Optional Realities: The Shameless Plugging Update Thread

The problem is that your audience is made up of mudders and writers. They are old-school and gravitate towards text, not big colorful icons.

Yeah, I visited the site and saw the redesign, and the new vibe just lacks utility compared to the previous setup which did work for me.

Hey,

Several people have suggested this and it is something that we've already considered, but...

There are two primary methods of crowdfunding that have a high rate of success. There is the kickstarter "venture capital" method of funding where you come with a product/pitch and ask for a % of your total required budget in exchange for rewards. Then you have the patreon "subscription" method of funding where you are likely a content producer and you get a range of funding per 'customer' for your continued work which is often provided free of charge to the general public.

The issue here is that Project Redshift requires somewhat significant funding if I want the original devteam onboard. Lets ballpark it at 1500/month to develop the game. That is non-full time development. If I wanted my devteam on full time development I would need somewhere in the ballpark of 5500/month to help offset expenses for developing the game. So with those numbers in mind lets look at the 2 common funding options. Project Redshift is free to play on release and there is very little monthly content we can release while in development unless we open in an alpha state and progress from there, but that would be kind of bad for the health of the game and roleplaying etc etc. Throw in that text-based gaming is currently niche and needs to break back into the mainstream gamer conscience again... It's unlikely we would get the 18,000 to 66,000 required to finish the game in a kickstarter campaign.

How about patreon? Well OR had 200 members (220) at peak. Assuming all account were individual people and all of them were interested in Project Redshift being a reality sooner rather than later. Yeah I'm claiming development will likely resume in March, I'm pretty focused on it being a reality but... FutureMUD so I'll do my best. I promise not to get Hex pregnant >_>? Anyway 200 people at an average of 10 usd per person is 2000/month which is more than enough for the non-fulltime development of the game. Great. Non-fulltime development is estimated to take 9 months (possibly 13) so those people will spend 120 dollars for the game to be finished. In the meantime the rewards we could offer would be minimal because Project Redshift will never be pay to win or pay to play.

TLDR - Crowdfunding while flattering that you'd be willing to do it is more likely to relegate Project Redshift into a completely defunct state in terms of public image than do anything else. Nothing hurts a project/ventures image more than failed funding campaigns, especially public ones.

You have a startlingly accurate view of why crowdfunding will not work in your case. You should write a book on the subject and run a Kickstarter to fund sending a free copy of it to nearly everyone on Kickstarter and Patreon. Maybe make the reward tiers additional groups of people who will receive the book.

Hey,

Did you like Optional Realities? www.optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=2.0

Did you hate it but liked some of the contest entries? www.optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?topic=3.0

Did you hate all of it and just like some articles? [Haven't put up archived articles yet]

Sorry for the delay, RL, don't need to bore you. Please enjoy or shame at your leisure.

Optional Realities will always have a userbase as an unmoderated board (like this one) that allows people to post about their games without risking the judgement of staff. Project Redshift might have lost its base though, as a product/game it has a limited amount of good faith people will give it while waiting for it. See Laketown RPI and LabMUD for other examples of games that have been in development so long they have likely hurt themselves. Add Project Redshift to the list.