Skullgirls Update: Lab Zero Gets $40,000 Extra Dollars Out of Nowhere

The Skullgirls Indiegogo fundraiser closed today to the tune of $829,829. Not only was this enough to blow past all planned stretch goals, but it was also enough to grant Mane 6 a free license for the Z Engine, the engine that Skullgirls runs on.

The only goal that the team didn’t hit was the $850,000 goal, which would have allowed the team to create a story, stage, and new music track for a second “mystery list” DLC character. The character itself was able to be made at $825,000.

However, when commenting the closure of the IGG campaign on NeoGAF, Lab Zero CEO Peter Barthalow said that the studio has randomly come into extra money, $40,000 of extra money. Barthalow did not go into specifics about where the money came from as, “non-disclosure agreements with the powers that be prevented him from getting too specific.” However, he did say that one of their character development line items has “evaporated.”

Fans are speculating that Microsoft and Sony are waiving the fees for first party certification. On the IGG page, Lab Zero said that 1^st party certification is about $10,000 in character development costs. Since the team has raised enough for four characters (and one remix character) that totals up to $40,000 extra dollars that the team has to play with. Barthalow has said that they will be using this extra money to hit their last stretch goal and create a stage, story, and music track for the last funded character.

As a result of the funds raised by the IGG campaign, Skullgirls will be able to produce five characters, seven stages, five new stories, seven new music tracks, three new announcer voice packs, six new character voice packs, and a brand new patch that will add a ton of new functionality to the game. All of this content will be available to purchase for free for the first three months after its development. Anyone who doesn't download the character content in the first three months will have to pay an as of yet unrevealed fee.