Equity crowdfunding comes into its own as Wasteland 3 raises $2.75 million

InXile Entertainment hit its $2.75 million goal for the campaign for the development of Wasteland 3 on Fig. The campaign reached its month goal in just three days, showing both the demand for the Wasteland franchise and the maturing of this new crowdfunding platform. So far, the studio has raised $2.85 million.

InXile CEO Brian Fargo said in a brief conversation on Friday that Fig was a good place to raise the money because it allows contributors to own equity, or a piece of the profits that come from the sales of the game. That’s especially important, as the appetite for crowdfunding campaigns where all the fan gets is a T-shirt is starting to wane, Fargo said. He said it makes sense to offer equity to contributors, as the highest tier of donors — those who gave something like $50,000 to $500,000 — has pretty much dried up on Kickstarter.

“I had quite a few people question why I would switch from Kickstarter to Fig after three successful campaigns, but I knew that I needed to change strategies in light of the sea change happening in crowdfunding,” Fargo said in a follow-up email. “Rewards-based campaigns were becoming more difficult to rally the base and interest the higher end backers that were such a big part of our earlier drives. Fig allows gamers to profit from their favorite games and that concept will never fatigue.”

Fans have now unlocked Ranger customization, which includes multiple body types, more head types, and more hairstyles. The Ranger models will also show what device the Ranger has equipped. If the campaign hits $3 million, then InXile plans to add a talking car companion, dubbed Morningstar.

In this postapocalypse story, a team of Rangers goes on a mission to Colorado. Wasteland 2 debuted in September 2014 after it generated $2.93 million in contributions on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Wasteland 3 will hit PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac, and Linux simultaneously, according to the studio.

One of the new features in Wasteland 3 is cooperative play, though the core will still be a rich single-player experience.

Wasteland originally debuted in 1988 for the PC. It was a survival role-playing game with a big story. InXile revived the franchise with the Kickstarter campaign in 2012. InXile is also working on Torment: Tides of Numenera, a spiritual successor to 1999 RPG Planescape: Torment, for a 2017 release after crowdfunding $4 million in March 2013.

Fargo was one of the game developers who offered their initial support for Fig, and he agreed to do a crowdfunding campaign on Fig. He has a small stake in Fig, but it was completely up to him whether to do a crowdfunding on Fig or not.

Justin Bailey, CEO of Fig, said in an email that this successful deal means that Fig has reached a new level of maturity.

“With just one or two games, we could have been viewed as an anomaly, but now we’re showing a variety of genres and budgets, from small indie games to established franchises and licenses,” Bailey said. “Also, I think one blogger and writer pointed out that video games are down on Kickstarter this year by a large percentage versus last year. But if you added both Fig and Kickstarter together, it would actually be an increase over last year. That’s proof to me that we’re gaining market share.”