Hey everyone,
It’s not going to come as a surprise (even to our most optimistic backers) when we tell you we’re not going to reach our Kickstarter funding goal of $128K short of a miracle. In this update we’ll tell you why we’re not upset… in fact we’re actually more excited than we’ve ever been!
Space Dust Racers is really fun to play. We have a blast playing it, festival gamers love it, YouTubers are all over it, and our party gaming friends can’t get enough of it. But as we’ve discovered, describing that fun in a Kickstarter pitch is like explaining how delicious chocolate tastes. We understand now that the best way to sell Space Dust Racers to a new audience is by putting a controller in your hands and letting you run wild. Since it’s incredibly unlikely that we can turn our Kickstarter around, we’re moving ahead with a new plan.
That’s not to say our Kickstarter has been a wasted effort. The last week has been incredibly useful for us. Highlights include being greenlit for Steam within a week, being discovered by tens of thousands of new gamers, having our game featured as a Kickstarter Staff pick, making new friends in the gaming press and letsplay community, discovering new opportunities for funding our game, and hearing what fans want Space Dust Racers to become.
Looking ahead, we don’t want to waste everyone’s time for the remainder of the Kickstarter campaign. Instead, we’re tearing off the band-aid – *ouch* – and are cancelling Kickstarter to move onto phase two as quickly as possible: Steam Early Access. This means your pledge will be voided and no money will change hands.
Now that we’ve been greenlit on Steam, bringing Space Dust Racers to Early Access makes much more sense for everyone. Early adopters can try out the game for less money and have more people to play against, Xbox One and PS4 gamers still get the game in early 2016, and Space Dust Racers reaches a much larger audience overall. It does mean that some of our cooler backer rewards are no longer available, and for this we sincerely apologize, but we hope you can understand our reasoning.
So when will all this happen? We can’t give exact dates yet, but we’ll make an announcement soon.
No need to worry about our funding situation either. New opportunities have arisen during our campaign which we’re exploring now, and we’re prepared to weather the storm for quite a while should they fall through. Things may take a bit longer than planned, but we’ll keep you posted.
Finally, thanks to everyone who’s helped us get this far. To our friends and families for their ongoing support, playtesting and patience. Film Victoria for believing in us when we showed them 16 cubes driving on a flat plane. Fabian (The Otherworld Agency) for stepping beyond music guy into general facilitator, and all the musicians for their awesome work. Chris (Surprise Attack), Lauren/Katie (Lumi Consulting), and Tom/Brian (Evolve PR) for their generous wisdom. Tony/Giselle/Kate/Tristin (GDAA/IGDA) for ongoing support. All our industry pals and crowdfunding alumni who offered valuable feedback and promotion. Everyone at Epic Games/Microsoft/Sony for championing us. The Bone Bros/delqhic for their outstanding letsplays. Cam/Luke for handling the scary business bits. All our backers and fans for pledging, liking, retweeting, favoriting, sharing, posting.
You all rock our socks off, and we’ll see you on Steam Early Access soon! 🙂
Love and space hugs,
Michael, Nathan, Glen, Grigor and Stephen