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.

More information.

Interesting interview; not only a lot of decent question but even better very solid answers. I know a lot of folks don't like ARPG but you have to appreciate their effort.

P.S: Not sure if they have respawning bears.

I'm curious about which big kickstarters failing they are talking about…

So out of all the answers in the interview all you care about is the failed kickstarters they briefly mention? They are right as I interview developers, and ask the same question.

It's getting harder to get funded and get coverage by the press.

Now I may get flamed for this but most of the major kickstarters have promised a certain feature during funding only to end up cutting it out before the game releases.

That's what the question was really asking, and that was -

"Kickstarters potentially failing to deliver"

Here was my favorite question, and answer as we finally get a release date.

Nathan: Are you guys still on target for a fully polished release by the end of 2015?

[AB] I think the game will be complete before the end of the year. If it's ready for official release before the end of Oct, then we'll move it out of Early Access. If we finish in Nov or Dec, we might keep polishing it until Jan or Feb just because the holiday season would probably be a tough time to release, with all the high-profile games that come out at that time. In either case though, people will be able to play through the full content before the end of the year.

I'm also rather amazed how well it has done in EA.

Originally Posted by you
I'm also rather amazed how well it has done in EA.

I remember reading a few comments about how the game was taking to long to get finished. Looks like the extra funds, and development time was a good thing.

Looks promising - I prefered Diablo 1 to 2 since it was more dark/grim (other ARPG`s are too cartoony for me) - also I like that they mentioned CnC and strong story in intreview.

I've thoroughly enjoyed every single one of my 300+ hours on GD. Even if it slips a little i'll not be to disappointed, only snag i've found is a distinct lack of keys…

I missed the kickstarter, but like so many people love Titan Quest. I can't really say that hack and slay games are my favourite, but I still loved Titan Quest and Divine Divinity. I haven't tried out Heretic Kingdoms yet, but it's sitting in my GOG account.