The End Of The Beginning: The Stars Reach Kickstarter Enters Its Final Week

The Stars Reach Kickstarter has just over a week left to run. The total so far stands at $605k from a $200k ask. That target was smashed in the first hour of the campaign, which, as has been widely discussed, at least among the surprisingly few people in this part of the blogosphere who care enough to have offered an opinion, isn't necessarily the resounding victory it might appear.

Before the campaign began I had a minimum target of a million dollars in mind. Anything less seemed like it would be underselling a game that has been, from the start, promoted as a very major endeavor and a potential big leap forward for the MMORPG genre.

As a comparison, Noiramore Academy, the other Kickstarter game I backed this year, asked for $40k and got $50k. That game is a single-player Point&Click adventure, being made by a team of just four people, not counting the voice actors. 

NA, then, asked for a fifth of the target of one of the most ambitious and technically advanced MMORPGs we've heard about for a long time, ending up with a quarter of what Stars Reach said they wanted. Noiramor also hit its first stretch goal, which was by far the most significant, then ran into the buffers, twenty-five per cent above the ask.

It suggests to me that Ink Rose Inc pitched their campaign perfectly. They asked for what they needed and got more but not so much more it looked as though they'd underestimated the demand. It's also notable that all their stretch goals after the first begin "More..." making it clear they were additions, not essentials. They didn't get close to most of those but they did hit the first at $60k and it was the only one likely to make a material difference to the success of the game: full voice acting.

Given the relative difference in size and scope of the two projects, it also suggests that Playable Worlds are being, at the very least, conservative in their choices. Not taking any risks. At all.

Of course, there's another, fundemental difference between the two projects, other than scale and scope. The developers of Noiramore Academy asked for the money they needed to finish the game; Raph Koster made it very clear the Kickstarter campaign was, first and foremost, a shop window designed to attract further investment from elsewhere.

To that end it must have been crucial the campaign did not fail. A Kickstarter that fails to fund makes an exceptionally poor calling-card to hand to potential investors. It may even be that being able to wave that "Funded In An Hour!" banner will impress the people it needs to impress even if it rings hollow to me. I guess that depends how easily impressed they are. 

It could be interpreted - as several bloggers and commenters around here have chosen to read it - as an indication of lack confidence in the market. Or it could imply they haven't read it as well as they might have done. Neither of those would be helpful in negotiations.

On the other hand, it could equally be seen as a refreshingly pragmatic and realistic view of the prospects for the game and the potential size of its audience. Clearly there's a hardcore willing to jump on board at the earliest opportunity as well as a respectable number of less ardent but still seriously interested customers, ready to buy in after due consideration.

As Wilhelm outlined in some detail, the campaign has followed the expected pattern of MMORPG Kickstarters, a heavily front-loaded "U" curve with a surge at the start followed by a decline into a very low rumble of interest through the middle of the campaign. As we enter the final stages that line should begin to curve back up as the fence-sitters and procrastinators finally realize they have to make a decision and, or so the developers hope, get out their wallets before it's too late.

I wonder, though, just how accurate that campaign model still is in 2025. I read an interesting piece on the topic, written only six months ago, that suggests the likely outcome these days is more like "a reverse J".

"Kickstarters are so front-loaded now that the tail spike is much, much smaller than the final burst of pledges. It used to be that Kickstarter's '48-hour warning' email as the last couple of days of a campaign were reached was a big factor in the funding. Nowadays, it's more a gentle bump at the end than a massive flurry of last-minute backers."

That's from a publisher responsible for more than fifty Kickstarters. There's a lot of data and graphs to support it in the article, although since it's all drawn from their own campaigns, I don't know if it's  reasonable to spin up a universal rule.

Still, it does ring true. It's going to be very interesting to see how the final week - and particularly the final forty-eight hours - adds to the total Stars Reach has already accrued. 

My question is this: if, as the U-curve suggests, there's at least another $200k to come, who, exactly, are all these people, who haven't been able to make up their minds until the very end? And what's been stopping them?

It certainly can't be lack of information. The pre-alpha has been running for months with no NDA and there have been ample opportunities to join in. Since a pledge of $30 or more gets you access right away and you can cancel your pledge at any time before the campaign ends, anyone who really isn't sure could have taken a look for themselves by now and at no financial cost.

It also seems unlikely there are swathes of people out there who might be interested in the campaign, if only they knew about it. Playable Worlds have been promoting the hell out of both the game and the Kickstarter, including asking over and over again for anyone already interested to Tell Your Friends!!

They've also been deluging me with emails. I get one almost every day and have done for what seems like a very long time now. Certainly longer than the campaign has been going. The sheer volume of PR has actually had a negative impact on me, making me less interested in hearing about the game than I might have been, had information been harder to come by. Still, I very definitely couldn't claim not to have been kept in the loop.

