Monster Hunter World: Iceborne board game launches and quickly funds on Kickstarter
Steamforged Games, the British company behind tabletop crossovers like Elden Ring: the board game And Dark Souls: The Role Playing Game Launched and successfully funded a new product on Thursday. The Kickstarter campaign for Monster Hunter World: Iceborne The board game started at 1pm EDT and has already crossed the finish line with the equivalent of more than $620,000 pledged. The campaign will run until June 1, with an estimated delivery date of November 2024.
The announcement and successful financing of Ice worn comes amid a flurry of news about Steamforged. On Monday, the company said it will stop shipping the last 174 copies by Monster Hunter World: The Board Game to enthusiastic lenders around the world. Then, on Tuesday, Dice breaker reported that the company had laid off some 20% of its staff earlier in March this year. Steamforged characterized that move as a restructuring, not a sign of financial weakness. The company bounced back quickly Thursday morning by announcing a long-standing four-game partnership with Kickstarter — a unique partnership for the Brooklyn-based crowdfunding pioneer. Steamforged launched and funded simultaneously Ice worn.
Steamforged came on the market in 2016 with Dark Souls: The Board Game. Then one success piled on another, using Kickstarter to promote and successfully fund many more video game crossover titles inspired by Resident Evil, Horizon: zero dawn, and Monster Hunter. The biggest misstep, however, was with the Dark Souls tabletop RPG. The first print run of the book was so riddled with errors and inaccuracies that the company chose to reprint the book for free to its most loyal early adopters.
According to the joint announcement from Steamforged and Kickstarter, the partnership between the two companies “includes collaborating on educational content for emerging game makers as a way to support the next generation of tabletop publishers.”
Kickstarter took the opportunity to oppose the idea that Kickstarter is somehow detrimental to the continued health of small businesses, creating a boom-and-bust revenue cycle that many creators have associated with Polygon in the past. named.
“There’s a common misconception that creators should ‘graduate’ from Kickstarter, but that’s not the case, especially in the tabletop industry,” Kickstarter’s chief strategy officer Jon Leland said in the company’s blog post. “This partnership with one of our largest table game publishers is a testament to the fact that Kickstarter can be part of an ongoing business model that extends beyond initial success. This is the first time we have entered into such a partnership and we hope to continue to find impactful and creative ways to deepen our relationships with creators of all sizes and categories.”
Tabletop games remain the largest source of crowdfunding revenue for Kickstarter, accounting for about a third of total backer revenue. In 2022, the company saw its first drop in tabletop revenue since 2014.