless to bring the original Carmageddon to iOS and Android, which as promised in the campaign was made free on its first day of release.
Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey hits Kickstarter goal ahead of schedule
Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey hit and ricocheted off its funding goal of $850,000 on Kickstarter with three weeks remaining, which can only mean one thing: It's stretch goal time."And now it's our time to deliver," Red Thread writes in its Kickstarter success update. "We promise to make the best game we can possibly make, one that lives up to your expectations and the legacy of The Longest Journey saga. A game that we can all be proud of. A game worthy of your generous pledges. And we'll keep you involved, every step of the way. But first: stretch goals!"If the Kickstarter hits $900,000, Red Thread will develop Mac and Linux versions of Dreamfall Chapters. Earning $950,000 gets The Loremaster, an in-game library with books and mythology of the universe, and $1 million makes A Longer Journey a reality, adding new locations, characters and stories to the game. Red Thread has stretch goals planned out to $2 million – which marks The Longest Journey Home – though they're all shrouded in mystery for now.By current count, the Dreamfall Chapters Kickstarter has almost $890,000 and 20 days to go, making at least that first stretch goal a very probable thing.
Nike+ opens up its APIs, lets developers see what NikeFuel really is
It looks like Nike+ is making moves to get more people playing with its gear. The Next Web reports that Nike has opened up its APIs on the company developer site today, which means devs now have a way to hook into the data all those FuelBands and SportWatches generate. Among these streams of info is access to a chronological list of user activities, GPS data, and the amount of NikeFuel earned both in total and on an individual activity basis. If that's got you dreaming up fitness apps and games, head on over to the source armed with your Nike+ login info, and that treasure trove of data can be yours to play with, too. TNW goes on to point out that the APIs were freed in conjunction with Nike's Accelerator startup program, on the off chance that any of those apps are part of a worthy business plan. In case you weren't aware, the Accelerator startup incubator's run by TechStars, the same people who also provide seed money and business guidance to aspiring Kinect devs. So, idea-men and women should feel free to embrace the Xbox collaboration possibilities knowing their angel funding's coming from folks who'll understand them. Sound like something you're into? The deadline to apply is February 3rd, so those applying best be ready to hit the ground running when the Accelerator starts a month later.
22cans' lead game designer talks about Curiosity and moving forward to Godus
Gary Leach is the lead game engineer at 22cans, which you probably know by now is game designer Peter Molyneux's experimental startup aiming to put together 22 different game experiences before actually releasing a full title. So far, 22cans has favored the iOS and Mac platforms with their releases: Curiosity is their first experiment, and it launched on the App Store to both great, well, curiosity, and even some complaints about server outages and bugs. But the game is better now, says Leach. "It's going really well," he told TUAW today. "In some ways we're kicking ourselves for planning it so badly, and we had some big decisions to make on whether we're going to take the thing down or try and poke through this." In the end, however, 22cans decided to update the game -- they released version 2.0 this week, and Leach says "the community feel is still just amazing." At this point, Leach says the game's popularity has essentially leveled out. People come and go, and he says a lot of users will come back occasionally just to see how the game is doing. But there are about as many people leaving the game as arriving, so while the numbers are obviously down from launch, they're steady at the moment. Aside from the technical bugs, Leach says one of the hardest things about the game has been balancing its casual and hardcore audiences. In-app purchased items in the game are sold for hundreds of thousands or even millions of in-app coins, and Leach says that "the range of motivations" to earn that currency "is enormous. These beginner types will come on and earn a few thousand coins and think they've done well. But the hardcore audience, 100,000 coins for them is no work at all. So how do you balance that?" Leach says that's the main crux of the conversations during Curiosity's development, and that "a lot of it came down to who's going to be on middle marker and how much they can earn." Users continue to tap away at the big cube in Curiosity, but 22cans and Leach have moved on to the next experiment, a "re-imagining" of Peter Molyneux's original god game, Populous, called Godus. The team has headed to Kickstarter for funding on this project, and Leach says that's because while Curiosity was the kind of experiment that was meant to say "hey world, we're here," Godus is more involved, and it's "the kind of title that potentially publishers may not have gone for." Not much is known about the game, but it will allow players to warp the geography of a virtual world, as well as oversee virtual citizens living and fighting in various battles together. Currently, 22cans is hard at work on a prototype of the game, and Leach says the prototype is mostly being developed on Mac and iOS (the studio has also announced that the final title will be available on Apple's platforms as well). But the current prototype, according to Leach, is only code "that we are using for our own internal evaluation process. None of this code is going to go into the final product. This is code that's going to get binned." So Godus as a finished project hasn't even started yet. As a developer, Leach says he's very excited to work on it, however. He started "kind of midway through the Curiosity project," and says he "was spending the first few weeks trying to catch up to what we were doing." But Godus, on the other hand, is more his speed. "When we first started talking about Godus, that's when I thought this was the product I was meant to make," Leach says. "I'm doing something here that is going to run beautifully on mobile devices and is going to look as good as a desktop game." Godus' Kickstarter is up and running now, and with about seven days left, 22cans has picked up just under three-fourths of the money it's asking for. But Leach's enthusiasm is still very strong. "There's so many reasons to be excited."
