Harebrained Schemes
 |
|
| Industry | Video game developer |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2011 |
| Founder |
Jordan Weisman Mitch Gitelman |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Website | harebrained-schemes |
Harebrained Schemes is an American video game studio based in Seattle, Washington. It was co-founded in 2011 by Jordan Weisman and Mitch Gitelman. Prior to founding Harebrained Schemes, Weisman and Gitelman worked together on the MechCommander and Crimson Skies franchises at FASA, another company founded by Weisman. As of mid-2015, the studio had just under 60 employees.
In 2011, Weisman and Gitelman reunited to work on the mobile game Crimson: Steam Pirates, which became Harebrained Schemes' first game. The following year, the studio released a second mobile game, Strikefleet Omega. Both games were well received, with Crimson: Steam Pirates making Metacritic's "Best iPhone Games of 2011" list and Strikefleet Omega making the Google Play store's "Best Games of 2012" list.
Hairbrained then went on to develop several games in the Shadowrun franchise. In 2012, the studio raised $1.8 million through Kickstarter to fund the development of Shadowrun Returns, becoming only the third studio to raise $1 million on Kickstarter. The studio had been considering using Kickstarter as a funding source since 2011, but it was not until the Kickstater for Broken Age raised over $3 million that Harebrained Schemes felt that the crowdraising platform could be a viable funding option. The game was released in mid-2013. One of the campaign's stretch goals was a second city, which became the expansion campaign Shadowrun: Dragonfall. Dragonfall was released free to backers of Shadowrun Returns, and in September 2014 was re-released (still free to backers) as a stand-alone game, Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director's Cut.
The studio returned to Kickstarter to fund Shadowrun: Hong Kong in early 2015. Work on Shadowrun: Hong Kong had already begun using the studio's own funds by the time that the Kickstarter campaign was launched; the money raised through Kickstarter instead went towards expanding the amount of content that they would be able to put into the game. The studio set a funding goal of $100,000, which it reached in two hours; the campaign would go on to raise $1.2 million. The series has been well reviewed by critics. Shadowrun Returns received an aggregate rating of 76/100 on Metacritic. As an expansion, Shadowrun: Dragonfall received a score of 81/100, while the stand-alone re-release received a score of 87/100. Shadowrun: Hong Kong received a score of 81/100.
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