Popular gaming forum EN World has had a tough 2012. The site towers above many others in the RPG fan space and represents an aspirational success for Geek Native – but it was also an aspiration for hackers. In December last year the site was infected by malware.
Kickstarter doesn’t deal with web build projects but here’s what they told Russ Morrissey who runs the site;
“Normally, we don’t accept website projects, but we talked about what you’re doing and we think rebuilding a community website through Kickstarter is a great use of our platform.”
EN World’s Kickstarter passed the finish line in a blink of an eye. Morrus only asked for £300 and at the time of blogging has £1,434. More will come in as publishers are already offering goodies to add to the reward level.
Kickstarter may be in slightly dangerous waters allowing EN World through the grey area of “it’s a rebuild, not a build” but I think they did the right thing. The RPG community, of which EN World and the ENnies is a big part, has played a bit piece in Kickstarter’s success. I wonder if Kickstarter recognised that.
As it turns out; EN World’s Kickstarter even mentions an old review of Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns, one of the current rewards, that I wrote when the site was GameWyrd back in 2003. GameWyrd had a column in the old EN World reviews section. It just shows what a small world the RPG fans sites operate in and why we should support each other.
