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Make My MMO: May 18 - May 24
This week's MMO crowdfunding news was dominated by a familiar trio of gamemaking heavyweights as well as an upstart studio bent on updating the magic of Ultima Online. Star Citizen announced a date of May 29th for its dogfighting module Arena Commander thing, while fellow space sim sandbox Elite: Dangerous released its Alpha 4 client, posted a new progress video, and targeted the end of May for its next major release. Meanwhile, Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar published its Release 6 client this weekend, while UO descendant Shards Online kept its fledgling Kickstarter project in the news with a series of promotions. Click past the cut for the rest of Massively's crowdfunding roundup.
Make My MMO: May 11 - May 17, 2014
This week in MMO crowdfunding, Shards Online officially launched its Kickstarter and revealed its gameplay to the world via its first livestream event. Some other crowdfunding stuff probably happened too, but really, we're all Shards all the time in these parts, and we'll be your best friend if you go give Citadel some money so that we can eventually make a Massively server filled with love and world domination. In case objectivity is your thing, we've included the rest of the week's crowdfunding news after the cut.
Make My MMO: May 4 - May 10, 2014
This week in MMO crowdfunding news we said hello to The Stomping Land and goodbye to Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. The former is a PvP survival sandbox focused on taming dinosaurs, pitting the larger beasties against one another (because they're unkillable by puny player characters), and avoiding the typical gank squad behavior that's certain to manifest. The latter is of course Brad McQuaid's bid to recapture his EverQuest glory days. The latest bit of news, aside from various unsubstantiated internet rumors, involves McQuaid's decision to continue development with a volunteer dev team. Click past the cut for Massively's list of crowdfunded MMOs and their latest news updates.
Make My MMO: April 27 - May 3, 2014
Two of the more successful crowdsourced MMOs dominated the crowdfunding news headlines this week. First up was The Repopulation, Above & Beyond's sci-fi sandbox, which recently launched its third alpha. The game's latest monthly update letter featured an exhaustive list of bug fixes as well as confirmation that more players will be recruited for testing in short order. Then there's Star Citizen, which just keeps going and going and going. Or should we say earning and earning and earning? Cloud Imperium's warchest is up to a whopping $43 million courtesy of over 442,000 star citizens. On a smaller scale, Trials of Ascension met its $40,000 Light the Forge goal. The devs say the store will remain open for donations until just before the game's second attempt at a full-fledged Kickstarter campaign. You can check on the status of your favorite MMO crowdfunding project after the cut.
Make My MMO: April 20 - April 26, 2014
Trials of Ascension acquitted itself well this week with a new dev video that showed off its unique dynamic spawning feature. In other crowdfunding news, The Chosen's IndieGoGo campaign came and went without hitting its $1,000,000 goal. Thanks to the service's flexible funding, though, The Chosen's devs will keep existing donations to the self-described "game-child" of EVE Online and Fallout 3. Click past the cut for the rest of Massively's weekly crowdfunding roundup.
Make My MMO: April 13 - April 19, 2014
MMO crowdfunding news this week centered on industry titans Richard Garriott and Chris Roberts, as well as The Secret World's new ARG companion game called The Black Watchmen. The title kicks off in September and is currently being funded through a Crowdtilt campaign that still has 49 days left to run. For more info on the title, click past the cut or check out Massively's Black Watchmen interview.
Make My MMO: April 6 - April 12, 2014
This week a reader named TrollsRoyce (no relation to Massively Editor-in-Chief Bree Royce, we swear) brought a new crowdfunding project called Red Blood to our collective attention. The game's IndieGoGo campaign will run through May 5th and the staff, which includes former CABAL Online and Perfect World developers, could use your help. What exactly is Red Blood? It's a "triple-A MMORPG title that's based on the popular comic book series Red Blood," the project site explains. "Set in a post apocalyptic future, the world is a changed land where science and magic coexist and humans have been recreated by changing DNA. Four opposing countries have risen in an attempt to gain total control of the world using their new armies of genetically modified mercenaries." Listed features include a full pet system, non-targeting combat, and an infinite number of instance dungeons. User Games and Gorilla Banana have released a trailer, and Steparu has posted an extensive review of an early build.
