Bugbear did not find it easy convincing gamers that a new racing game was needed on the PC but perseverance has paid off.
Next Car Game was initially launched as a Kickstarter but was eventually pulled as it was apparent it would never reach its goal. NOt to be deterred and convinced they gad a game that gamers would want to play, Bugbear started to collect funds through their own site.
That probably wasn’t quite enough to get the interest they needed so the next stop was Steam Early Access. With the release of a fun tech demo which was free to everyone, and the three track version on Steam Early Access, Bugbear has managed to raise over $1 million through Steam and their own site in a week. This actually surpassed their initial Kickstarter goal.
“This is an amazing success for a racing game, especially considering our tough road to the success. Along the way we pitched the game to numerous publishers in the hopes that the game would eventually get released. Unfortunately we receive the same response all over again – there were no market for a game like ours. Come on, who would want to race and crash with such old beaters? Well, we would! Because of that we didn’t give up, but instead chose to seek crowd-funding on Kickstarter. However, we experienced another setback when our Kickstarter campaign didn’t reach the goal we were aiming for.”
I really think the tech demo helped bring Next Car Game to PC gamers’ attention and was a real proof of concept. It also reiterates what I have been thinking for a while, developers should get back in the habit of releasing actual demos for the public to try. If you have a good game then don;t be shy to share it.
Next Car Game does look to be shaping up rather nicely and if you want to see it in action check out my recent IncGamers Plays below.
