Keiji Inafune's Mega Man follow-up Mighty No. 9 was one of the most successful videogame Kickstarters ever, pulling in $3.85 million last year, more than four times its original goal. Combined with money earned through a separate PayPal campaign, the total funding amount broke $4 million, enough to nail every stretch goal the Comcept development team could cook up. But full English voice acting wasn't included among those goals, and so now a new crowdfunding campaign has been launched seeking another $100,000 to get it in there.
Announcing the campaign yesterday, Inafune said in a video that the current funds will cover the cost of Mighty No. 9 as it stands, but that he hopes to make it into something beyond merely a videogame. "We don't want the Mighty No. 9 project to end with the game alone," he says in the video. "We want the game to be part of something greater we deliver on a global scale."
"With everyone's help—and through new funding—we can make the game evolve even further... In order to do that, I'd like to ask for more of your strength, to borrow your power to make more and more fantastic content," he said. "Needless to say this includes work on the game itself; we want to expand outside of the game medium in a way that connects back to the game itself, ultimately enhancing of the content."
It sounds ambitious, and Inafune said that other companies have come forward to express interest in partnering with Comcept to expand the game into other media, particularly movies. But the first goal for the new campaign, at $100,000, is the much more mundane "full English voice" option. The Mighty No. 9 website indicates that new stretch goals will be added if and when the first goal is reached, but there's no indication what they might be.
It's interesting to contrast Comcept's enthusiastic return to crowdfunding with Tim Schafer's delicate, almost apologetic approach to last year's Broken Age double-dip. While Schafer explained in detail why Double Fine felt a need to ask for more money, Comcept said, literally in bold face, that it is "pleased to open up a new funding campaign for the project via PayPal!" It also announced that Mighty No. 9 preorders may now be placed, although preorders will not count toward the new crowdfunding goals.
