WOW. You backers have given us a seriously wild ride: 35% funded in 5 hours, 40% funded in 7 hours, AND THEN we hit the 50% mark within 21 hours!
It feels seriously good to be 50% funded within the first 24 hours of the campaign! Your enthusiasm and support has blown us away. THANK YOU!
For this first update, we wanted to give you a little background on the inspiration for Off Grid. As you might be aware, it’s been in the works for quite some time!
The game was initially inspired when Rich heard Eben Moglen speak about net neutrality and data privacy at the INET conference in 2011. It struck a cord, and the seed for Off Grid was planted.
Soon after, Rich teamed up with Pontus, and together they built the first prototype of Off Grid. The goal was to get people thinking about data. The root notion was to try and physicalize it - to make data into something manipulable, something that people would be able to go and play with and see as a thing you can walk around.
But the concept was still a little out there: this was early 2013, before Snowden and NSA revelations.
Fast forward to June 2013, and the first ever public unveiling of Off Grid (in a livestreamed interview at Etoo London) just happened to fall nearly 64 years to the day after the publishing of George Orwell's book, 1984, and the same week that Edward Snowden made his first leak.
And all of a sudden, it clicked.
Prior to the first revelations, it was a struggle to explain to anyone why what we were doing with Off Grid was important or would be interesting. Then, almost overnight, Snowden gave everyone the vocabulary to talk about it. People understood.
Now, years on, the revelations have just kept rolling, and everyone is much more aware of the issues surrounding data privacy and mass surveillance.
It is the perfect time for a game like Off Grid: people are tuned into the effects of data mining and the impact that bad laws around digital rights have on real life. Help us get Off Grid funded, and THEN help us shape the game so we can all try to picture a less dystopian digital tomorrow.
Let’s keep the momentum going - tell your friends!!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/richmetson/off-grid-data-is-your-most-powerful-weapon/description
THANK YOU!
The Off Grid Team
P.S. If you want to chat to us a bit more informally, we regularly hang out in our studio discord - we’d love to see you in there! Join us: https://discordapp.com/invite/NDEVwBJ