The Indiegogo campaign went live on Monday morning, but articles were up on websites ahead of time. This included a Joystiq story with the headline “Skullgirls dev wants $150,000 in crowdfunding for new character,” which prompted a series of comments from users shocked at the sticker price.
“$150k Christ on a bike. I've overseen whole projects that cost less than that," said one commenter.
“Its just a character........" said one reader. "how the fuck can making a character for a video game cost more then my house??? 0_o”
“Building is what they can jump off of," said another commenter. "For one character? Even CAPCOM isn't that greedy, they only sell you the same game 3x”
Trying to raise at least $150,000 was picked for a very specific reason: it was the money Lab Zero Games needed. Often, crowdfunding projects will ask for roughly half of what it actually needs to complete what it’s really promising. There is a psychological effect to crowdfunding, and people want to back a winner. A winner is likely to exceed its funding goal, and get closer to its real goal. The Skullgirls developers actually broke down development costs, hoping to persuade people this was reality: