Stars Reach Passes $200,000 Crowdfunding Goal In An Hour, 1000 Backers In Less Than Two

One more Kickstarter MMORPG has seen the finish line—but this one came at an unexpected pace. After a brief delay, the Stars Reach crowdfunding campaign blew past its $200,000 goal within an hour of launching. 

On top of the goal being reached, during the writing of this piece at 9:45 a.m. PST and still less than two hours since its 8:05 a.m. PST launch, Stars Reach also achieved over 1,000 backers pledging over $225,000. 

The “sandbox science-fantasy MMORPG” has been playtesting and building a playerbase for a while leading up to this campaign, touting designer Ralph Koster from Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. 

“We launched our Kickstarter at 8:05 AM Pacific, and within an hour, we had already hit our $200,000 initial goal, and rocketed to the #2 product globally on KS,” a follow-up post on the official Kickstarter page reads. Because some of the reward tiers went so quickly, most likely the “Early Bird” pricing, the team plans on adding some back in to make sure all the time zones have a chance. 

Stars Reach is far from starting from scratch at this point; it’s generally playable through its alpha tests, including one playtest that briefly pushed back the initial Kickstarter date last week. As the page explains, “This Kickstarter isn't about starting a game - it’s about finishing it, expanding it, and bringing this living galaxy to its full potential.” An Early Access period will follow development before a full launch happens. 

There are 29 more days left in the campaign, and it’s yet to be seen if there’ll be stretch goals.