News Gollop's Phoenix Point opens for pre-order

In terms of the game itself: couldn't give a hoot how it's delivered. If the program finds its way onto my PC and doesn't need a 3rd party application running in order to launch (already confirmed not to be the case on the FAQ page) then it's equivalent to every other store.


However, I also invested (not just backed) via Fig's psuedo-share-progressive-return-dividend-thingy. That works based on a percentage of revenue received by the developer, and capped at a 300% return or 3 years after the commercial launch of the game (whichever comes first). Now the interesting bit: Fig have confirmed via email explicitly that "upfront payments paid by distributors to Snapshot are counted as revenue, and contribute to returns for Fig investors".
This leaves an interesting quandry: most time-limited deals with cash injections like this - such as those offered via Steam - are an advance: after the advance is paid to the developer, game sales are garnished either in whole or in part by the publisher/distributor until they have 'made up' the advance, effectively making it a loan secured by future game sales but with the developer 'losing' the first $X of revenue. A handful are true grants rather than advances (e.g. the ones offered by Oculus' publishing arm in the first few years of operation) and include no revenue garnishing beyond the normal publisher split. The terms of the deal with Epic are not yet public, but a cash advance could delay the start of collection of revenue from sales for at least 1 year (until a Steam and other platform launch) effectively shortening that 3 year window, though it would also mean a bump in sales 1 year in from the Steam fanboys. On the flipside, if the advance/grant is significantly more than the $500,000 held by crowd investors, that may just hit the 300% cap and 'buy off' the investors outright before any copies are sold (that would require a minimum cash injection of $500,000 * 2 - for the 50% split between Fig and the developer - * 1.18 - for the 85% Fig/Investor split - * 3 - for the 300% cap - for a minimum injection of $3.54mn for this case to be true). As far as I know the Offering Circular is a public document (unlike the full prospectus), so you can poke through it if you are so inclined.
It's also reminded me that I need to file a form W-8BEN to avoid being dinged for 30% by the IRS, so fun times there... At least as a non-US citizen I can actually invest at will merely by ticking a "I know what this investment lark is about" box, rather than having to jump through the 'accredited investor' hoops the yanks would have to.