We'd ask Dan for one-paragraph status updates every couple of months, offer a small suggestion here and there, and let them continue with their work. From the point we funded it, the Dear Esther remake was on autopilot as far as Indie Fund was concerned. Dan and associates had a very solid track record, so we did not worry about the game getting finished. write-up, we liked the way this eliminates most of the hassle that comes with monthly-milestone kinds of situations. Since the budget was relatively small and the team needed a large chunk of the money right away, we sent them the entire investment, $55k (USD), in one lump sum. One month after Dan's proposal, we voted to fund Dear Esther. We appear to have been very wrong about all this. #Dear esther art PcWhat we are thinking is that PSN may actually be the best audience for the game, since PSN has a tradition of doing arty stuff, and so it might be good to launch on both PSN and PC simultaneously. So our hope would be that you make enough that you can self-fund (or else get less outside funding for it than you would otherwise, or else at least have Esther sales that serve as a demonstration that this format can work well, so that people can invest in the next game with confidence). We don't think it's a bad idea to release on Steam, but we don't know how well the game will do there (our thoughts so far are, "maybe the game will break even, maybe it won't, but it won't make a decent margin of money".) Us as the fund are not really concerned about making much money, but what we hope is that the developers get a big audience and make enough that they are set for a while. > One thing we are thinking as we play the demo is that the Steam audience may not be the right one for the game. Here's an excerpt from an email we sent Dan in May 2011: We deliberated even though the original Dear Esther was highly regarded among the art game community, we weren't sure if people would buy it. In April 2011, Dan switched gears and came to us to fund the completion of the Dear Esther rebuild, asking for £30K. #Dear esther art fullMeanwhile, though, Rob's rebuild of Dear Esther had become a full project of its own. Due to various interactions with the bureaucracies surrounding universities and government funding sources, it had been uncertain how we could fund the new game. We talked with Dan on and off about the potential new game for about a year. #Dear esther art modAt about the same time, he told us about Robert Briscoe's popup: true side-project to rebuild the Dear Esther mod with higher-end graphics. Dan's first proposal to us was to fund an ambitous game that would be a spiritual sequel to Dear Esther. The mod got many peoples' attention at the time. The original Dear Esther had already been produced, back in 2008, in the form of an inconvenient-to-install Steam mod that could be downloaded for free. We have been in contact with Dan Pinchbeck of thechineseroom since March 2010. Indie Fund has a commitment to openness with financials, so here are the relevant details. Congratulations to the team behind the game, and thank you to everyone out there who bought the game or told a friend about it. for killing), the meditative beauty of Dear Esther has been recognized. So, released among games about killing, reckoning, crusading, killing and really old scrolls (containing really old magic. In fact the situation is quite different **all day it was the top-selling game on Steam**: We were expecting the game to have a niche appeal. To be honest, we are a little surprised by how many people bought Dear Esther so quickly. Because the Indie Fund loan is already covered, **Dear Esther is now profitable**. **In under 24 hours, the game has sold over 16,000 copies, and Indie Fund's investment was recouped after just 5.5 hours.** Those are great first-day sales for any game, independent or otherwise. Dear Esther was released on Steam yesterday, February 14th. February 15th 2012 Dear Esther has reached profitability.
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