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Fundraiser to make additional characters in the game


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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdSIDK_HA-4]Keep Skullgirls Growing! - YouTube[/ame]

 

 

Skullgirls development team, Lab Zero Games, are adding a new character to the game's playable roster, and they need $150,000 to fund her development. The character in question, Squigly, is about one-third complete thus far, and if the funding goal is reached, she will be released as free DLC on all platforms for a limited time. Physical rewards are being offered to contributors of a certain level as well.

 

$150,000 for a single character in a fighting game sounds like a lot of money, but it's actually significantly lower than most fighting games, and even previous Skullgirls characters, according to Lab Zero. We'll talk about that in a second. First, here's a breakdown of the total costs that will be required to see Squigly through development:

 

$48,000: Staff Salaries – 8 people for 10 weeks

$30,000: Animation and Clean-up Contracting

$4,000: Voice recording

$2,000: Hit-box Contracting

$5,000: Audio Implementation Contracting

$20,000: QA Testing

$10,000: 1st Party Certification

$10,500: IndieGoGo and Payment Processing Fees

 

Siliconera got in touch with Lab Zero CEO, Peter Bartholow, to ask if he had any idea how much characters for other fighting games cost to develop on average.

 

Costs differ depending on the developer, and whether the game is 2D or 3D, Bartholow replied, but added: “We've heard rumors that Street Fighter IV characters cost more than $1M each.”

 

He elaborated: “For comparison, though, the core Skullgirls characters cost between $200-250k to create, and we have it on pretty good authority that is actually quite cheap, especially for the amount of animation we put into our characters. Seth Killian isn't with Capcom any more, but if you reach out to him he should confirm that $150k (especially when you consider that 2/5 of that cost is bureaucratic) is insanely cheap.”

 

By this, Bartholow means that 2/5 of the $150,000 goes toward simply acquiring the necessary funds and the release of the DLC itself. As the patch for Squigly will need to be tested and submitted on its own - as opposed to a bunch of characters being submitted together as part of the full game - this actually theoretically makes her more expensive to develop than the previous characters, since Lab Zero will be taking these costs on themselves.

 

“When you're funded by a publisher you don't need to allocate large amount of money for testing, submission costs, and physical reward items,” Bartholow shared. “There are no reward items, of course, and the publisher handles the testing and submission costs themselves.”

So, the average Skullgirls character costs $200-250k to develop, but Lab Zero are asking just $150,000 for Squigly, even though she should theoretically cost more to develop, since they're taking submission costs on by themselves. Why is that? Because the development staff took voluntary pay-cuts in order to increase the chances of her release, according to Bartholow.

 

“The main thing we did was just take pay cuts,” Bartholow revealed. “The price was also lowered from previous characters a bit just because she was already partially completed when we were laid off. Since a lot of the other things involve contractors and our contracting rates are already on the low side, it wasn't really possible to get those any lower.”

 

Without the additional expenses, Squigly's development costs could have been lowered even further, down to $90,000, according to Bartholow, who came up with the budget for the character himself. The additional $60,000 comes from QA testing, submission, contributor payment processing fees, and manufacturing physical rewards - the last four items on the budget breakdown provided above.

 

Should the Skullgirls community go above and beyond the $150,000 in contributions, and reach $375,000, Lab Zero games will create another character for the game—Big Band, who would be Skullgirls' first male character. The budget for Big Band is $200,000- higher than Squigly's $150,000.

 

“That includes all of those unavoidable bureaucratic costs,” Bartholow explained to Siliconera. “IndieGoGo/Paypal's take would be more because it's a percentage, and we'd need to give away more goods to make that happen, too. But the main increase is that we expect him to take 4-6 weeks longer to develop because no work has been completed on him at all.”

 

Skullgirls Characters Cost $250k Each To Create; Here's Why Squigly Is Cheaper | Siliconera

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In just a day, the fundraiser for Skullgirls has acquired over $90,000 of its $150,000 goal that will help the developer, Lab Zero, add a new character to the fighting game. Since that goal is in sight, Lab Zero have also begun to reveal other characters that they could add to Skullgirls, should the contribution goals for those be met as well. Here's what they've announced so far:

 

$375,000: Big Band ($400,000 for Big Band stage and Story Mode)

 

$600,000: One of the below, by fan vote ($625,000 for stage and Story Mode)

Marie, Umbrella, Mrs. Victoria or Black Dahlia as a playable character.

