Shroud of the Avatar’s equity crowdfunding venture has gone rather well: Portalarium declared last night that it has “exceeded [its] SeedInvest target and [is] now reaching new heights,” meaning it’s raised $570,913 toward its original $500,000 target minimum ($465,000 from small-scale investors and $105,000 from higher-end accredited investors), with a potential round size of $2M. There are just over three days left for investors of all stripes to jump in. Don’t miss our interviews with Richard Garriott and Starr Long if you’re still on the fence!
Meanwhile, Portalarium has announced that with the release of R44 last week, it plans to “experiment with extended postmortems that are also Mini-Telethons.” If it proves popular, it’d potentially mean a switchover from the exhausting 12- or 24- hour telethon stream the team does quarterly to a monthly 4-hour fundraising session as the team delivers its release recap and Q&A.
We've exceeded our @SeedInvest target and are now reaching new heights! Come join us! https://t.co/8OambXQaql #LBSotA #SeedInvest #MMO pic.twitter.com/snxczNX7xL
— Shroud of the Avatar (@ShroudofAvatar) August 3, 2017
I regret ever giving these people a cent of my money. Between the telethons and the way they sold items that gave ridiculous advantages to people who spent thousands of dollars, these guys are as scummy as it gets. Between this and Star Citizen I’ve completely given up supporting anything through crowd funding.
People need to stop supporting this.
Why? Yes, people could give money for projects digging wells in places lacking water etc, but if we move outside moral questions, if someone wants to give their money to see a game they want to play to be finished (through what could be uncharitably called ‘serial begging’) then why should people stop giving money?
If its a lousy way to develop a game, then in time the model will fail, be abandoned and replaced with more better – and perhaps traditional – models.
Monthly telethons. Uh huh. Enh, I guess if that’s what people really want to spend their money on then that’s their business. Just… I dunno, man. I’m a little puzzled by the fact that this kind of heavy-duty milking isn’t criticized more often in the gaming press. I don’t see why cash shop shenanigans and lockboxes are any more worthy of coverage than a friggin’ telethon.
Because the former are a gamble, which can give unduly benefit in a game if successful and can be misleading waste of money – not to mention to advance in some cases spending money in stores or open lockboxes can be almost necessary to advance – while the latter is ‘just’ giving money away for a project one supports without gaining any more direct benefit than being able to play the game – if the project or company doesn’t fold.
Monthly telethons?
Since when is a game developer the PTL Club or NPR?
Garriott is such a snakeoil salesman
Star Wars Galaxies cost 19 million dollars in 2002: that’s 26 million just purely on inflation; but the cost of game development has risen at a greater rate than standard inflation.
Why do these crowdfunded games -many from highly experienced devwlopers- keep telling us they can build something just as ambitious as SWG for a fraction of the cost? And then they’re surprised when they still fall drastically short after raising a few million via donations?
They have raised close to 12 million dollars, beyond whatever else has otherwise been invested in the game.
Garriot’s vision is a 30 million dollar game in today’s world. At least. He’s raised about a third of that. Furthermore the inital Kickstarter was a fraction of that. Like so many crowdfunded multiplayer projects, the scope of the project far exceeds what they even asked for, let alone actually raised.
He spent that amount of money in his space tourism flight. If necessary, we can assume he can cough up more if the telethons don’t work.
Digital panhandling at it’s “best”.
So, EA sales aren’t enough? :/
EA sales?
EA has nothing to do with this. But apparently literally selling Garriott’s blood isn’t enough?
EA in this context means Early Access.
I stand corrected. ;)
So um when I backed this they said it would be out by 2014. Buyer beware I guess
Technically it has been out for quite some time. You can go and play it, but its very much unfinished.
The longer it’s in development, the longer it can make money. As soon as it “Releases” it’ll be a dead game making no coin.
It’s B2P with a store.
With your help, we can cure EVERYTHING!
Raising money to raise more money. You go girl!
It works for them. As much as people often seem to think that companies behind MMOs should come by with photosynthesis, that’s not just possible.