American McGee's Akaneiro turns to Kickstarter

Akaneiro: Demon Hunters developer Spicy Horse says the game needs more funding to reach its full potential, and has turned to Kickstarter to finish the project.

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Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, the action-RPG from American McGee's Spicy Horse development studio, seemed to have a solid start. It got a formal announcement, beta sign-ups, and even has a decent shot at getting approved on Steam Greenlight. But Spicy Horse says it needs a boost to push the game the last few miles, and to that end the studio has turned to crowdfunding.

"What's been achieved both artistically and mechanically is fantastic," says the game's Kickstarter project page, "but it's just not enough to call the game complete, to satisfy our fans or ourselves. We desperately want the final form of Akaneiro to represent the great amount time and effort that’s gone toward getting it this far. To finish what we've started and present Akaneiro to our players in a truly final state, we need to deliver our promised features to all target platforms. The problem is we’re out of time and money to do so."

The developer is aiming for $200,000, which it says will allow them to add co-op multiplayer, an equipment crafting system, Android and iOS tablet versions of the game, and better community support, among a host of smaller feature additions.

The game itself will still be free-to-play as planned, with an unspecified number of free maps and others that can be purchased or earned with in-game currency, called karma. It also plans to monetize cosmetic items and karma packs.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    January 4, 2013 9:30 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, American McGee's Akaneiro turns to Kickstarter.

    Akaneiro: Demon Hunters developer Spicy Horse says the game needs more funding to reach its full potential, and has turned to Kickstarter to finish the project.

    • reply
      January 4, 2013 9:59 AM

      American McGee's Kickstarter. Ugh, I feel like he's doing this because they couldn't get venture capital funding. I'd rather see them retrench and make something achievable, instead of banking on pay-to-win.

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        January 4, 2013 10:19 AM

        No VC is going to touch just one game. VCs are looking to make millions on millions. You are way off base here.

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          January 4, 2013 11:29 AM

          Bad choice of words; whatever traditional funding McGee previously had dried up, to the point where they wont cover $200K. This case isn't in the spectrum point of "Kickstarter abuse", but it's also not "help an indie dev start a project." This is more, "Our budget ran out! HALP!"

          In a way, I guess there's a little honor in this, but I have little sympathy for American McGee after he sank Rogue and jetted off to China to go make F2P moneyhats... only to grovel for 200K. Years ago, this would've been a "this game got canned" headline. I guess that my opinion is most maturely stated in my refusal to fund this.

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            January 4, 2013 2:00 PM

            I guess it depends on what his initial funding was. Going to crowd funding for a game that is pretty close to completion isn't a horrible idea. I mean you know exactly what you are putting your money into.

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            January 4, 2013 2:17 PM

            American McGee was always overrated. His name was only on Alice because EA didn't think it would be a success. Since then he's put out only shit games and all with that gothic theme. Tim Burton of video games. He's a one trick pony.

    • reply
      January 4, 2013 10:54 AM

      [deleted]

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      January 4, 2013 10:56 AM

      I am in the beta it has potential. It feel like Diablo 2 but smaller areas and has the style of Okami, I enjoyed it with funding they could probably make it into something good.

      The only issue I had is it was a browser game(made with unity btw) and not a download regular game.

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