The fate of quirky indie MMORPG Project Gorgon has hung in the balance over the last few days following the news that the soft-launched beta game was teetering on the edge of maintenance mode owing to insufficient funding – and worse, that one of its development duo was still struggling with cancer and medical bills. There followed a burst of player support, and as we reported on Sunday, donations for Gorgon and Elder Game’s dynamic duo Eric Heimburg and Sandra Powers had blasted past $20,000 (which doesn’t even count all the players subbing and buying game packages).
And after the community had properly made everyone cry with generosity, Powers and Heimburg have sought to encourage practical discussions and ideas about how to drive the game going forward.
“I think the first big question is: how can we use your donations to best continue development?” Powers wrote last night. “All of it will be going to developing the game, of course – that’s the point. :) But we aren’t yet sure how to spend it most effectively. That’s going to take some thought. We’ll keep our current development plans for the holidays while we review what we can afford to do next year.”
“A lot of the ideas here are things we considered and rejected, but it’s clear that some of you have more contacts and knowledge than we do, and maybe some of those ideas deserve another look. And some of the ideas are things we never would have thought of! Anyway, we’re letting these ideas bounce in our brains while we get the bug-fix update out the door. So please keep discussing! :)”
Heimburg does confirm that in the short-term, it’s now possible to bring back on some of the team members to work on “the next updates” – updates we weren’t even sure were going to be possible before.
As we noted on Sunday, if you’re looking for a good indie cause run by genuine old-school MMORPG veterans – and a unique indie MMO to play – the studio has a cash shop and donation page and an open door for new players. Project Gorgon won MOP’s indie MMO of the year award in 2018 and 2019, and it’s only expanded since. And if you’re curious to see it in action, we’ll be streaming it on Friday afternoon, so stay tuned!
