Any kickstarter veterans out there?

[5hadowfax]

Ok, nostalgia time for you early backers.

Do you remember the original kickstarter for Elite?

Back in 2012? (Do you feel old yet?)

It was a blast and I know I have seen some of you guys in the forums.

Did you ever refresh a page more, than the ED kickstarter, towards the end of the campaign?

Apart from the obvious one, can you remember the other kickstarters going at the same time? Did you back Godus? :o

And does anybody else remember a guy called Oddball who auctioned pictures of camels on demand in order to generate funds to pledge? LOL. Are you here, Oddball?

Personally makes me proud of everything Frontier have achieved. And how.... professional they have been about it all.

And honestly makes me grateful for the community, at its best it produced The Fuel Rats.

[Mu77ley]

*puts hand up*

[lefty1117]

I had just missed the Kickstarter phase but still joined early enough to get a Lifetime Expansion Pass, proud to be a LEPer. It was a no brainer once I found out about it - Elite was perhaps my first true gaming love in the early/mid 80s, and actually it's the game I used to daydream about playing with other people in some sort of connected fashion, before I knew anything about the Internet (which didn't really exist in the same way back then). I figured at the time we'd go to an arcade or something with dozens of connected pods that we would jump in to fly and play together. Reality has far surpassed my expectations.

[5hadowfax]

Originally posted by lefty1117:

proud to be a LEPer

Oh man, that's hilarious! Not heard that one before. Will be stealing...

I was the same when playing BBC Micro Elite, thought "what if you could play against and with other ppl", had my own ideas of VR back in the 80s like some sort of capsule you get into that blocks outside input. But yeah it was always something I thought would be amazing too.

Glad you got in early enough to be a LEPer! ;)

[KI-Natas]

Not kickstarter, but Alpha-Tester and LEPer :)

[Edelweiss ✿]

Not a kickstarter, but I bought it on release day

[Arconedas]

Kickstarter backer for both Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen. As an old Elite player from the eighties and nineties i did pledge double the amount for Elite :)

[Agony_Aunt]

I've never backed any kickstarter. Too many of them fail to deliver. To be honest, i didn't think FD would succeed either. But i was proven wrong, and they didn't just rely on money from backers, a majority of money that went towards development was their own.

I joined in beta.

[5hadowfax]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

I've never backed any kickstarter. Too many of them fail to deliver. To be honest, i didn't think FD would succeed either. But i was proven wrong, and they didn't just rely on money from backers, a majority of money that went towards development was their own.

I joined in beta.

It's a pretty wise choice not to back kickstarters, to be honest. Some of them have been abject failures. I guess I got lucky, though FDEV were already a fully fledged developer at the time. And yeah, they didn't just rely on money from backers on kickstarter, I believe they were promised a £1m fund injection from other investors if they could raise their own £1m via kickstarter... IIRC, it was a while ago now.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by 5hadowfax:

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

I've never backed any kickstarter. Too many of them fail to deliver. To be honest, i didn't think FD would succeed either. But i was proven wrong, and they didn't just rely on money from backers, a majority of money that went towards development was their own.

I joined in beta.

It's a pretty wise choice not to back kickstarters, to be honest. Some of them have been abject failures. I guess I got lucky, though FDEV were already a fully fledged developer at the time. And yeah, they didn't just rely on money from backers on kickstarter, I believe they were promised a £1m fund injection from other investors if they could raise their own £1m via kickstarter... IIRC, it was a while ago now.

As i recall they raised 1,5 million from kickstarter and added 6.5(?) of their own money, although maybe some of that was from private investors as well.

I recall they had some sort of loan early on that they paid back within a couple of years.

[5hadowfax]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Originally posted by 5hadowfax:

It's a pretty wise choice not to back kickstarters, to be honest. Some of them have been abject failures. I guess I got lucky, though FDEV were already a fully fledged developer at the time. And yeah, they didn't just rely on money from backers on kickstarter, I believe they were promised a £1m fund injection from other investors if they could raise their own £1m via kickstarter... IIRC, it was a while ago now.

As i recall they raised 1,5 million from kickstarter and added 6.5(?) of their own money, although maybe some of that was from private investors as well.

I recall they had some sort of loan early on that they paid back within a couple of years.

Yeah, that sounds more like it. Very professional.

[Dexinition]

I kickstarted at the very end of the KS process, just before the alpha stage.
I think that it’s not the same when it’s a real company like Frontier that ask for a KS and someone who has nothing and it’s going on to scam people because he/she fail on the project what reason they can have.
David Braben is not a little guy in his own company, it’s a true genius who was able to write a galaxy code on a simple disk like he does with elite.
After that he is also on raspberry project and on many other .. i really don’t know how he can hand all !
Think he may have a time machine to be able to manage all of the projects he own :)
But for what i see i was happy to give my money to this project and if it was needed to redo i will.
in same time i have KS SC and i regret it because this project is a never ending.
David had a real view with reasonable goals and that’s why this projet is well done.
Just my own opinion.

[Harbinger]

*Raises hand* LEPer from the Kickstarter days myself.

The lion's share of the initial £8m budget came from Frontier floating their company on the London Stock Exchange in 2013. That raised £4m, £1.5m from the Kickstarter and the rest from a revolving loan facility with their bank, their own cash reserves and selling Aplha/Beta/LEPs in the 2 years leading up to launch.

They gambled it all on Elite Dangerous, reinvested their profits into each subsequent game they've built Frontier up to a company with over 600 staff, now valued in excess of £1 billion.

[5hadowfax]

Originally posted by Harbinger:

*Raises hand* LEPer from the Kickstarter days myself.

The lion's share of the initial £8m budget came from Frontier floating their company on the London Stock Exchange in 2013. That raised £4m, £1.5m from the Kickstarter and the rest from a revolving loan facility with their bank, their own cash reserves and selling Aplha/Beta/LEPs in the 2 years leading up to launch.

They gambled it all on Elite Dangerous, reinvested their profits into each subsequent game they've built Frontier up to a company with over 600 staff, now valued in excess of £1 billion.

Thanks for this, it's so hard to remember and look up old stuff like that. And thinking about it, all the great stuff they've managed after that... the success of Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo, and the deal with Jurassic World etc

Now you mention it it makes a lot of sense.

[5hadowfax]

Originally posted by Dexinition:

I kickstarted at the very end of the KS process, just before the alpha stage.
I think that it’s not the same when it’s a real company like Frontier that ask for a KS and someone who has nothing and it’s going on to scam people because he/she fail on the project what reason they can have.
David Braben is not a little guy in his own company, it’s a true genius who was able to write a galaxy code on a simple disk like he does with elite.
After that he is also on raspberry project and on many other .. i really don’t know how he can hand all !
Think he may have a time machine to be able to manage all of the projects he own :)
But for what i see i was happy to give my money to this project and if it was needed to redo i will.
in same time i have KS SC and i regret it because this project is a never ending.
David had a real view with reasonable goals and that’s why this projet is well done.
Just my own opinion.

David Braben is genuinely a personal hero of mine. Hope he gets a knighthood sometime, (if anybody is against the honours system in general, just consider it a bonus achivement :) )

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by 5hadowfax:

David Braben is genuinely a personal hero of mine. Hope he gets a knighthood sometime,

He can get it quite easily in the Ngalinn system. ;)