I’ve been thinking about crowdfunding for a while, and I was generally aware from industry stories and client experiences that it is an interesting way to get funding for games. Besides which, I’m interested in how best to make it work legally (more on that later). Then I was asked today to look into some notable examples of crowdfunding for games. 5 minutes into a Google search on the subject blew me away and I felt I should share some of what I found with you.
Here’s just a few examples:
- Warballoon Games (USA) raised $20k in 5 days for “Star Command”
- Zero Point Software (Denmark) raised over $125k for “Interstellar Marines”
- Six to Start (UK) had a target of $12,500 for “Zombies, Run!” but actually raised $73k
- Rik Falch (USA) had a target of $13,000 for his “D-DayDice Board Game” but actually raised $172k
It’s not just about record-breaking statistics either. We should bear in mind games like The Indie Stone’s Project Zomboid, where devs are able to make a game via alpha-funding. The best example of alpha funding though is probably Minecraft (don’t think I need to say anything more than the name there – you get what I’m talking about!) Plus, there’s some pretty ambitious crowdfunding projects. Slightly Mad Studios have launched their World of Mass Development for example, then you’ve got games like Nexus 2(as of the date of this post, it has Euro 110k in funding but Euro 290k to go…)All this is amazing, especially when you consider the sheer amount of time and energy that goes into every other form of fundraising for a games business, like bank lending or angel or venture capital investment. Sure, crowdfunding alone won’t fund many businesses, and I’m sure there’s plenty of failed crowdfunding proposals, but it’s clearly a serious option to consider when making your next game.
That said, because this is a legal blog, I’ll have some legal suggestions to make about what to bear in mind when crowdfunding your next game – it’s an awesome funding channel you should be making use of, but it’s not free money either. More on legal tips for crowdfunding soon – watch this space…
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A new crowdfunding platform that focuses on funds raising for startups is launching in April. It is called Mymicroinvest. We hope it to reach such great success.
http://www.mymicroinvest.com/
Our crowdfunding site http://peerbackers.com has some great success stories as well (platform is primarily for entrepreneurs and product designers). In fact we have a gamer-related product that just posted called gamer-griptz that keep your hands form getting sweaty when using the controlelrs so you might want to check it out and pre-order one! 🙂 http://peerbackers.com/projects/gamergripz-xbox-controller-gripz
Site for UK Australia and NZ launching FEB 28, 2012 seeking submissions from game developers now http://www.pledgemyproject.com