Well, if you’ve been following along, we were doing alright on the Kickstarter and even funded about 200%. But, the campaign just wasn’t quite as ready and approachable as it could’ve been and I think we lost a lot of steam because of that. So, Grey Fox is going to relaunch September 3rd! Please back us again the second time around and tell all your friends! Hopefully, it’ll be more enticing this time, with more content, reviews, and maybe even a play-through video! For those of you who’ve been waiting for After the Empire for over 2 years now, this should almost seem fitting. This thing will happen, I promise! Thanks again, and sorry for what I hope is the final delay in this game finally becoming a reality.
Here’s how Ryan put it:
Dear Friends,
I want to thank you for all your support of our game, After The Empire. However, the publisher, Grey Fox Games, has decided to cancel the current kickstarter campaign, and relaunch in a few weeks with a stronger advertising presence and better content. I'll be posting about it all again, but for now, here's Grey Fox's reasons in their own words:
"Hey After the Empire backers,
As you may have noticed, we've been silent for today. That is because we have been looking hard at this campaign and after much deliberation, we've decided to temporarily cancel this campaign. We did not come to this decision lightly and we would like to share our thoughts behind this decision, but first we’d like to thank each and every one of you who jumped in and supported us in this campaign. You honor us with the faith you showed in us as a company and in this fantastic game. We're incredibly grateful for all of you and we hope you will rejoin us when this campaign relaunches on September 3rd.
Why We're Canceling
It has become clear from both the helpful comments of backers and the relatively low traffic that this campaign is getting that there are things we can do better and we’d like to take the relaunch as an opportunity to do just that.
We understand that we have missed the mark in several key ways:
1. Showing off how amazing and unique the gameplay is
(This is a game we think has the potential to be ranked in the top 100 games of all-time on BGG. It's both epic and satisfying)
2. Making it clear how much value backers are getting from a production standpoint.
(We know from showing this game off at conventions that After the Empire has an unbelievable table presence. We need to do a better job of communicating just how sprawling all the goodies you get with this game are)
3. Raising awareness about the campaign.
(Our efforts on getting the word should have been much stronger before this initial launch and we intend to spend the next couple weeks building awareness about the campaign)
4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, giving you more exclusive goodies right from the start!
The Relaunch
When this campaign relaunches on September 3rd, it will have more exclusive goodies right out of the gate.
We intend on giving you more exclusive and upgraded components with the base pledge from the start. We think you'll be quite pleased with it.
We will have full gameplay videos, more previews, and a cleaner rulebook so that everyone can get a clearer sense of how After the Empire plays.
We'll have additional add-ons tied to the campaign as well.
We'll also be making daily updates on social media and stepping up our marketing efforts to ensure awareness is increased.
What You Can Do
First and foremost, if you saw enough here to love that you backed this campaign, please come back on September 3rd and pledge your support again.
In the meantime, help us spread the word.
We have provided some cool After the Empire social media avatars that we encourage you to use to help us raise awareness about this campaign over the next few weeks.
Once again, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support! We're doing this to make the best possible game we can and bring it to the widest possible audience on release. We greatly appreciate your understanding and continued support.
There will be an update here as well as an announcement in our Grey Fox Games newsletter when the relaunch goes live. Until then, thanks again!
- Grey Fox Games"