Galcon 2 gets a Kickstarter
Phil Hassey is a very talented iOS developer who we've covered before. Probably his biggest game is Galcon, a sort of streamlined real-time strategy game that he's seen a lot of success with on iOS. He's actually made Galcon a few times before and released it on a number of other platforms since. It's actually based on an old game called Galactic Conquest, which itself was based on a game called Stellar Invasion. Game design, as you can tell, tends to be very iterative. Hassey is planning to make Galcon 2, and this time, he's aiming to get funding together before release. There's a Kickstarter project for the title up now. The goal is set at a strange total of $23,099, and there are a number of various prizes to earn for funding, including fridge magnets with the game's graphics, some cool iPhone cases and a "Galconicorn horn" for the person who donates at the very top of the pile. The game itself is actually going to be free-to-play, with in-app purchases for monetization, though Hassey has a number of other big ideas for it, including clan support, online multiplayer rankings and a few other features. Almost $24,000 is a sizable amount, but Hassey's a great game maker, so hopefully he'll get the funding he's looking for. If you're interested in the game and want to support him, you can donate through Kickstarter right now.
Massively Exclusive: Hailan Rising's devs on PvP, death, and player loot tables
Hailan Rising is more than halfway through its Kickstarter campaign with quite a long trek still to go for funding, but we took a good look at the game's description and really liked what we saw. It's a game that is labeling itself as "DAoC meets CoD" and being developed by some important industry vets. But as with any Kickstarter project, there are always questions. We see what's being promised with the game, but we want to know more. So we gathered together a few of our biggest concerns for the Reloaded Productions team to see what this thing is all about. As Kickstarter projects are still a dime a dozen these days, we want to know what sets the team's game apart from the rest. Follow along after the cut for our interview with Adam Smith and Jess Mulligan from Reloaded Productions.
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.
Kickstarter brings crowdfunding to the UK on Halloween
Whether you're currently keeping calm, or simply carrying on, we've got some good news for you steadfast Brits: Kickstarter makes its official launch in the UK on October 31st. Sure, its arrival was rather inevitable, but All Hallows' Eve will mark the first time that inventors outside of the US can take part in the crowdfunding website. Kickstarter visitors will find UK projects listed alongside those in the US, and inventors who think they've stumbled upon the next great mousetrap may begin work on their listing today. Naturally, Insert Coin fans are bound to find some nifty projects work their way across the pond, but in the meantime, you can check out the commerce-related details at the source link below.
World of Midgard opens up Kickstarter campaign
All right, so you've probably seen your fair share of Kickstarters for MMORPGs by now. Including ones aiming at being an old-school revival. And you've seen a lot of them offering to let you play on both mobile devices and on your desktop... Wait, that part is kind of new. And if it appeals to you, you should probably take a look at World of Midgard's new Kickstarter project. The game is currently running in a beta state, but the development team wants to move forward and complete the game in a suitable fashion. That means a need for money, and that's why the game is opening the doors to crowdsourcing. The project offers an exclusive mount for players who donate just up to the $15 level, with increasingly extravagant rewards for those who offer more. If it sounds like your cup of tea, take a look at the project and consider sending a few dollars along to help development.
