how much money did they gain?

Copperfield

Seems the developments has been started.. and was wondering how much money did the company gained with kickstarters or whatever?

 

 

MumboJumbo

Blog break-down: Just Keep Truckin' On

 

Backer Totals

We have 4,213 people backing the Technology Demo, and 8,737 people backing the full MMO Kickstarter. The obvious question is: How many people backed both?

That's a bit harder to answer than might be expected, because people change email, change usernames, and change various other elements of their ID in the months between the two projects. We are going to untangle this question and try to provide an answer we're highly confident is close to accurate, but right now we don't really know.

Amazon Payment Results

The final total of pledges to the Kickstarter was $1,091,194. Amazon was able to process all but $27,254 of that total.

What We're Doing with the Money

Everyone who backs a project like Pathfinder Online via Kickstarter is entitled to a regular summary of how we're using the funds raised, so this is a perfect opportunity to provide some updates on that front.

We've spent approximately $795k through the end of May.  [...]

 

Fusion

Not enough. They'll be asking for more soon, mark my words

Alpha access 1000$

lugal

I believe they have intended to gather financial support from others sourses beyond that of kickstarter. Not sure if they have been able to find investors, but at this point, it would not be a big gamble, since so much has already been done. We shall see if they make it to beta, by then it should be a slam dunk since much of the money raised was for beta access.

Victor_Kruger

Originally posted by Fusion

Not enough. They'll be asking for more soon, mark my words

Alpha access 1000$

Its enough to show investors that there is a lot interest for the game. 

Fanndis_Goldbraid

Early Enrollment is expected to start in September. It is sort of a beta, but there will not be a server wipe unless there is a serious issue with balance or some other major issue that needs a do-over. The 33 settlements that have been granted land to build on is what will be there when the game opens to the general public in 2016. Up to then Goblinworks will be rolling out planned features, new races (Gnomes will be the first after Early Enrollment starts), skills, structures and other features that have been in the planning and development stages for many months or longer.

iridescence

Originally posted by lugal
I believe they have intended to gather financial support from others sourses beyond that of kickstarter. Not sure if they have been able to find investors, but at this point, it would not be a big gamble, since so much has already been done. We shall see if they make it to beta, by then it should be a slam dunk since much of the money raised was for beta access.

They do have other investors outside of KS although to my knowledge they've never made the details public. I assume they have a few million though.

 

Fusion

Heavily interested on the proposed Sanbox parts of the game, but so far i'm far from impressed with the technical side of the game... sure it's in alpha and stuff, but it's not gonna change a whole lot to release, unless they restart from scratch with the engine.

MumboJumbo

Originally posted by Fusion
Heavily interested on the proposed Sanbox parts of the game, but so far i'm far from impressed with the technical side of the game... sure it's in alpha and stuff, but it's not gonna change a whole lot to release, unless they restart from scratch with the engine.

Kickstarter FAQ:

Is the whole budget coming from this Kickstarter?

No. Most of the budget is being provided by our initial investors, but the money we're raising on Kickstarter is the difference between a 4 year development plan and a much faster, much larger plan.

Barring unforeseeable future complications we do not expect to have to raise additional funds or do additional Kickstarter projects after the successful completion of this project.

And: An Interview With 'Pathfinder Online' Developer Ryan Dancey

What is the budget for a game of this scope? Is it expensive to maintain once completed?

We’re targeting a budget of between $5 and $10 million. This is comparable to the budget CCP had to develop EVE Online.

Unlike a traditional game that front-loads all its costs prior to release, MMOs are services and thus have ongoing operational and development costs which never cease. Those post-release costs will be higher than the pre-release development budget on an annual basis, so within a few years post-release more money will have been spent during live operations than in pre-launch development, and over the longer term, much more money is spent in total on live operations than pre-launch development.

 

So it's brought to playable state aka MVP 1-2 year(s) sooner with the kickstarter cash. It's much much lower dev budget and hence probably shows.

But also as it's sandbox design it's systems are about breadth and less about depth of combat and animations etc atm. So for example there's an extension of systems to buildings (major USP?) and also territorial and status indicators eg the flagging systems between players to develop.

By contrast to Star Citizen, it looks like the ugly duckling. But if there is enough support I think it has a chance to grow into a very interesting game and possibly become more passable technically. Secondly it's a single-shard world for 3D without the benefit of space that EVE has, so again it's interesting and compromised from that point of view of load balancing players and rendering all the landscapes atst too.

