Danish developer Betadwarf recently secured funding for their upcoming game Forced: Eternal Arenas via a successful Kickstarter campaign. The second successful Kickstarter campaign from the small Danish startup.
In 2013, Betadwarf released their first game: Forced, a game that had been in development since 2011 where a group of students initiated work on the game with a dream of creating a successful company.
The game was partly funded by Kickstarter, where it gained a lot of positive attention in the international gaming community. With Forced: Eternal Arenas, Betadwarf once again utilized Kickstarter as a means of gaining community support and to secure parts of the games funding.
“We’ve not been able to secure funding enough for a whole project ever. Eternal Arenas might end up costing more than $1 million. But the value Kickstarters has provided us so far in terms of both extra funds and community is very great.” Steffen Kabbelgaard, CEO of Betadwarf explains.
“Feedback on steam forums and overall has been awesome and we’ve already gotten a lot since we sent out keys to backers yesterday.”, he continues.
Read more about: Betadwarf on Kickstarter as a Business Model at Games Business 2015
Kickstarter is a place with a lot of potential, but there´s also a lot of tension involved with running a campaign, and it can be tough to time the marketing for the campaign, Kabbelgaard tells us:
“Unfortunately it’s a bit like rolling a dice, it’s very hard to time press and marketing for the launch day of the campaign, which is the most important one.”
“And the period were you are unfunded is very worrying and tough on the team. So it’s definitely optimal to get funded as fast as possible or get an idea that it is failing as fast as possible, tension is not ideal.”.
For Betadwarf, the Kickstarter model has been a success, though they are using it as a supportive tool instead of relying on it for the entire funding of the project at hand.
At our Games Business 2015 conference, Steffen Kabbelgaard will unveil all the details about what he thinks of Kickstarter as part of a business model for a games startup, and what the community support and attention gained from the campaign means for a young studio – both good and bad!
Denmark’s largest games industry conference for Nordic game developers returns on December 7th to discuss the future of business in the games industry. The lineup of speakers includes as Ex-King Tommy Palm, Christine Thaarup, Steffen of Betadwarf, and many many more!
Tickets are limited and can be booked here.