Consortium: The Tower - Jumping to Fig
 

After failing with Consortium: The Tower at Kickstarter Interdimensional Games is using the Fig-platform now:
More information.

How does the equity thing work ?

Especially for outside of the us people ?

FIG has all the information about that in its help center.

You can put money on the game like you do on IndieGOGO and KS, it doesn't have to be in equity though.

kickstarter is the only crowd funding I will use. Too much headache to follow others.

Fig is absolutely worth using for a game like this, and I'm thrilled to see this project get a new lease on life. The first game wasn't perfect, but it was a compelling experience and showed a huge amount of promise.

You don't have to "follow" Fig in order to back this project, especially if you backed via Kickstarter. Sounds like it'll be pretty seamless with email prompts.

FIG does one game at a time currently (I doubt it's going to change). You just have to check once every 2 months to know if they have a new crowdfunding campaign going.

Harmonix, InXile, Obsidian Entertainment and Double Fine (already did with Psychonauts 2) will all be using it too.

Fig is also designed to be much easier to "follow", in the sense that it only hosts projects that are deeply vetted by the people behind the platform. There may be other reasons to like Fig, or not; this Consortium campaign will be my first experience with it. But it's intended to be a platform of experienced industry folks vetting new projects (which have so far also been from experienced industry folks).

The downside is that small, upstart studios with no track record probably won't get a spot on Fig, but the upside is that all of the teams have a real track record and resource base behind them. The risk of execution should be much lower than on the average Kickstarter campaign. (Again, I can't vouch for actual results - Fig is very young and has only hosted a few projects to date.)

Personally, I'd feel more comfortable going for Fig any day than Indiegogo. Kickstarter doesn't vet projects, but somewhat mitigates consumer risk by only taking your money if the campaign succeeds; Fig takes your money no matter how much the campaign makes, but only offers projects that are much more deeply vetted; Indiegogo combines the worst of both. (That said, Indiegogo is highly suitable for other types of campaigns, like local business fundraising.)

The bottom line for me is that the first Consortium game was a really strong debut, and the pitch for this one looked ace - right up the alley for fans of RPG/immersive sims. I'm looking forward to seeing what this team accomplishes with The Tower.

I'll be waiting to read the actual pitch but I supported these guys twice via kickstarter so I suspect I'll follow them to Fig.

Actually got to make a few corrections here - looked into fig when there was a lot of misconceptions during psychonauts 2 so can probably help answer some questions and clear up a few things.

1) FIG works like Kickstarter in the "we only charge if we are successful" method. Fig doesn't do the partial funding thing like indiegogo does.

2) Fig isn't going to be taking any money off rewards backers there- but it also does later get a share of profits from the developer. To help with that though fig also helps with promotion and other sides serving effectively as the publisher for the title.

3) On Investment that someone else mentioned - it would depend somewhat on your country. The safest way is if you count as an accredited investor or equiviliant - then that means there's not going to be any issues. The other option is what Fig started with back with PSychonauts 2 with some new us regulation under the JOBs act which lets unaccredited investors put in some money. I'm not quite sure how that works for international people, including myself in Canada.

A few key things on that side - you are buying tracking stock that you can't trade. You don't get any voting rights and you are only entitled to a dividend essentially - that is it. So think of it less as typical equity crowdfunding like you might see some portal do and more you get a special series of stock that you get paid based on how well the game does but your stock is essentially in a division just to handle that game (IE Psychonauts 2 investors got Fig Grasslands Preferred Tracking Stock).

Also important to know is that the unaccredited investment is under Regulation A not the Title 3 stuff. Basically what that means is almost all the chatter you've heard on the net about crowdfunded investment rules doesn't quite apply as Title 3 is the one that gets all the hype. Regulation A has a few more hoops it has to do and they have to post all their investment documents publicly which is where a ton of that info came from.

If you want to see a bit more on that point I can elaborate some from a bit I did and talked with someone on but I'm not an investment expert.

Thanks for the info:-)

Very few places have started using the "crowdsourced equity" stuff that the JOBS Act enables for unaccredited investors in the US. Fig doesn't offer that yet, tho I'm unsure whether it's offered other equity investment options (for accredited investors). Regardless, I don't believe the Consortium campaign will include that component.

You're absolutely right about Fig only taking money if the campaign succeeds - thanks for the correction.

I'm going to have to retract my comment of them not doing more than one game at the same time. Harmonix just started a crowd funding campaign to port Rock Band 4 to PC while there was another campaign already running.

And the new campaign started on Fig. For people wondering about the values being different, the KS was in Canadian $ but Fig is in US $…and the Canadian dollar is in bad shape.

As a super backer, I got $10 discount for the $50 tier or higher pledges:
https://www.fig.co/ctt?promo=tnKeoyDAs0rkxWfS1ADXiz
https://www.fig.co/ctt?promo=cNt3Ll3npaNIytRjIE2xCp
https://www.fig.co/ctt?promo=KWZvTXDuVU2bKrn39OFAtE
Please mention if you pick any of them, they are one time use as far as I know.

It might be worth posting the campaign video here. I think this looks absolutely terrific, and I love the concept - futuristic Die Hard with Deus Ex-style gameplay! I might even be tempted to back this one.

Where were you 2 months ago when this was on KS?!
And that video is same one for KS, I hoped they would show some new improved stuff for Fig.

They probably will later, they already posted all the stuff on the KS regarding gameplay (in the 8 updates on Fig).

The truth? I saw the name on here, and for some reason confused it with some other generic RPG campaign I'd seen before, and didn't even look at it.

I wonder if we should have a new newsbit now that it's started on Fig, and perhaps include the pitch video, so more people can get the idea. I reckon this might have flown under the radar of more people than just me.

EDIT: Maybe mention the game's key aspects, dicussed in the pitch.

"A futuristic hostage crisis in a tower block, featuring elements of the movie Die Hard, and gameplay in the style of Deus Ex."

Certainly got my attention!