Grim Dawn - Q&A @ Next Power Up

A new Q&A was published on a site called Next Power Up with Crate Entertainment Game Developer Kamil Marczewski, and Team Lead Arthur Bruno about Grim Dawn.

Nathan: Kickstarter seems to have drawn a lot of scepticism lately, with big projects failing their goals. You guys obliterated your Kickstarter campaign, and it was one of the relatively early ones. Do you think if you had to redo that campaign again today, it would have turned out with the same figure?

[KM] That is difficult to predict. With so many Kickstarters failing to deliver and many players becoming jaded with the crowdfunding model, some projects that may have been fine in 2012 now struggle to hit their funding goals.

[AB] I think also during the first months of KS, the press was still captivated by the novelty of it and interested to see how each new project fared. That made it easier to get widespread coverage but over time, it became less of a novelty and now I think press coverage isn't a given. It takes a bigger project from a known team and / or something that looks really fantastic and innovative to rise to the level where it will get a lot of coverage.

Nathan: You guys took to Early Access after having nailed Kickstarter, has the game been more or less profitable on each platform?

[KM] It is difficult to compare the two as Kickstarter served as a means to raise initial funds and let fans know that we exist whereas Early Access is a means to get our game out to more players. In the longterm, Early Access would probably win out simply because you can no longer back our Kickstarter. :)

[AB] I think "profitable" may not be the right term here since developers shouldn't be trying to make a profit on Kickstarter earnings and our original funds from there have long since been spent on development costs.

In terms of revenue though, Early Access has pulled in significantly more money but it's also been going on for over a year. Much of that has also been re-invested in expanding development.

They're different beasts though, as Kamil said and serve different purposes. It would have taken a lot longer to get to Early Access, if we made it at all, without Kickstarter. At the same time, Early Access has allowed us to expand Grim Dawn far beyond what we originally planned during the KS. So both have been complimentary and served different needs.