At 7:58 a.m. Pacific Friday morning, a game called République (pronounced "Republic") finally reached its $500,000 funding goal on Kickstarter with only six hours to go after one of the most tumultuous month-long campaigns in Kickstarter history.
At the beginning, République looked like a sure thing. Its creator had serious industry cred; Camouflaj founder Ryan Payton produced Metal Gear Solid 4 and worked on Halo 4. The Kickstarter campaign was slick, featuring a top-notch trailer full of gameplay footage. Payton and crew wanted to bring a big-budget gamer's game to iPhone and iPad. But even as other gaming Kickstarters were raking in millions, République failed to grab backers.
At the end of the first 24 hours of République's 32-day campaign, it had gathered a little over a 10th of the money it needed to succeed. That might sound like a healthy number, but Payton had reason to be dismayed by the results.
"I looked at the list of the names of backers on the first day and realized that I recognized the names of almost all of them," he told Wired on Friday. "We weren't appealing to a mass market."
Over the course of 31 more days, République's Kickstarter rode an awful, creeping emotional roller coaster.
Payton wasn't feeling confident, but he kept a positive tone in his first update to the Kickstarter page.
"We knew we were taking risk in developing a big budget AAA game for iOS and turning to the Kickstarter community to help us fund the project," Payton wrote. "But the amount of encouragement we've received from you all has already made it all worth it."
République stagnated around the $90,000 mark for close to a week. This had been in spite of significant coverage from nearly every gaming outlet out there: Kotaku, IGN, Game Informer, Joystiq and many more posted stories about the Kickstarter campaign, but it had almost no effect.
In the first few days, Payton says, the Kickstarter trailer/pitch video for République had been viewed over 200,000 times, but only 1,000 viewers had backed the project. Payton called this the lowest point in the project. "For about an hour, I considered pulling out and canceling it," he says.
At this point, some members of the media began expressing doubt – to put it lightly. "Does anyone really think République is going to soak up half a million dollars in shitfarter contributions in the next month?" said Eli Hodapp, editor in chief of the iOS site Touch Arcade, on Twitter.
Another week had gone by with almost no action. "On our slowest day, we only raised $700," says Payton.
On this day, Camouflaj gave in to the demands of Kickstarter backers and officially announced a PC/Mac version of République, to be released once the iOS version is completed. While the game was originally intended to be played via iOS, the most successful Kickstarters had been computer games, and Camouflaj hoped they'd join in now that their platform of choice was to be supported.
Still, he says, the idea of giving up at this point was no longer an option. "Even if we're not going to make it," he recalled thinking, "we're going to show the world that we're professional and that we're going to see this through."
Camouflaj had hoped that the PC/Mac announcement would prove to be the kick in the pants that the game needed to succeed, but it made little difference. The game had already used up more than half of its 32 days, and still hadn't managed to raise a fourth of its funding target. On the Game|Life podcast, Wired editor Chris Kohler wondered whether République would come to serve as an example of how not to do a Kickstarter campaign.
With no new announcements to make or content to release, Camouflaj gave fans the tools they needed to spread the word themselves. It launched the #KeepHopeAlive Twitter campaign ("Hope" being the name of the game's main character), releasing downloadable Twitter profile pictures that looked like something from a grassroots political movement. The thinking was that if Camouflaj could get enough people talking about the game and its Kickstarter campaign, the message could spread virally.
#KeepHopeAlive was catching on. République was by no means in the clear, but the rate at which new backers began coming in increased dramatically. One wealthy person donated over $7,500 to get his voice integrated into the game. Camouflaj had another major announcement that increased the game's visibility: It announced that voice actors David Hayter of Metal Gear Solid fame and Jennifer Hale from the Mass Effect series had joined the cast to play "significant roles."
But $300,000 was still a good long way from half a million, and there were only four days remaining.
At this point, République had less than 24 hours to go, but the story of "the game that just might make it" was sweeping Twitter and generating even more last-minute coverage on gaming websites. With the deadline coming up soon, Payton and friends released a new gameplay trailer for République, demonstrating in more detail how the game might play. The Twittersphere exploded with news of the impending climax of what was clearly shaping up to be a photo finish. République was either going to just barely get across the finish line, or fall heartbreakingly short.
Success.
Camouflaj knew from the beginning, says Payton, that "this was going to be a cage match; really a dog fight to the very bitter end."
If the Kickstarter had failed, République would probably have made it out, but not necessarily the way that Payton wanted it to. Camouflaj would have had to turn to investors and traditional game publishers, perhaps having to give up the rights to its intellectual property in order to get the game made. This would've been a "very hard" scenario, he said. As you might imagine, he's very happy the team decided not to quit when things were at their lowest.
After this very public, very stressful trip, one thing remains to be seen: Is this a story that will inspire other developers to turn to Kickstarter as well?
Or fair warning for those who don't think they can handle standing on the precipice of failure for 30 long days?
