Pantheon Rising From The Ashes

Pantheon, the ambitious MMO from famed Everquest designer Brad McQuaid may not have been as successful as planned raising funds on Kickstarter, but that doesn’t mean it was a flop, it raised almost half a million dollars.  After raising $460,000 it must have been a bit disappointing to see all that money float away though, such is the nature of Kickstarter’s all or nothing campaign model.

With the campaign over Brad and his team are ready to take another go at making Pantheon a reality, this time through their own in-house funding.  Since launching less than a week ago they’ve already managed to put together $133,000, not bad, especially when you consider they don’t have to pay Kickstarter fees.

Brad explains his teams’ plans for funding and the future of Pantheon in a lengthy, and very detailed blog post.  Most interestingly, to me anyway, is Brads honest thoughts on why the Kickstarter failed, and he seems to nail it right on the head with his second point:

We approached Kickstarter as if we were revealing an MMO to the press and public much closer to the game’s release date. We didn’t launch the Kickstarter with enough game info, with the intent of revealing a lot of details over time as well as using feedback from the community to help us come up with some of the features and mechanics as well. While this is the way you build excitement up with the public and press towards the end of an MMO’s development cycle (something we’ve all done with the MMOs we’ve worked on to completion in the past), it is not how you conduct a crowdfunding campaign. Potential funders want to know as much about the game as possible up front and right away.

Makes sense, a lot of the complaints regarding Pantheon centered on a lack of detail regarding gameplay, as well as some spotty screenshots.

Head over to the Pantheon site for more info on the game, and even pledge your support in exchange for some goodies if you’re so inclined.  And don’t forget to read our recent interview with Brad where he talks about the uniqueness of Pantheon, and even looks into the future to tell us what would happen if they missed their funding goal.

(h/t TheBitPulse)