Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter Project Update #7, $1.26 Million and Counting

For the seventh update to the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter project, we hear from Jordan Weisman about the team’s plans to create a central Shadowrun Universe website and to make the SNES/Genesis tie-in mission exclusive to Kickstarter backers for a limited time, rather than indefinitely. First, the video portion:

And then on with the text-based summary:

Last week we announced that if our funding hit $1.5m, we’ll create a special story, just for backers, that connects the plots in the SNES and Sega Shadowrun games. It’s our way of saying thank you for all your support. Your reaction was immediate, passionate, and inspiring.

It seems like everyone is really excited about the mission (we are too!), but an overwhelming number of you don’t want that the mission to be exclusive for backers. You want everyone who loves Shadowrun to be able to experience it.

That’s awesome.

Your generosity of spirit and your support for people who aren’t (yet, we hope) involved in this Kickstarter really says something important about the Shadowrun Community and we’re proud to be a part of it. But we still want to say (thank you) to everyone supporting the project and putting their faith in us.

So here’s what we’re going to do: If we’re lucky enough to get to $1.5m, we’ll create that story and make it available only to backers but for an exclusive period of time. Then, we’ll open it up so that everyone can see how the dots between Jake and Harlequin are connected.

Everybody plays. Everybody wins. Everybody calls DocWagon.

You people are incredible. As of this writing, we have well over 6,000 posts on our Kickstarter page alone. Add to that the thousands more on Reddit, Dumpshock, Facebook, the comments pages of sites hosting articles about the project, and the gazillion private messages and emails we receive and one thing is clear people are talking about Shadowrun Returns.

Back when Jordan first created Shadowrun, this sort of community interaction just wasn’t possible. The best way (it felt like the only way) to communicate with fans was in person at game conventions. Not a very efficient method, but a fun one! Happily, the Digital Age is upon us and we feel very lucky to have the ability to read your comments, listen to your debates, and write blog posts like these.

As we look across all the myriad websites and forums, it’s become quite apparent that this community needs a place of its own: a Shadowrun Universe website.

‘¢ One place where fans of every aspect of Shadowrun (remember the collectible card game?) come together to learn, to express themselves, and to have fun.
‘¢ One place where everyone we can share a love of Shadowrun: forums, fiction, art, videos, news . . . everything.
‘¢ One place where we can check in with you.

So, in that spirit of community, we’ve teamed up with our friends at Cliffhanger Productions, who are developing Shadowrun Online and with Catalyst Game Labs, the producers of the Shadowrun tabletop game, to make this a reality.

Just to be clear: we are not going to use any of the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter money to fund the Shadowrun Universe website.

Our Kickstarter project is about creating a new Shadowrun game with your generous support. The Shadowrun Universe website is about all of us revitalizing and re-energizing a game setting that we’ve loved for years.