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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.
Crowdfund Bookie, January 2014: 63 percent nosedive
The Crowdfund Bookie crunches data from select successful Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that ended during the month and produces pretty charts for you to look at. Any momentum maintained in the video game crowdfunding space in December 2013 was dashed just one month later. Gaming projects for the month totaled only $845,876, a 63.71 percent decrease from December's $2,331,061. Just 20 projects were funded during a five-week January period, half the amount that were successful in December. The number of backers for projects also saw a 79.58 percent downturn, plummeting to 12,712 funders. Unlike previous months, there wasn't a marquee project to prop the crowdfunding arena's totals up, as the top earner was Taitale Studios' 4X strategy game Novus Aeterno, which hauled in $268,875. Another game stole our attention for the month: MMA Federation. Much like the infamously suspicious funding patterns of Gridiron Thunder, the MMA-focused mobile social game managed to earn $163,924 thanks to only 159 backers, an outlandish average of $1,030.97 per funder. As expected, the odd funding averages of MMA Federation significantly impacted the end results for January, as removing the game's data for the month drops the mean average pledge per backer amount from $66.54 to $54.33. Without MMA Federation's sales data, January's projects also added up to 281.3 percent of their funding goals. Both impacted data points show that January's projects still stayed consistent with the funding trends seen in our past Bookies; pledges average out to roughly $50 and backers tend to push projects well past their goal amounts. Head past the break to see the month's top five projects and a breakdown by genre.
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.
Perfect Ten: Online collectible card games that will tap your heart
While it might be a stretch to put collectible (or trading) card games in the same family as MMORPGs, it's hard to deny that their audiences are pretty similar and quite open to a little crossover between genres. Massively has made mention of TCGs as their numbers and popularity seems to be on the rise online. That led up to the day that my editor came into my office, smacked an Elmer Fudd Pez dispenser out of my hand, and told me that I better do a top 10 list on card games "or else." "Or else what?" I chirped before thinking. "Or else you'll be our full-time Darkfall columnist," my editor said. So hey! We're talking about card games today! How about, I don't know, 10 of them?
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.
War of Omens CCG strives to cross Kickstarter finish line
War of Omens, a deck-building CCG by Fifth Column Games, is making an attempt to meet its Kickstarter funding goal by January 13th. The game is set in a dark fantasy world and has three factions to which you can pledge loyalty and undying devotion. The devs describe War of Omens a hybrid between deck-building games like Dominion and traditional collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering. Players will purchase cards during play that will then be shuffled into their inventory for future rotation. There are also resources to collect and use during the course of a match. Fifth Column is asking for $30,000 in funding to finish the title. As added incentive to donate, all those who chip in $10 or more will be given an early access beta key. You can get a look at how a battle works after the break. [Thanks to Mike for the tip!]