So, I'm not quite sure who's left to pledge. Surely everyone with a real interest has stumped up at least that minimal $30 to stake their claim to the various versions of the game that will pass the time until launch? I guess we'll find out next week but from here a seven-figure final total doesn't look nailed on yet.

One thing I can't imagine making much of an impact are those Stretch Goals. It's good that Raph didn't hang out a lot of tempting bait there and even better that the team didn't have a rush of blood and promise a whole lot of stuff that they hadn't already planned and budgeted for. That kind of nonsense has done for plenty of projects in the past. 

On the other hand, it seems very unlikely many people will have said to themselves "I wasn't at all sure about the science-fiction setting but now I can play a space-fairy... Take my money!". It could even be that a few potential backers got the email with the picture at the top of the post and thought "Oh, it's going to be that sort of game, is it? I'm out."

The stretch goals in general have been underwhelming, especially when you know they would all have been in the game anyway. And therefore presumably always will be, regardless of how well the campaign does, even the ones that haven't been announced yet. It does take away any sense of urgency, as does the knowledge that the campaign was effectively over an hour after the doors opened.

All that's left is to pick a pledge and wait for your card to be charged. I did that weeks ago, although I'm increasingly less sure why. The tests have been running non-stop and I have yet to patch the client, far less log in. Clearly I am not as interested in playing the game as I am in speculating about it. Or writing about it, either.

And that brings me back to something I mentioned in passing earlier. For a game of this significance, there does seem to have been a lot less interest among the usual suspects than I would have expected. Other unlaunched MMORPGs have had bloggers churning out posts by the dozen. Not this one.

In this segment of the 'sphere I think just about the only people to have posted regularly about the game itself  - or the test program or the Kickstarter - have been myself and Wilhelm. I remember a few people mentioning they'd either applied for the test at an early stage and didn't get in or that they were thinking about it but as far as I know, none of those bloggers went on to write anything more about Stars Reach. Tipa might have posted something once...

Hardly anyone ever leaves comments on posts I write about it, either. I appreciate that comments on any posts here are about as common as dentures for chickens but even so the sheer lack of any reaction to anything said about the game seems almost passive-aggressive in its consistency. 

Even Wilhelm, whose posts get far more comments than mine ever do, also seem to get less traction for Stars Reach than much he writes about. Across his posts and mine, it's mostly been a conversation in comments between the two of us. No-one else seems very interested at all.

If the game and the campaign aren't even getting the full attention of the MMORPG crowd, it's very certain little impact is being made outside. Have there been any articles or major news reports in the general gaming press? I'm pretty sure that if there had been, Playable Worlds would have wasted no time letting us all know about them. I'd have had an email the next day.

In just over a week all speculation will end and we'll know. That will be a relief. This whole thing seems to have been going on forever. 

Of course, as soon as the Kickstarter ends, it'll be straight on to speculating about the game itself. With luck there's another year or two left in this story. I guess I can't complain. It gives me something to write about and that's without even having to play the damn thing...

 

Noiramore Academy Is Go!

Some good news. I imagine we all need cheering up this morning. I know it's not much in the grand scheme of things but you take the wins you can get.

Still a couple of days to go to work on stretch goals, the first of which is Full Voice Acting at $50k. Go here to join in the fun and don't forget your wallet!

Kickstarters, Early Access, Free Stuff And Existential Despair.

Last Friday I sat down to do a grab-bag post, then ended up writing about some TV shows I'd been watching instead. I guess that means that, at the time, I must have had several things I wanted to talk about but now, just a few days later, I have no idea what they might have been. 

I haven't thought of anything new worth posting about since then, either. I've got nothing. Still, that never stopped me before. 

Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is barely a month away from going into Early Access. Visionary Realms released a forty-seven minute Q&A video that's literally a black screen with a woman in the bottom left corner and a man's head floating over her right shoulder like some kind of ghost-balloon.

I have not watched this video. It is not a thing you watch. 

I did try listening to it instead, leaving it on in the background while I did other things, but I found it impossible to remember anything either of them said even thirty seconds after they'd said it so I gave up. Here it is if you want to try.

Fortunately, some unfortunate staffer at MMOBomb somehow managed to get through the whole thing to pick out the salient points for the uncommitted. They are few. Perhaps the only really interesting note is that there will be an announcement about a Steam version of the game sometime next week, which is now this week, so I look forward to that.

I was very unimpressed by the little I saw of the game in the open weekend a while back but even so I'm still willing to pay a small sum for what will most likely end up being a couple of years of non-subscription access during the EA period. I'm waiting for details of the specific EA packages and confirmation of the cost involved, something I would like to know before the current Pledges go away.

