Would You Still Crowdfund an MMO in 2024?

Remember when crowdfunded MMOs were supposed to save the genre? Back in the day, being skeptical about them earned you plenty of side-eye. Plenty of people insisted these games were the future of the MMORPG space, promising a revolution of novel designs that would take the genre somewhere new.

Fast forward to now, and that enthusiasm has cooled considerably. The Daily Grind recently revisited the question that once split the community right down the middle: would you crowdfund an MMO today? It's a fair thing to ask, because the landscape looks very different than it did during the crowdfunding boom.

The original pitch was intoxicating. Players would fund the games they wanted to play, bypassing publishers who played it safe. Developers would get creative freedom, and backers would get the MMOs nobody else would make. For a while, it felt like the whole genre was about to change.

But the writer behind the Daily Grind piece was down on crowdfunded MMOs from the start, and caught flak for it. That skepticism now feels a lot more mainstream. The promise of a revolution in novel designs hasn't exactly panned out the way backers hoped, and the conversation has shifted from excitement to caution.

So where does that leave you? If a studio you loved announced a brand-new MMO tomorrow and asked for your backing, would you reach for your wallet? Or have the last few years taught you to wait and see how things actually turn out before committing?

There's no single right answer here. Some players still believe crowdfunding is the best shot at getting the kinds of MMOs big publishers won't touch. Others have decided that the risk simply isn't worth it anymore, no matter how good the pitch sounds.

That tension is exactly what makes this question worth asking again. The Daily Grind wants to know where you stand now, not where you stood back when crowdfunding was the hot new thing. Have your feelings changed, or are you still all in?

What do you think? Would you crowdfund an MMO in today's climate, or is that ship long gone? Let us know in the comments.