Spacebase DF-9 Recoups Investment In Two Weeks

Hi everyone! Earlier this year, we decided to experiment with funding larger projects than we normally do. A typical project for us has been in the range of $50k - $150k. We’ve also funded a few projects for smaller amounts, but never a project the size of Spacebase DF-9.

Spacebase required around $400k to develop, so it would have been unwise for Indie Fund to go it alone. A $400k game in a stable of $50k-$150k games would make for an imbalanced portfolio, and would mean more risk than we were comfortable with.

So we asked some folks we know if they’d be interested in joining this experiment. Indie Fund ended up putting $75k into this project, and Humble Bundle, Hemisphere Games, make all, AppAbove Games, Adam Saltsman, The Behemoth, Morgan Webb, and Rob Reid put in the rest.

Spacebase DF-9 went into open alpha last month and recouped the entire $400k investment two weeks from that date. 85% of the revenue came in via Steam Early Access, and the other 15% via direct sales by Double Fine.

This is an important milestone for us because the success of this experiment opens the door for us to support more projects of this magnitude in the future. To be clear, this won’t affect the number of smaller projects we fund. Our bottleneck has always been finding promising projects to invest in, not lack of funds.

It also provides an encouraging data point about bringing together larger groups of people to support larger projects, and we are mulling over what this might mean for the future of Indie Fund. Anyway, huge congratulations to Double Fine, JP, and the rest of the Spacebase team for a great lauch! We wish you continued success.

You can get in on the alpha now, either directly from Double Fine or on Steam.

Spacebase DF-9

Developer

Double Fine