Fig is an equity crowdfunding platform built for video games

Fig, the crowdfunding platform launched in 2015, is mixing things up. Now, instead of time-limited, all-or-nothing campaigns, it will allow for open-ended campaigns. The first title to utilize the new Open Access program is a turn-based role-playing game called Vagrus — The Riven Realms.

Open Access, currently in beta, is a play on “early access,” or the practice of selling in-development games at a discount to fund their ongoing creation. Early access success stories like Minecraft and DayZ spawned an entire category of early access games on Steam and elsewhere. In recent years, even AAA titles like Fortnite and the Call of Duty franchise have gone the early access route with certain game modes.

Fig, the platform that blends traditional rewards-based crowdfunding with equity investment, has announced its first set of financial returns. The results? Fig said investors made a 245 percent return. It’s a positive sign for the future of the platform, but the situation is also a little odd. One game in particular, Outer Wilds, hasn’t actually come out yet and how exactly investors were paid out on it isn’t entirely clear.

Fig is supported by two types of funding: Backers, who contribute at lower amounts and who do not receive equity returns. Then there are investors, who contribute at higher amounts (typically $500 or $1,000) and receive dividends. So far, Fig has helped bring three games to market: Kingdoms & Castles, Trackless and Solstice Chronicles: MIA. Those games are available on Steam, either separately of in a Fig bundle.

Fig, the equity investment platform for games, was down more than 28 percent in 2017. The platform raised only $5.6 million, after raising more than $7.8 million in 2016.

Fig blends equity investment with traditional rewards-based crowdfunding. That means anyone can choose to invest in any of the games on the platform regardless of their net worth. Or, they can instead choose to pledge a fixed amount and receive games and other incentives for their money.

Equity crowdfunding platform Fig announced that for the first time ever one of its projects has turned a profit for investors.

Fig mixes traditional rewards-based crowdfunding with equity investment and is not limited to accredited investors. Truly anyone can invest in its games, which so far have included high-profile titles such as Psychonauts 2, Wasteland 3 and Phoenix Point. The platform showed tremendous growth in 2016, picking up the slack from Kickstarter which saw a precipitous decline in the video game category.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is now the most-funded video game on any crowdfunding platform since 2015. Obsidian Entertainment’s crowdfunding campaign for Pillars of Eternity 2 wrapped up today with $4.4 million in pledges from more than 33,000 backers — the biggest success in the Fig platform’s short history.

The campaign’s original goal was $1.1 million.

The crowdfunding campaign for Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire hit a major milestone yesterday by raising over $3 million. It’s the third Fig campaign to do so and, with more than 26,000 backers, it’s become the single most-backed campaign on the platform.

Pillars of Eternity 2 is the direct sequel of the 2015 title from Obsidian Entertainment, a computer role-playing game in the classic, isometric style of Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment. The original was notable for its length and narrative complexity, but also for being one of the biggest Kickstarter success stories, raising nearly $4 million on the platform in 2012.

Psychonauts 2 is the first crowdfunded game project to offer equity investment to everyone, not just the rich. Its campaign, run through the Fig crowdfunding platform, concluded in January of this year with nearly $3.83 million raised. But neither Fig nor developer Double Fine Productions has been able to collect a portion of those investment dollars — specifically, money from non-accredited investors — because of an ongoing review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That process ended last week, and today non-accredited investors are being asked to pay for the shares they reserved.

But even if Fig and Double Fine can reach those many hundreds, perhaps thousands of investors who reserved the right to purchase shares in the project, those individuals are under no obligation to actually pay up.

The Fig equity crowdfunding platform has finally finished its review process with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. That means non-accredited investors who made reservations to fund games like Psychonauts 2 months ago now have the opportunity to actually purchase equity in the game.

Fig was launched more than a year ago with the goal of allowing fans to share in the profits earned by their favorite games. When it initially launched in August 2015, there were only two options available to fans: traditional, rewards-based backing and equity investment by accredited, high net-worth individuals. But starting in December 2015, Fig opened investment to non-accredited investors as well, meaning basically anyone can invest through Fig.

After several wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns, InXile Entertainment is ready to launch its next project. The pitch for Wasteland 3, the sequel to Wasteland 2, is ambitious. While the game itself promises to be a bit shorter at 50 hours, the graphics and the feature set will be significantly beefed up. We spoke with studio head Brian Fargo last week to get more details.

Wasteland 3 will be true to the series’ roots, allowing players to create a small party of characters and lead them through an isometric role-playing game in the classic style. It will tell the story of Team November, a group of Rangers sent on a mission to Colorado in the aftermath of a global nuclear apocalypse. In the opening sequence of the game, Fargo says, players will be stranded far from civilization and have to fend for themselves. Their biggest challenge early on will be staying alive in the sub-zero temperatures.

Fig’s chief executive officer Justin Bailey broke the news yesterday that his fledgling company will require an amendment be filed with the federal government’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before it can collect outstanding unaccredited investments.

In the blog post Bailey outlined key changes to how Fig will be structured, and in how investment money will be doled out to game projects once collected.

In just a few hours equity crowdfunding platform Fig will conclude its fourth successful campaign. Consortium: The Tower, a science fiction game being funded in part by BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk, will bring in somewhere around $350,000. But only a portion of that money can be collected, because Fig is still working with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on key parts of its business model.

Now, as the company treads water well beyond the period of time they originally expected to have to wait for SEC approval, Fig itself has brought on additional investment from famed developer Cliff Bleszinski.

The funding drive fell far short of its $1.5 million ask, pulling in $792,817 — only 52.85 percent of the goal — from 1,674 backers in 35 days. Because the campaign failed, no money will be collected.

