UPDATED: Playable Worlds Hopes You've Liked What You've Seen Of Stars Reach Enough To Help Support It On Kickstarter

In the few months we've actually known about it, Stars Reach has made a bit of a splash for itself. Now Playable Worlds is hoping that the team has shown you enough of the sandbox MMORPG that you may be willing to crack open that wallet and supplement funding for the "next stage" of development. Citing "today's challenging market" and the scarcity of private investment in video game development, the team would like players to take part in bring the project to fruition, despite having previously said the team had no Kickstarter plans.

Honestly, I'm not surprised by this move at all. Raph Koster, Dave Georgeson, and the entire team certainly make up a squad of talented devs, some of which have already made names for themselves not only in gaming, but in the MMO genre specifically, but I've always been curious about their funding. Stars Reach came out of nowhere and I was always thinking the company was going to have to either turn to Kickstarter or towards the old "pledge" model similar to Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. It was just kind of a mystery where their funding was coming from as we didn't hear any big name company in any of the news so far.

In a fireside chat via the game's discord earlier today, Koster and team did reveal that the game has received $38 million in investments (without stating any names). Koster also reiterated that Stars Reach is "5/6" of the way through development and that early access should be achievable by the end of the year.

Showing as much as Stars Reach has and holding as many tests as they have is likely to inspire a bit more confidence than some other projects that have asked for cash showing far less, but players have been burned by so many MMO crowdfunding projects, it'll be interesting to see if they make their target.

The Kickstarter page is up, but the campaign won't start until sometime around February 10th. Reviewing the page shows the team saying they're mostly through development already and there's a recap of many game features we've discussed on this site.

Playable Worlds claims that their rewards to contributors will not impact gameplay or the game's economy, and they will offer stretch goals, some of which may target adding already planned features earlier than the current plan allows.

It'll be interesting to see exactly how much the company is asking for when the campaign launches. If you're curious, head over to the page and follow the campaign.

UPDATE 1/13/2025: Raph Koster and team made an official post on the Stars Reach site explaining why their Kickstarter is different from other MMO campaigns. Mostly it focuses on the items I suggested above as the primary differences: the game has been playable for months now and development is closer to the end than the beginning.