Why Kickstarter?
After seeing our trailer, you might ask: “why are we here? This is a big, expensive game that’s sure to cost a lot of money, right? Does no major publisher want it? This sounds suspicious.” The answer to those questions might surprise you.
Warhorse is a comparatively small studio. We now have about thirty people, and it took us more than eighteen months to develop what you've just seen. All this time, we’ve been funded by a private investor, to the tune of almost 1.5 million dollars in total. We hope the product you’ve seen reflects that.
Our plan was to develop a prototype, pitch it to publishers, and finish development with the subsequent money. We tried to do it that way (and you can read about our experiences on our blog), but in essence, even though everybody we met commended our work, praised our game’s visuals, and believed in our ability to deliver, negotiations would inevitably hit a dead end at the point where the publishers' marketing departments got involved. Why?
"Your game is too niche. There’s no magic. People want wizards and dragons."
We beg to differ. The response from players has always been great. We think gamers like history – look at the success of Total War, Assassin's Creed, Mount and Blade, and Red Dead Redemption. There is no medieval first-person RPG out there, but it does not necessarily follow that nobody wants one - only that there is no easy box for marketing to pigeonhole it in.
Our investor is strong and capable of funding the complete development of our project. But he does not follow the game industry very closely, and needs proof that publishers and marketers are wrong about our game - that you are indeed interested in a mature, medieval RPG that emphasizes freedom and authenticity. And so we stand, as a studio, at a crossroads. Either those naysayers are right, and there truly is no desire for the game we are making, or we are right. Either way, we think Kickstarter is a great way to find out.
The sum we are asking for is about ten percent of our total budget; for our investor, however, it is proof that there is real demand for the game, and that there is a point to keeping it funded. Every extra dollar will allow us to make the final product that much better because it means more money for development and more support from our investor.
Should our Kickstarter campaign fail, it will mean that we were wrong, that there is no interest to play a game with the atmosphere of Braveheart, and that we will have to start considering working on some mobile MMO, because that's where the money is these days (or so everybody tells us). We are, however, positive that our instincts are right.
So help us to make our vision a reality. Help us to make not the 176th free-to-play mobile RPG MMO Elven village-builder with DIAMONDS™, but to make the kind of unique, engaging experience we think you’d like to play