Harmonix had planned to contribute the remaining $500,000 of the PC port’s $2 million budget. That figure would have covered the cost of porting Rock Band 4 to PC, which would have been done by U.K. studio Sumo Digital. The PC version was also set to include a revived Rock Band Network; Harmonix would have handled that part.

The fourth campaign to be featured on the equity crowdfunding site Fig launched moments ago, and it’s for Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch. Developer Interabang Entertainment describes it as a “side-scrolling 2.5D, over-the-top multiplayer tag-team brawler” featuring characters made popular by Kevin Smith’s movies Clerks and Mallrats.

This will be the second video game project ever to feature open equity investment available to the public, not merely to wealthy individuals. The first such campaign was for Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2, which reached a total of $3.8 million this January on a $3.3 million ask. This type of investment is made possible by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, and you can read more about how it works here.

Double Fine Productions launched the campaign for Psychonauts 2 on the novel new crowdfunding platform called Fig, which allows for traditional rewards-based funding alongside equity investment. The Psychonauts 2 campaign was especially unique in that it allowed anyone, not just high-net-worth individuals, to invest in the game.

Fig tells Polygon that the first-of-its kind campaign raised $1,954,524 in rewards-based money as well as $1,874,500 in equity investment. But while the rewards-based money has been collected, the equity investment portion is still outstanding because of an additional round of clarifications requested by the SEC.

Schafer confirmed that the game was in the works on-stage at The Game Awards 2015. It will launch on Linux, Mac, PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One, although there’s no release date yet. The campaign page lists Fall 2018 as the expected arrival date for the rewards, however. A PlayStation VR spinoff is also in the works.

Check out the debut trailer below.

Justin Bailey, formerly of developer Double Fine and now Fig’s CEO, told Polygon that the acceptance of unaccredited investment removes a kind of “tension that was not about what we are at our core, which is always the idea that fans should be able to invest.”

“I think it plays into a larger movement that’s happening,” Bailey said. “I like to call it the democratization of society. They include the Uber movement [and other kinds of] on-demand economies. The investment piece is now being taken out of the hands of professional investors hands and it’s being opened up to everyone. Everyone is going to have the opportunity in the future to invest in things that they’re interested in, things that they follow and they know a lot about. ... They could probably make a better decision on which game they want to support, instead of going to the stock market and just picking a stock.”

“If the campaign doesn’t reach its goal,” said Bailey, “then no money will be transferred to 5th Cell.”

Anchors, a free-to-play game currently in development, features heroes like medieval archers, Vikings, ancient Egyptians and even samurai that can be upgraded over time. With those characters set loose in an epic battle to reclaim Earth from a transdimensional force, Anchors will allow players to create their own powers by combining collectible cards, acquired from crates. Keys to open crates will be available for purchase using in-game as well as real-world currency.

With only days to go, equity crowdfunding site Fig’s second campaign is likely to fail unless something extraordinary happens.

Fig is a novel crowdfunding startup that blends equity investment and traditional rewards-based backing. It launched this past August, and features an advisory board made up of executives from several big indie studios including Double Fine and Harmonix. Its first campaign, for the award-winning game Outer Wilds, raised more than $125,000. Its second campaign, for a free-to-play role-playing game called Anchors in the Drift, launched last month and with a $500,000 ask.

Anchors in the Drift is soliciting $500,000 from a blend of methods on Fig including both equity-based investment and traditional rewards-based crowdfunding. Rewards tiers extend from $10 all the way up to $10,000. As far as the investment option goes, Fig will be giving a variable return on investment over time.

For every $1,000 an investor invests ... if the company and the game are successful, the investor may generally expect to receive: Until the investor gets their $1,000 back (on a pre-tax basis), 0.02% of the game’s net revenue (less certain deductions and exceptions); Thereafter, 0.01% of net revenue.

By the end of the campaign, Fig says, they’d received 20 times more stated investment interest than the developer was prepared to accept.

In their first-of-its-kind campaign, Mobius was asking for $125,000 total with up to $50,000 of that open for investors. Justin Bailey, formerly of developer Double Fine and now CEO at Fig, says he eventually prevailed on the team to accept $75,000 of investment before the campaign closed in mid-September.

Fig launched in August of this year promising to blend traditional rewards-based crowdfunding with equity investment. The goal has always been to open those investment opportunities to everyone, not just those with the high net worth needed to become accredited. Fig tells Polygon that improvement is still on the horizon for now.

“We watched Fig’s first campaign, Outer Wilds, attract over $800,000 in potential accredited investment,” said 5th Cell’s CEO and creative director Jeremiah Slaczka, “and felt that of all the funding platforms, Fig’s was the perfect fit for our new IP.”

One day after announcing it would partner with equity crowdfunding site Fig, Harmonix took on $15 million in equity investment from 14 undisclosed partners, the Boston Business Journal reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission form, filed on Sept. 4, notes a date of first sale of Aug. 24, more than a week before the announcement that Harmonix would launch a game on Fig’s equity crowdfunding platform.

Fig, the crowdfunding solution for game developers that allows for reward-based funding alongside equity investment, will partner with Harmonix to bring an upcoming title to market. In a press release issued today, Fig also said that Harmonix’s chief creative officer, Alex Rigopulos, will join the advisory board.

Rigopulos joins Feargus Urquhart (Obsidian Entertainment), Brian Fargo (inXile Entertainment) and Tim Schafer (Double Fine) on the advisory board. The four men will be responsible for vetting projects and teams before they are invited to launch on Fig. Additionally, they will counsel and mentor developers before, during and after the crowdfunding process. All four independent companies have also vowed to launch new games through the service.