Make My MMO: March 23 - April 5, 2014
This week the team at Black Eye Games released a bit of new info on its Gloria Victis fantasy sandbox. Last weekend saw a player test of the territory capture and PvP systems, and there are also some new screenshots for your perusal on the game's Facebook page. New this week is Contested Space, a pre-Kickstarter project for fans of sci-fi conquest, expansion, and ship design. Creator Matthew "Zon" Haralovich says that the PC/Mac/Linux title "mixes action-oriented ship combat with creativity and community. Players design their own ships and stations while defending and expanding territory for their alliance."
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding March 16 - March 22, 2014
Last week's new entry MyDream met its $100,000 Kickstarter goal, and it did so with over two weeks left in its funding drive! Aside from that bit of good news, it was fairly quiet on the crowdfunding front. GoblinWorks made waves with some interesting class reveals for fantasy sandbox Pathfinder Online (say hello to the Aristocrat, the Commoner, and the Expert in addition to usual suspects like the Barbarian, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Bard). And superhero project City of Titans announced that it's moving its assets from Unreal 3 to Unreal 4, which will enable greater ease, flexibility, and detail during the game's development cycle. Click past the cut to catch up on the rest of the crowdfunding... er, crowd.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding March 9 - March 15, 2014
This week we say goodbye to Terrayn's Kickstarter campaign, which came up short of its $300,000 goal. We say hello to MyDream, though, which has already raked in over a quarter of its $100,000 goal with more than 20 days left to go! MyDream bills itself as an open-world sandbox based on creativity and collaboration. Player-constructed adventures, environments, and structures are also in the mix. Click past the cut for more of this week's choicest MMO crowdfunding news.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding March 2 - March 8, 2014
Crowdfunding news was lighter than normal for the week ending March 8th, but we nonetheless learned a bit more about space sim sandboxes Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen. The Phoenix Project also updated us on the status of its City of Titans spiritual sequel, which now boasts a new president and a new board of directors and is "deep in pre-production." Click past the cut for the rest of this week's crowdforged notables.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding February 23 - March 1, 2014
This week's Make My MMO adds Trials of Ascension's Light the Forge campaign, which is Chaos Forge's company-specific (i.e., non-Kickstarter) bid to raise $40,000. The fantasy sandbox canceled its initial Kickstarter campaign because it "failed in showing its true potential," according to a news posting on the ToA website. If the Light the Forge drive is successful, the devs will use the $40,000 to finish the game's demo and return to Kickstarter in the hopes of attracting additional funding. Head past the cut for a breakdown of other crowdfunded MMO projects for the week ending March 1st, 2014.
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]
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding February 9 - 22, 2014
In the world of MMOs, no news is not necessarily good news -- especially when it comes to crowdfunding. Silence often denotes a lack of progress on a game, and that can certainly make investors nervous. Thankfully, many games provide players with updates that we, in turn, provide for you here. If no news is bad, then news is good, right? Unfortunately, this doesn't hold true. In the case of Star Rider and Hot Rod Hustle, the news is that neither met its funding goals. So we say farewell to these two games from Make My MMO. And Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's campaign was chock-full of news, but in the end, its Kickstarter didn't succeed either; Pantheon, however, is continuing the fundraising effort on its official site. At least some news is good! War of Omens also leaves this round up, but for different reasons: Players can hop in and play the game! Likewise, HEX: Shards of Fate and StarCraft Universe move on now that both have moved into testing. Another sandbox, Terrayn, also joins the Kickstarter ranks. To hear other good news, keep reading.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding January 26 - February 8, 2014
The crowdfunding train just keeps rolling right along, with passengers always coming and going. New passengers hop aboard while others hop off at their desired destination. Sadly, some have to disembark early -- such is the case with Universe Rush and Antilia. Although the Kickstarter campaign fell far short of its goal, Antilia does plan to continue development on its own. On the brighter side of things, some passengers reached their stop; Tales From The Strange Universe reached its goal, and both it and Novus AEterno (which brought in over 3.5 times its initial goal) will now take their places in the funded category. The Repopulation, earning over 175K during this latest Kickstarter run, disembarks at Betawatch station thanks to its ongoing alpha testing. Catch up on all the news for all these titles as they journey through crowdfunding here in Make My MMO.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding January 12 - 25, 2014