 

Lab Zero actually have even more characters designed for the game. For every $20,000 they raise, they'll reveal a new one, making them eligible for a vote. These characters were initially intended to be spread across three games, but Lab Zero have begun to reveal some of them early to spur interest.

 

These New Characters Could Make It Into Skullgirls, Too | Siliconera

 

Skullgirls' fundraiser has managed to rake in over $200,000 so far, with 29 days left to go until people won’t be allowed to contribute any more, and developer, Lab Zero, have revealed more possible characters that could be added to the game. We saw a few of these on Monday, and here are the ones Lab Zero have revealed since:

 

D. Violet, Annie, Stanley, Hive, Leduc, and Ileum.

 

The Skullgirls fundraiser will need to hit $600,000 in contributions for any of these characters to make it into the game. Once that goal is reached, Lab Zero will allow fans to vote on which one they'd like to see created. Before that happens, however, they have two other characters to get out of the way.

 

Since the $175,000 goal has been crossed, Squigly, the character currently in development is fully funded, complete with her own stage, music track from Michiru Yamane, and story mode. Next on the list is Big Band, who will be added at the $375,000 mark, should contributions reach that figure.

 

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/02/27/skullgirls-fundraiser-over-200000-more-characters-revealed/

Edited by Shuffle
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Wow, as of right now they have reached enough funds to create the Squigly character, stage and story mode. Amazing. I'm curious to see how much they'll raise in these next few weeks. I applaud them and the fans.

 

A bit waaay off topic, but instead of DLC, it would be cool if old games pre-trophy support could do this kind of thing to get trophies in games. I would literally empty out my savings account to support a Heavenly Sword or Valkyria Chronicles patch! :p

 

Anyway, back to Skullgirls. If they can get $300k, I'm tossing some funds into the hat. I'm really curious in seeing how far this will go.

Edited by fancyfox
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  • 2 weeks later...

Big Band is funded

 

Skullgirls' second new character, Big Band, has been funded. The game's fund-raiser has crossed $378,000 in contributions and still has 14 days left to go. If it crosses the $400,000 mark, Big Band will get his own stage and story. In an update, Lab Zero Games wrote:

 

Just… amazing.

Thanks in large part to our second “Divinity,” we've now funded Big Band!

 

Once again, Lab Zero would like to thank you and everyone else that have contributed to this campaign! We are unbelievably grateful to have such devoted and supportive fans, and can't wait to get this new content into your hands.

 

Once Big Band's story mode and stage are funded, we'll begin releasing information to help you make your decision for the forthcoming Mysterious Character vote, so keep those contributions coming in.

Again, thank you so much for your continued support.

The “mysterious character” vote is for a possible third character that will be added to Skullgirls. This will happen if the fund-raiser reaches $600,000.

 

Skullgirls' Second New Character, Big Band, Has Been Funded | Siliconera

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It would be so awesome if it reached $1,000,000.

 

Indiegogo offered them to extend the time for it to be the first funder to go to 1 million, but they declined saying that it's time to make good on the promises (ie: actually developing all the stuff and all the perk things).

 

Still the 5th character made it through... 40k~ in the last 3 hours.

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So happy that they managed to get everything funded in the end. I never really expected them to reach the amount they did though, that was pretty insane. Still, I put in some myself and that's a first for me. I haven't even used Kickstarter yet despite following a few things I want.

 

Still, looking forward to trying out the new characters. Squigly and Robo-Fortune have potential to become characters I play often. Big Band seems cool too, but he looks like a slow character and I always play faster characters in fighting games.

 

For voting, I'm still split between Minette, Isaac, Aeon, Roxie and Annie. I'd be happy with any of those getting made.

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I just hope the voting doesn't get ugly or full of trolling. Though only donating allowed you to vote, I see some really dirty campaigning already. :p

 

Edit: After 1st round of the first DLC voting, these are left.

 

http://i554.photobucket.com/albums/jj411/Omegadenmad/Round1survivors_zpsa836fe6b.png

Edited by OmegaDenmad
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