There's not that many true MMO- designs atm (PS2?, EVE) (perhaps Camelot Unchained and Eternal Crusade are some on the horizon), so it will be interesting to see if devs are able to tackle this challenge. I think the Hex design could work really well for them. They seem to have gone for major height elevations to split up the map and ensure it's "rugged" which I think for immersion is better and also for load balancing and again possibly more interesting for game design eg passes control etc for trade routes and battles.

But yeah, coming back to Star Citizen, to use an over-abused phrase, I'm "blown-away" by the look and tech of that game by contrast to PFO. Yet the design of PFO seems as good if not better, potentially for true MMO- development; and equally we're comparing: <10m$ to >50m$ budgets.

Copperfield

hmm intresting stuff ..

 

So basicly the repopulation doing alot more and has alot less money then this company..

 

Goblin works already spend most of their money said somewhere.. without even having a alpha build?

Pexxx

There's actually a blog post that goes over where the money was spent here https://goblinworks.com/blog/ might have to do some digging to find it. I would have posted the exact link, but I am at work right now.

Pexxx

Found it here we go https://goblinworks.com/blog/brass-in-pocket/

iridescence

Originally posted by Copperfield

hmm intresting stuff ..

 

So basicly the repopulation doing alot more and has alot less money then this company..

 

Goblin works already spend most of their money said somewhere.. without even having a alpha build

Not sure what you're talking about. They have an alpha. They actually have what amounts to a beta build coming out in a month. They've been remarkably transparent and managed to stay on the schedule for release better than any Kickstarter project I've seen. 

 

I agree that what the Repop wants to do with the money they have is also pretty impressive but we haven't seen their actual game yet and Repop  was originally supposed to be out in 2013 according to their original Kickstarter.

 

MumboJumbo

Originally posted by Copperfield

So basicly the repopulation doing alot more and has alot less money then this company..

I don't know enough about The Repopulation, though I have followed it and what they're doing I'd say looks really good both in design and implementation. In terms of what they're doing, it's a very different design eg F2P, different rule-sets, 3 factions etc... and of course sci-fi with iirc a very big emphasis on crafting as per SWG, though from some comments from beta? players it's not a great deal like SWG.

Visually, from a layman's pov, I'd say The Repopulation looks a lot better graphically than PFO. But I really don't know if that is something to do with the design choices, there and different time-lines for different things. Goblinworks keep pointing out that the whole game is open to further iteration depending on what players & devs decide to prioritize. I'd be more interested in seeing the network stuff be able to support lots of players in PFO as per single world shard than really great graphics to begin with: That has much more significance to see work I'd argue.

 

Copperfield

well i dont get this goblinworks tho..

 

They are saying that their company will run on future investors without having anymore kickstarters.

 

How are they gonna adress their investors if there is no option for players:

 

- to make an account 

- debat or talk on a forum about the game

 

the only thing they can bragg about is their kickstarter money

 

Pretty dumb management if ask me

 

concept looks intresting tho.. saw a video of their territory control system.. seems pretty nice system/vision

 

but like i said.. its pretty weird they dont allow players to debat or make account on their forum..

 

 

iridescence

Originally posted by Copperfield

 

How are they gonna adress their investors if there is no option for players:

 

- to make an account 

- debat or talk on a forum about the game

 

You can make an account and discuss the game: at this site:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/licensees/pathfinderOnline

 

Which they've been using as the game forum since the 1st KS in 2012. 

 

I'm pretty sure you can make an account there even if you haven't signed up for the game. but in any case actual players can certainly discuss and give feedback, on the game in their forum.

 

 

 

MumboJumbo

Originally posted by Copperfield

They are saying that their company will run on future investors without having anymore kickstarters.

concept looks intresting tho.. saw a video of their territory control system.. seems pretty nice system/vision

Investors already funded development. Post-development live operations will be funded by revenue generation from playing and paying customers.

This vid: The Map & during EE: War of Towers (proxy system while settlements and infrastructure are being developed and players are growing these things)

Copperfield

ahh yes thx alot

BlueMountain

BTW the goblinworks CEO mentioned his intention that within a few years the game will have a similar graphical quality as you find in AAA games.

As gamers I think most of us can buy in to the notion that the first priority should be the development of the game itself. Later on the bells and whistles can be added.

If the game itself is great they will easily be able to afford the art. If the game design is a failure all the art in the world won't save it and good money won't have been flushed down the hole attempting to make a silk purse from a sow's ear. I think that attitude is refreshingly realistic. We should have more of that philosophy in the world.