After a sleepy holiday season, the crowdfunding crowd has woken up and gotten down to business. And amidst that new bustle of activity, Make My MMO's ranks are altering a bit. Two games leave our listing, but each for different reasons; the cross-platform space sim Space Unfolding folded after missing its goal, and Face of Mankind moved along to Betawatch to join the ranks of the games in testing. And now that War of Omens' campaign has wrapped up, it moves into the fully funded category. Some campaigns have really kicked into high gear. Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen joined the crowdfunding race and has delivered a slew of nearly daily news. Novus AEterno has nearly tripled its goal and is closing in on yet another stretch goal these final days of its campaign, while The Repopulation has also blown away its initial goal and is aiming for its eigth stretch goal (not to mention revealed plenty of juicy new bits). A smaller title, Tales From The Strange Universe, is more than halfway to its modest goal with a week left. And newcomer Star Rider also jumps on the Kickstarter bandwagon. Unfortunately, others aren't faring as well. Things aren't looking promising for Antilia or Universe Rush, whose campaigns end soon and are still over $85K and $98K short of their respective goals. Want more details on these stories or an update on all the already-funded projects? We've got the round-up right here.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding December 29, 2013 - January 11, 2014
Was 2013 the year of Kickstarter? Whatever you think personally about the funding model, you can't argue with the fact that over $480 million was pledged through the crowdfunding platform in the last calendar year. That's definitely one hunk of change! But whether or not that figure translates into a tidal wave of awesome games has yet to be seen; the jury will remain out until even more funded games actually release and players get to experience what they backed. As for specific MMO news this past fortnight, the bulk of it involves new titles vying for a slice of 2014's crowdfunding pie. The CCG War of Omens has already grabbed a piece; it met its goal and has moved on to stretch goals for the last couple of days. Other hopefuls include more two space strategy games. Learn more about all of these, as well as the news from the funded front, right here in Make My MMO.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding December 15 - 28, 2013
'Tis the season... but not for news! With minds focused on the holidays, it looks as if not much happened in the realm of crowdfunding since our last Make My MMO update. Just how slow was it? It was so slow that Star Citizen did not announce earning another $2 million. A few tidbits did, however, did trickle out. Novus AEterno met its goal within 102 hours and still has a month of funding ahead. On the other hand, Empires of Tahn followed what seems to be the new norm: cancel the project before getting the dreaded "unsuccessful" label. And one title that is already strong in its development has jumped back into the crowdfunding realm; The Repopulation aims to incorporate even more features into the sandbox. There are also a couple dev blogs to speak of and a few odds and ends, all of which you will find rounded up for you below.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding December 1 - 14, 2013
If it seems as if crowdfunding's gone into a turkey coma lately, you aren't just imagining things -- at least as far as funded games are concerned. News on that front has seemed scarce compared to the deluge of some other two-week spans, but the current campaigns are trying to make up for it. Life is Feudal canceled its Indiegogo campaign, but devs vowed to "survive according to Plan 'B'," so we'll keep an eye out to see whether it moves into personal funding as other games have done. (That route is working for Neo's Land, whose donations keep creeping higher.) Similarly, Novus AEterno scrapped its second Kickstarter campaign, but in a twist, it's already restarted another with a lower goal. Outer Worlds Online, however, just didn't make the funding cut. On the successful side, manners and dinner parties will be coming to an MMO near you; Ever, Jane got an invitation to join the funded club. A few other funded titles also saw some progress, and still others joined (or re-joined) the race for your support. And topping all that, we also bid farewell to Elite: Dangerous, who leaves Make My MMO for Betawatch now that its alpha has started. You can catch all the updates below.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding November 17 - 30, 2013
One thing gamers can definitely be thankful for this year is crowdfunding! Thanks to this phenomenon, we have many more options opening to us than ever before. And there are definitely some good gaming prospects on the horizon, even if news about all but one is seeming a bit scarce lately. While it's true that a few funded projects tossed out a news morsel or two, two new campaigns replaced two unsuccessful ones (neither The Zodiac Project nor Omuni Online made their goals), newcomer The Mandate already made its goal, and another hopeful -- Ever, Jane -- has secured three-quarters of its goal with only a couple of days left, the majority of the spotlight has been stolen the upcoming space sim Star Citizen, which continues to blast the crowdfunding record to smithereens. If you missed any of the news, you can catch up on it all right here in Make My MMO.
