Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen...

Definitely not looking good for the KS campaign:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/02/13/brad-mcquaid-looks-for-angel-investors-for-pantheon/

Then again, they needed to find investors anyways. As we all know, you can't make a modern MMO for under $800K...or even $3.2M

 

I read that RG was thinking a total budget of $5 million (plus or minus $2 million) for SotA, and that he had invested millions himself. The success of the crowd funding may have mitigated the need for outside investment.

 

Yeah, that's been said before like on interviews with Eurogamer and About.com. But Portalarium actually already has outside investment. In addition to whatever money he put in to create Portalarium in 2009, they raised $3.5M in 2011 and $7M in July 2012. But it's unclear if any of that was still available or even used on SotA when the KS campaign launched in March 2013. Portalarium still has another game, Port Casino Poker on Facebook but no idea if they still actively maintain it or if it even brings them any revenue (it has a cash shop for poker chips).

But Richard has posted on Polygon in Nov 2013 that SotA's budget was almost entirely crowdfunded:
The budget for Shroud of the Avatar is almost entirely the $2M we raised via KS and the ongoing community support we have had since.

So while he and other investors put money into the company, the crowd is funding this game. But I'm not worried about not reaching that $5M figure. According to my tracking, we will hit $5.1M - $5.8M by the expected launch date.

 

Lets rename it PANTS-HEON: Fall of the Risen.

48% funded, 8 days to go?

Yeah, good luck.

 

If the kickstarter does not succeed, do you still get the in-game cloak in SoTA?

 

I don't think it will. I believe the pledge would not be honored and your money will not be deducted/or refunded.

 

I don't think there is a way to verify people who pledged to Pantheon if it doesn't succeed. They may go another route of funding (Indiegogo or a truly independent Star Citizen like route). I don't think Pantheon is dead in the water just yet.

I don't have time to play SWTOR, SotA, Star Citzen, Shadowrun Online and Pantheon. I've already invested in the first four. Throwing money at Pantheon would just be to KS a project just because I love to help projects get off the group. More than likely, I'm only going to be playing two online games by the time SotA, Star Citizen and Shadowrun Online are already released. I currently play SWTOR now.

Currently my plans are to play SotA and Star Citizen and take an extended break from SWTOR until I decide if I'm sticking with SotA and Star Citizen long term. My backing of Shadowrun Online may funds I basically threw away to help them get off the ground.

 

When it fails no one will be charged a cent, so technically no one would have pledged. They only take your money if the KS campaign is a success.

 

How I tried to make people understand my point in the recent founder-pledges-debacle threads with only succeeding to preach to those that already agreed. However, this KS is almost a proof of my point.

SOTA: Pay (say) $60 now, wait 18 months then never pay again. [note: this was true at KS ofc.]
Pantheon: Pay $60 now, wait 2 years (?) and then keep paying some more every month.

Already starting to lose my interest. It has to compete with the attention I give to SOTA and it is already on the losing foot.

Had a look at the higher level rewards, but there's nothing that's making me interested. Not enough to pledge. I think this is where RG really nailed it, getting the rewards mostly right (perhaps Star Citizen did too, although I'm not involved there). The rewards for this KS are just not as enticing as SOTA's were.

I'd be inclined to wait a bit with this game. If it gets funded that's great, I might get involved later. I'd be happy to forgo this risk and accept whatever rewards are available later. In fact a founder pledge debacle would be of benefit to me, the pay off is asymmetric in my favour.

If it doesn't get funded then nothing risked, nothing lost.

 

So, nobody is charged for their pantheon pledges.
Is the "cloak" offer now cancelled ?