Fans Pledge Thousands to Indie RPG Dev in Two Days

Tom Goldman

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Aug 17, 2009
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Fans Pledge Thousands to Indie RPG Dev in Two Days



Zeboyd Games will be bringing its retro RPG skills to the PC, thanks to loyal fans.

If you've been following the progress of indie RPG studio Zeboyd Games, known for praised Xbox Live Indie Games titles plan [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100228-Rise-From-Your-Grave-With-1-Xbox-Live-Indie-RPG] to see if the PC was a more suitable platform for its titles has already born fruit in the form of thousands of dollars of funding money.

Zeboyd started up a Kickstarter page [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/744735150/cthulhu-saves-the-world-enhanced-version-for-pc-an] in an attempt to raise $3,000 to fund the port of Cthulu Saves the World to the PC. Two days later, it met that goal. As of this writing, 92 backers have pledged $4,450, with 25 days to go until the project officially gets funded.

As an RPG fan, I'm happy that Zeboyd got such a quick infusion of community support. It'll be great to see where this will lead the studio in the future. From a different perspective, the situation points out an interesting new world where a videogame developers doesn't have to seek investment from (sometimes) evil corporate firms anymore.

Breath of Death VII, Zeboyd's first game, would never have been released as a physical retail product. Because of the existence of Xbox Live Indie Games and the inclination by a few fellows to create a videogame, it was released for $1 and purchased by over 40,000 people. When Zeboyd saw that there was an audience for its type of games, but that XBLIG wasn't a fully self-sustaining platform for their release, the community that enjoyed it products was quickly able to fund a move to the PC too.

The "garage" of each "garage developer" no longer includes just the group of people creating a game, but all of its fans as well. I think we'll be seeing a lot more of these fan fundings in the near future. Plus, how amazing would it be if even larger companies catch on, with thousands of gamers funding the creation of more popular franchises?

Source: Zeboyd Games [http://zeboyd.com/]

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Erana

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Feb 28, 2008
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Phones are also an excellent outlet for developers these days, too- the prices are expected to be low, and they often have a good a chance as the big names to be successful.

RISE OF THE INDIE (not Jones) YAY
 

manythings

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Nov 7, 2009
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I can see this going well until people start throwing money at crap and losing out. I'm calling fan-investments a future problem rather than a solution.
 

Pariahwulfen

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Mar 23, 2010
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Tom Goldman said:
. Plus, how amazing would it be if even larger companies catch on, with thousands of gamers funding the creation of more popular franchises?
Can has "Final Fantasy 7 remake" fund raising drive?
 

Fr]anc[is

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May 13, 2010
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Tom Goldman said:
Plus, how amazing would it be if even larger companies catch on, with thousands of gamers funding the creation of more popular franchises?
Yea because "No ME3/GTA5/etc until a million of you F***ers cough up $60" sounds like a great idea
 

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Fr said:
anc[is]
Tom Goldman said:
Plus, how amazing would it be if even larger companies catch on, with thousands of gamers funding the creation of more popular franchises?
Yea because "No ME3/GTA5/etc until a million of you F***ers cough up $60" sounds like a great idea
Think of it this way... major publishers pass on sequel to cult classic, so fans fund it instead.
 

Dfskelleton

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I bought "Cthulhu Saves the World" on Xbox Live as soon as I heard about this petition. I hope my 3 dollars helped, and I'm enjoying this game greatly. Maybe it's because I'm a Lovecraft fan, but I've never been interested in turn based RPG combat except for Doom II RPG on the Iphone. Still, a funny and interesting game, hope they make more like it.
Oh, and I love humour where the 4th wall is broken, something that is plentiful in this game.
 

Terramax

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Jan 11, 2008
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Tom Goldman said:
Think of it this way... major publishers pass on sequel to cult classic, so fans fund it instead.
Sounds very risky. It can work for a 2 man team making a crummy game in their bedroom which happens to do well only because people like the lol factor of buying it for $1, but what if 10,000 people donate $40 each funding an ambitious game then runs out of/ over budget half way?

Money down the drain and 10,000 angry donators. As someone already mentioned, should this actually take off, it'll likely lead to disaster.
 

HellspawnCandy

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Oct 29, 2009
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Dfskelleton said:
I bought "Cthulhu Saves the World" on Xbox Live as soon as I heard about this petition. I hope my 3 dollars helped, and I'm enjoying this game greatly. Maybe it's because I'm a Lovecraft fan, but I've never been interested in turn based RPG combat except for Doom II RPG on the Iphone. Still, a funny and interesting game, hope they make more like it.
Oh, and I love humour where the 4th wall is broken, something that is plentiful in this game.
:eek: Doom II RPG on iPhone?
OT:I think they should hit the app stores because so far there's not many great RPG's or the ones that exist in the app stores and quite short and dull.
 

GamingAwesome1

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May 22, 2009
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Yes!

I loved Breath of Death VII. I was blown away by how much fun I had with a game that I payed 80MSP for and I'll totally buy Cthulu Saves The World when the PC port is complete.

See? Put out quality and I'll keep coming back for more. DO YOU SEE HOW THIS WORKS PEOPLE!?
 

The Random One

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May 29, 2008
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Aw, I was going to give some money to him today! I guess I'm going to have to support the indie industry the old-fashined way, by just buying his game.
 

Vault Citizen

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Anyone else think that the Cthulhu picture in the article would make a good tattoo? Just a thought, will be definetly getting this when it comes out.
 

Stabby Joe

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Cthulhu saves the World is the first and so far only indie game I've downloaded. As a reader of Lovecraft I found the premise and writing hilarious, the retro RPG style also a bonus.

I support this developer.
 

Nalgas D. Lemur

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Nov 20, 2009
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If the reward for a $10 donation were a copy of the finished game, I'd hit it, but $24 is a bit steep for my unemployed self. As it's not, I'll just have to hope I remember about it when it's done/don't lose my reminder to myself to check back later.
 

SL33TBL1ND

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Nov 9, 2008
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I remember Valve said that they might try doing something like this. But instead of donations it was more like steam integrated "shares" in the product.
 

(=Nemesis=)

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Oct 4, 2010
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Wait, wait, are people getting this money back? Or is this a case of just asking people to give them money so that they can make more money later on? If it's the latter I'm surprised they have the guts to do that.
 

RowdyRodimus

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Apr 24, 2010
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I'd much rather give this guy who puts out real games (that are actually finished) my money than that crap Lego game Minecraft more money. How I wish I could get my money back from that POS and give it to Zeboyd. I played Breath of Death to (no pun intended) death and barely touched Minecraft after being bored for an hour of playing it.