Financing Development - What's the plan?
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Greetings Fractured Team!
Congratulations on your successful Kickstarter! I'm looking forward to see your ideas come to life over the next few years!
One of the more complicated subjects that I feel is worth a discussion here is development and the cost thereof. The Kickstarter is looking to pull in about €110,000~. While this is a great start to assist with development costs, this certainly cannot represent the entirety of your funding.
It was relieving to see a better understanding and more realistic time line for game development being shown as part of the road map. By your own estimations, development will likely go at least as deep 2021 and even that might be a bit optimistic. Nonetheless, it's a much better estimate than most Kickstarted games, which was a big onus for my own backing.
With this in mind though, what's the plan to fund development? €110,000 is enough to pay for two developers for a year without a dedicated office/studio. The salary/taxes/etc. for 7 individual professionals, even on a modest income, will likely be looking at expenses between €1,000,000 and €2,000,000 over the planned development cycle. This does not account for other business expenses such as licenses or equipment or a location even.
With this in mind, what is the longer term plan to secure funding for the development of this game?
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from the kickstarter:
Dynamight Studios is a financially stable company. Careful business planning, coupled with backing from the three founders and private investors, make us feel safe about the future of the project. Moreover, we already have open channels with a few large game publishers that have shown interest in Fractured.
Kickstarter can add a lot to that, though.
First of all, it will allow us to immediately add a few professionals we've already selected to the team (such as a new 3D artist, a developer, an animator and a VFX artist). This will prevent us from having to cut down on game features, ultimately giving us the chance to fulfill 100% of our vision for Fractured.
Moreover, Kickstarter lets us expand our audience, open a new line of communication with our supporters, receive further feedback on our ideas and figure out how appealing Fractured is among the crowd of MMO lovers. While not financial, these benefits are still invaluable!
