Shroud of the Avatar evolves with 13 updates driven by fans

Starr Long and Richard Garriott have made a lot of games over the years, from the Ultima series to Toontown. But they’ve never been quite so busy answering to their fans as they have in the past year.

The founders of Portalarium are creating Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, through Steam Early Access. And that means they’re basically co-developing the fantasy role-playing game with fans, particularly those who helped them raise $1.9 million in a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter in 2013. They’ve done monthly releases 13 times in the past year or so, slowing building out a game world so that fans can play as the world changes before their eyes. The game is still in a pre-alpha state, but Long and Garriott say they’re making good progress. There are 100,000 players now, with a third of them paying for content.