Elon Musk says Tesla will be 'cash flow positive' soon, announces early repayment of DOE loan
After Tesla Motors' recent SEC filing painted a picture of production delays, revenue shortfalls and stock sales to raise cash, CEO Elon Musk has gone on the record to say everything's a-okay. The omnipresent executive said that "if the calendar were simply shifted a few weeks to the right" Tesla would have actually exceeded its vehicle delivery targets for the quarter, and said that the share release was merely held to mitigate risk from suppliers. He also claimed that the Department of Energy's request for early repayment was not a poor reflection of the EV maker's financial state, but actually a hearty endorsement -- the government branch expects Tesla to make loads of cash, and wants it to repay the loan early rather than hoarding it. As such, Musk announced the Model S builder had initiated its first early payment today and would pay off the principal loan prior to its March 2013 due date. We'll have to see if that's enough to keep the automaker's name out of any future presidential debates. [Image credit: Tesla Motors]
Sword of Fargoal 2 and the iControlPad 2 both head to Kickstarter
Two big followup iPhone projects are looking to Kickstarter for funding. First up, the developers of Sword of Fargoal 2 have launched a US$50,000 campaign. The first game in that series was a relatively early hit on iPhone. The sequel has a much larger scope and is expected to hit several platforms, including iOS. Supporters can get copies of the game's soundtrack, extra versions of the title or see their name in the game or a song. I imagine this project will be funded before long. Meanwhile, the people behind The iControlPad are working on a second version of the popular iOS controller. They've launched a $150,000 Kickstarter campaign, which is a not insignificant goal, but you can get a version of the finished product for as little as $69. More generous backers can pick up better versions of the controller, which is supposed to eventually include not just controls for iOS (and other Bluetooth) devices, but also a full keyboard, and a number of other buttons. It seems like a nice device. While $150k might be a little high, the controller's popularity will probably get it funded. Both of these projects come from solid backgrounds and sound very cool. We look forward to seeing just how both of these fundraising efforts come out.
Obsidian's Project Eternity fully funded, stretch goals revealed
Remember that isometric PC dungeon crawler called Project Eternity that Obsidian Entertainment sought funding for on Kickstarter? The one we told you about, oh, yesterday? Well, not only has the $1.1 million funding goal been reached, but Obsidian revealed the project's initial set of stretch goals for the next month of fundraising.Should the team raise just over $100K more, the game will receive a new playable race, class and companion each in addition to the three races, five classes and five companions included in the game. At the $1.6 million goal, Obsidian will make a Mac version of the game and add a "new major storyline" with added quests and locations. Hitting the $1.8 million mark nets the same result as the first goal, with another new race, class and companion created for the game.Players will receive their own houses in the game if the project reaches $2 million in funding, and will see Linux support and a new region, faction and companion if it hits $2.2 million. At the rate Obsidian is moving in its Kickstarter campaign, it is already working on $2.4 million and above stretch goals. If money keeps moving its way, we'd give it another day or so.
Insert Coin: Shimi iPhone robot is ready to dance its way out of the lab, into your heart
As soon as we saw Georgia Tech's Shimi, we wanted to how many sleepless nights we'd have to spend waiting for one to proudly display on our desk. And really that's the whole idea behind the iPhone-enabled dancing robot: bringing some sophisticated robotic concepts to the consumer, in an adorable little package. Now the wall-eyed "first musically intelligent robotic speaker dock" has hit Kickstarter, ready to dance its way into reality. When finished, Shimi will feature six-watt speakers on either side of its face and five motors that allow it to dance and turn its head to the best position for optimal listening. Shimi does the latter via facial recognition software, tracking you around the room. The 'bot can also respond to verbal requests like "look at me," and "play Justin Bieber" (their suggestion, not ours). In the future, its creators will be offering up apps for gaming, telepresence and the like, as well as an SDK for developers. The Kickstarter page has a decidedly lofty $100,000 goal to hit by October 10th. Pledge $129 or more, and you get a Shimi of your very own. Check out a video of the 'bot and its creators after the break.