As it stands, you can still pledge, which automatically gets you full EA access. The lowest cost Pledge is $50. It's hard to imagine the basic EA access will be more than that but it could be less. Also, if there are going to be separate clients/logins for the Visionary Realms client and the Steam client, I would probably want to play through Steam so I'm doing nothing until I hear more about how that's going to work. 

Noiramore Academy's Kickstarter has reached 50% funding with ten days still to go. Developer Ink Rose was kind enough to leave a comment here a few days ago, the second time a dev has dropped by to comment on a Next Fest post this time around, the other being Mendoka, creator of Spire Horizon Online. And they say no-one reads blogs any more!

If anyone's on the fence about whether to give Noiramore Academy a look, something I highly recommend because it's a very classy piece of work indeed, the demo is still available. Spire Horizon Online's isn't but the MMORPG is set to release in early December and the single-player version is out already.

Ink Rose also has a series of devlogs on YouTube, detailing the ups and downs of game development along with a lot of technical info about the making of Noiramore Academy itself. I think these would be of interest to anyone who finds the process of game development intriguing, mysterious or both. She certainly has a better idea how to make a video enjoyable to watch than Visionary Realms, that's for sure. 

Once Human, like a lot of free-to-play games, gives out quite a few codes for free stuff. Starry, the developer, already throws a ton of freebies my way through the in-game mail but while I was looking something up the other day, I happened upon this website, which handily collates the out-of-game codes in a simple and straightforward table with expiry dates.

I cut&pasted the October codes into the relevant field in the UI last night and they all worked pefectly so I pass this on to anyone playing the game as a public service. There are some useful consumbales to be had but mostly what I wanted were the Butterfly's Emissary Crates, aka lockboxes.

As I've said many times, I freakin' love lockboxes, provided I don't have to pay for them. The codes got me four and I already had a couple from inside the game and last night I opened them all, which was great fun. 

It would not have been such great fun if I'd had to pay for them. I did get that excellent pair of sunglasses from one of the in-game crates, which is why it counts as a drop in my vocabulary, but the rest of them were total duds. I do not consider one grenade or one molotov cocktail to be much of a prize. Or indeed any kind of prize, unless it was booby. 

You can buy these crates for in-game currency too and you'd think if I like them so much I'd be doing that but the chances of getting something good (The odds are visible if you care to look for them.) aren't good enough to make me want to spend even my imaginary money on them. Then again, I haven't spent it on anything else either so maybe I should just get some crates and have a little crate-opening party. That's always a fun session.

In other Once Human news, I dinged 30 today so now the hunt for T4 mats begins in earnest. In the last Season I found a few really excellent, safe scavenging spots that let me gear up into T5 pretty much without having to fight anything but in this season, the extreme heat in the third Map, where all the mats I need are hiding, is such that I can't stay there long enough to get much foraging done. 

I looked it up and apparently I need to go slaughter some alligators in the Wish Land zoo to make gear with bonuses to heat resistance. And right after I spent a whole session finding and culling seals to make the best cold resistance kit, too. Reminds me of the old days, when you needed two backpacks just carry all your resist gear.

Scary Bear Soundtrack is a Canadian indie-pop band, originally out of Nunavut and now based in Ottowa. I first came across them maybe a decade ago and I check in on them periodically to see a) if they're still going and b) if they've put out anything new.

They are and they have. A little while ago they released what Bandcamp calls a "Digital Album" but which I would call an E.P. (It has four tracks.). It's called Everything Is Falling Apart, which seems to be a common sentiment these days, albeit not one I necessarily share. 

They seem to have gone a bit prog, not necessarily a bad thing. I may well include a track from that in a future music post but for now I want to point up something I found quite curious about one of their earlier releases, the 2019 album Boomerang Kids.

There's a track on it called Investment Plan, which I just found out is an evolution of a 2013 demo called We Had A Plan. I heard the demo first and even though it's rough as all get-out and sounds like it was recorded through a sock from the house next door, I prefer it. I mean, I like Investment Plan a lot, but We Had A Plan has a bleak, heartfelt feel to it that the relatively slick studio take can't quite match. 

It reminds me of the "Better in Beta" mantra. I do think it also applies to demos, at least sometimes.

Here they both are. Decide for yourself. 

Also have a read of the lyrics, which are reproduced in full in the YouTube description. They're very good, if deeply depressing. I have a thing about songs like this, of which there are quite a few. Both the way it's structured and what it's about. It reminds me quite strongly of Lloyd Cole's harrowing Hey Rusty, one of my favorite songs of all time. Then again, he's never happy.

That's it. I'm done.