After $2.7m Firefly success, Gale Force Nine announces Conan, Star Trek, Dune campaigns coming to Gamefound

IP-focused board game publisher Gale Force Nine has followed its phenomenally successful debut crowdfunding campaign last year by announcing a trio of new games set to come to Gamefound.

GF9 raised more than $2.7m on Gamefound last summer for Firefly The Game: 10th Anniversary Collector’s Edition, with more than 10,700 backers committing money to the campaign.

That total has since risen to almost $3.5m thanks to post-campaign pledges – and GF9 hopes the huge support for its first-ever crowdfunding project will translate into success for three more Gamefound campaigns planned for 2024 and 2025.

GF9 said it plans to launch The Adventures of Conan, a 2-4 player asymmetrical dice game, in April, followed by Star Trek Ascendancy: Final Frontier in late 2024 and Dune: Kwisatz Haderach early next year.

Final Frontier is a “definitive collector’s edition” of GF9’s Star Trek Ascendancy series begun in 2016, including all seven expansions, while Kwisatz Haderach is a complete edition of its 2019 Dune board game – a reimplementation of the 1979 classic – and three expansions.

Those latter games clearly hope to leverage the kind of fan demand for complete editions of an existing IP-focused game it saw with the Firefly campaign.

GF9 CEO John-Paul Brisigotti said, “We’re incredibly excited about our partnership with Gamefound.

“Working together to bring the Firefly project to gamers and retailers alike proved not only a wonderful test but also opened up possibilities for our other properties that have led to this new partnership.

“It’s about more than just launching games; it’s about strengthening our connection with our players and continuing to deliver unforgettable experiences but now in new ways.”

He added, “This new agreement sees Gale Force Nine opening new channels for our products, expanding on the core retailer offer with specialist releases that use our IP library in new ways.

“This announcement represents a deliberate move to enrich GF9’s offerings and engage with our audience on a deeper level for projects earmarked for this type of campaign.

“Never forgetting that our retailers have been there to support us from the start, we made sure with Firefly that they could participate fully in that release and we will make sure that is true for all our future campaigns.”

The announcement is another notable win for Gamefound, which has been upping the pressure on industry heavyweight Kickstarter over the past couple of years.

A stellar 2023 for Gamefound saw it bag the biggest board game fundraise of the year, as well as five of the top ten most-funded board games of the year across all crowdfunding platforms.

Last week miniatures-focused board game publisher CMON announced it was leaving Kickstarter after 12 years – and $108m of projects – to sign an exclusivity agreement with Gamefound.

Gamefound CEO Marcin Świerkot said earlier this year that publishers and backers were being attracted to the site thanks to features including making tax more streamlined, providing the option to pay in instalments, and quality of life improvements for creators such as a new analytics section and dashboard.