Goal: 100 passengers, 1-hour intercontinental flights, with test filghts by mid-2030s.
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Invest in the development of your favorite video games with ‘Fig’
When Double Fine launched a Kickstarter campaign for an unnamed adventure game in 2012, it changed the gaming industry in a huge way. The project asked for $400,000 but raised more than $3 million in about a month, setting records at the time and jump-starting the video game crowdfunding craze. And then, in 2013, Double Fine announced it needed more money to finish its adventure game, now titled Broken Age. Even with millions of dollars, widespread publicity and thousands of fans, Double Fine ran into costly issues during development, and not all backers were receptive to the studio’s reasoning. Some of them wanted more say in how the game was made, seeing their donation as a legitimate stake in Broken Age‘s development — something that the Kickstarter campaign never promised.
Flash forward to August 2015: Former Double Fine COO Justin Bailey launches Fig, a video game crowdfunding platform that offers investment opportunities with cash returns and promises to provide backers with an inside look at how game development actually goes down.
Fig’s advisory board includes Double Fine CEO Tim Schafer (the man behind 2012’s game-changing Kickstarter), plus Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart, inXile Entertainment CEO Brian Fargo and Indie Fund co-founder Aaron Isaksen. The first game up for funding is Outer Wilds, an award-winning space exploration experience from Mobius Digital, a team of young artists and developers led by Heroes actor Masi Oka. Oka previously worked as a VFX Artist on the second Star Wars trilogy at Industrial Light & Magic.
Outer Wilds is looking to raise $125,000 in 30 days, and in the first few hours it’s already generated about $50,000. Fig features different tiers for potential contributors — lower tiers, starting at $20, are similar to Kickstarter’s reward system, offering copies of the game and other related swag. However, if you’re an SEC-accredited investor and throw down at least $1,000 toward Outer Wilds‘ development, you’ll receive a portion of the game’s net revenue on certain PC platforms. At its heart, Fig is a combination of rewards-based crowdfunding and traditional investing.
"By launching a Fig campaign, game studios can combine these two powerful methods of raising funds while retaining creative control and offering fans new ways to get involved," Fig’s About page reads. "By supporting a campaign, fans journey with each studio as they go from development to launch (and beyond), all while gaining real insights and transparency into the business of making games."
As for the transparency part of Fig’s plan, the site so far features a "development stage" timeline that displays where Outer Wilds is in the game-making process. There’s a section for updates from the developer as well, and a comments section open to those who pledge $20 or more to the project.
The plan is for Fig to eventually allow anyone, even non-accredited people, to invest in games on the platform, Bailey tells Games Industry. Fig itself has financial support from Spark Captial, a venture capital firm that’s invested in Oculus, Slack, Tumblr and other tech-adjacent companies. Fig isn’t the only new crowdfunding site to feature a twist on Kickstarter’s model: StartEngine, for example, comes from Activision co-founder Howard Marks and allows people to invest in private companies, something that Kickstarter doesn’t do.
With all of these crowdfunding choices, pick your favorite model and let the games begin.
Via: Game Informer
Source: Fig
Tags: CrowdFunding, DoubleFine, fig, hdpostcross, Investing, Investment, kickstarter, VideoGames
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The Unlikely Quest to Build a Tower Tall Enough to Take Astronauts to Space
The space elevator is a glorious science fiction idea that’s never gotten past the concept stage, mostly because it’s impossible to build one right now. Recognizing this, a Canadian space firm is hoping to test the waters with a slightly scaled-down version — a space tower, if you will, that only rises into the stratosphere. Only.
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China blasts: Insurance costs top $1.5 billion
A deadly series of explosions that left hundreds dead and injured in China is about to set off a wave of insurance claims.
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Why oil prices could sink to $15 a barrel
Oil’s stunning downfall is not even close to being over, influential money manager David Kotok argues.
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Cherokee Purple: The Story Behind One Of Our Favorite Tomatoes
Consumers have seed savers and amateur breeders to thank for discovering and sharing heirloom varieties of some vegetables and tomatoes like the Cherokee Purple.
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Watch This Drone Turn Into A Missile
At what point is a drone a missile? Well, the point of no return. Made by Israel Aerospace Industries, the Harop is technically what’s known as a “loitering munition,†which is military jargon for “bomb that hangs around." Like the IAI Harpy that preceded it, the Harop is a drone that flies around until it gets close to its designated target. Then, like a hawk onto pray or an anvil in a cartoon, it becomes a weapon, crashing down with explosive force onto the target below. Earlier this summer, IAI successfully demonstrated the Harop. Here’s how it works.
First, the drone is launched like a missile:
The Harop has cameras that can see in both regular light and infrared, as well as other sensors. As intended, it flies towards a target with a human watching its progress. If the human decides to call off the attack, the Harop can then loiter in the area for up to six hours. It’s possible that future versions will have the option of landing gear, so it can return, to be launched again if another target presents itself. When it does find a target, it looks like this:
And then it crashes down, causing a powerful and very directed explosion. The warhead on the Harop only contains about 33 pounds of explosive, which is more than enough to destroy this empty truck:
The Harop’s predecessor, the Harpy, was designed as a specifically anti-radar weapon, flying and destroying sensors to protect other aircraft. The Harop is a larger, more versatile tool, hitting more than just radar.
Watch the video below:
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