Revolution leads way in asking the crowd for funds

SOFTWARE developer Revolution is using crowdfunding to develop the latest instalment of its multi million-selling Broken Sword adventure game series.

The York-based company has won pledges of $291,400 towards its goal of $400,000 through the US website Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects.

Charles Cecil MBE, chief executive of Revolution, said crowdfunding allowed his company to write a game independently of publishers for the first time in its 22-year history.

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He told the Yorkshire Post: “Adventure games cost £1m to write. We have self-funded about half of that for Broken Sword 5.

“The Kickstarter project is about going out to people and saying we have written half the game and need your support to write the second half.

“The reaction has been overwhelmingly supportive. We are now into day six and over two thirds of the way there. So far so good.”

Kickstarter launched the Broken Sword appeal on August 23. Contributors are promised benefits ranging from the finished game to boxsets, books, comics, original artwork, T-shirts and wrap party invites. In an email, Mr Cecil said: “Funding our games in this way is only possible because the massive success of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter which allow us to communicate directly with our fans, and digital distribution which offers a much more equitable business model for developers.

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“Five years ago, a publisher would fund a developer to write a computer game – that publisher would then market it, manufacture it, and ship it off to the retailers.

“Through this traditional retail model, a developer is attributed about seven per cent of the revenues, but against that is charged the development costs, localisation and quality assurance – so royalties are almost never actually earned.

“Now a developer has the opportunity to self fund and self publish the game through portals like iTunes, Google Play for Android, or Steam and GoG for PC and Mac.

“Self publishing earns a revenue of 70 per cent – a massively larger share – but obviously the developer now needs to self-fund, pay for marketing, and bear the full risk.

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“We have the opportunity to break a model that simply wasn’t working for us, and crowdfunding opportunities like those offered through sites like Kickstarter is what is making it possible. That’s why Kickstarter is so exciting.”

The Broken Sword series launched in 1996 for Mac and PC computers. It moved onto Sony’s PlayStation, despite publishers believing that the format was better suited for high-speed action games than cerebral titles like Broken Sword.

Nevertheless, the game won considerable acclaim from PlayStation users.

Mr Cecil said the games industry became an “arms race” between Sony and Microsoft to develop the most technologically advanced games and platforms.

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But Nintendo disrupted their dominance with its Wii and DS platforms, which made gaming more attractive to a wider audience, he said.

Mr Cecil added: “People started moving into more complex and rewarding games. We have been a beneficiary of that move. Last year, five million people downloaded Broken Sword on Apple formats.”

At 50, Mr Cecil is a veteran of the UK games industry and last year was awarded an MBE in recognition of his contribution.

Born in London and raised in the Belgian Congo and Nigeria, he went to study engineering at Manchester University, where he met fellow student Richard Turner, who went on to found a computer company in Hull and invited Mr Cecil to work with him, producing games for the Sinclair Spectrum ZX81, an early home computer.

Mr Cecil founded Revolution Software in York in 1990.

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In the future, he is excited about the opportunities offered by “democratisation”.

He said: “There have always been gamekeepers like record labels and film studios.

“Now we are in a pure state. It’s the audience that decides what they want to play and what they want to fund.

“We have never been in this position before. The most exciting things are going to happen through this democratisation.”