NASA awards $100,000 grant for sideways supersonic plane concept, sonic boom not included
NASA isn't just interested in extra-terrestrial exploration, but in pushing the boundaries of atmospheric flight as well, which is why it's just awarded $100,000 in funding for the supersonic plane concept shown above. As you can see, the symmetrical plane is basically all wing, and that's because it has two different configurations based on how fast you want to go. For normal, subsonic flight, a plane needs a decent wingspan to get off the ground and sustain flight at lower speeds. But, when you want to go supersonic, large wings become a bit of a drag, which is where the concept's bi-functional design comes in. The plane begins its journey in the long-winged setup, but spins 90 degrees amongst the clouds to use its stubby wings for efficient faster-than-sound flight and "virtually zero sonic boom." Gecheng Zha from the University of Miami has been touting his concept for quite some time, but now he's got the cash to refine the design, run simulations and do some wind tunnel testing, with the potential for more funding in the future. Unfortunately, the concept is, at best, decades from becoming a reality, but we're sold on the ninja star-like design. Guile, however, is not impressed.
Discovery Bay Games raises $15M for iOS "Appcessories"
Seattle-based Discovery Bay Games, a board game company turned iOS accessory maker, announced today it has raised $15 million in Series B funding, according to a report in TechCrunch. Big name investors include accessory maker Logitech and Trilogy Equity Partners, an investment firm led by Clearwire board chairman John Stanton. The company will use this money to further its line of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch accessories. Discovery Bay Games has been making iPad accessories since December 2010 and is most well-known for its Duo iPad game controller. The company also recently announced a partnership with Gameloft which will bring Gameloft's games to the Duo line of accessories.
The Soapbox: The trouble with Kickstarter
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. It was right around the time that the Shadowrun Online Kickstarter went live that I started to wonder whether Kickstarter was doing some nasty things to the development practices of MMOs. This isn't a commentary on Shadowrun Online itself, exactly. The game asked for players to put up $500,000 to fund development, and while that's an awful lot of money to ask from the pockets of fans, it still doesn't qualify as being high-budget by the standards of the industry. But in some ways, it's the apotheosis of something that started with several other games being funded on Kickstarter -- this sense that Kickstarter is the path of the future, that it's the ultimate litmus test of whether or not your MMO is worth developing and a great way to draw in venture capitalists for more funding. I'm not convinced that this is a good thing for the health of MMO development. You can look at it as a way for strange niche titles to get their funding without convincing outside sources that it's worth the effort, but as we're ramping up to seeing the fruits of these projects (or lack thereof), I'm wondering whether it just allows ideas to get further along before they self-destruct.
Stompy the giant hexapod gets hexafunded, one step closer to hexacrushing your car
So, just how many people want to see Stompy, the two-ton hexapod come to smashtastic life? Enough to fund the project in 11 days via its Kickstarter page. The folks at Artisan's Asylum dropped us a line to let us know that Sir Stompsalot has hit its $65,000 goal as of 7:30 AM this morning, with 18 days left to pledge. That list includes two backers at the $5,000 adopt-a-leg level and nine backers for the $1,000 drive Stompy mark, so unless you've got a giant insect of your own, you might want to avoid driving the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts for a while...
Paid Twitter wannabe App.net hits $500K target with time to spare
Paid Twitter-style service App.net has achieved its self-imposed $500,000 funding goal with almost two days still left on the clock. The social platform is the brainchild of Dalton Caldwell, who said he wanted to spawn a service dedicated to users instead of advertisers. It was originally pitched to Facebook, but the two companies came to loggerheads when it clashed with the social network's own App Center -- inspiring Caldwell's Kickstarter-style campaign. Though the software is still in alpha, over 10,000 backers have paid $50 for an annual membership or put down $1,000 for support, developer tools and a meeting with the founder. The company will now start working on its terms of service, letting users offer feedback and discover new features -- and if you wanna be @John instead of @JohnFDoe99427 on the new service, you may want to pony up, quick.