The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Our First Week of Early Access
Written 31 October 2026, at the end of our first week of early access and the Kickstarter.
Hello everyone,
I wanted to take a moment to talk about this week, the good, the bad and the ugly, and what's coming next for Origins.
The good
- 9,810 daily active players, a new record
- 1,015 players online at the same time, also a record
- 344 creators in our creator Discord
- More than 10,000 members in the Origins Discord
- More than 500 Steam reviews, rated Very Positive
- More than $900,000 raised on the Alpha Edition Kickstarter, from more than 2,200 backers, in less than a week
The bad
Early access has had a few more bugs than we would have liked. We're working hard on fixes, so please keep reporting anything you find in the Discord.
We also made a last-minute change to the $5K Kickstarter package. [NEED: one sentence on what changed, for readers who weren't there] I hate last-minute changes. I believe it was the right move, but it's never great to change things at the last minute, and for that I'm sorry.
The ugly
This was the first week in a while where Origins faced some good questions, some fair criticism, and a touch of misinformation. Here are my thoughts.
1. You only get attention when you threaten the status quo
You only get attention, positive or negative, when you're doing something different. Free and fair competition threatens every pay-to-win card game. Real scarcity and ownership for your hard-earned dollars threatens every phantom collectible, the kind anyone can have, that you can't trade, and that you never really own.
2. I expect more of what we saw this week
If people keep falling in love with fair competition and real ownership for everyone, Origins will become a threat to every other model. And when the people who depend on those models feel threatened, they will react.
3. Either way, what's right will win in the end
I've been fortunate to have a lot of success in business, and I've learned from experience that when you do what's right for the customer, you always win in the end.
In order for competition to be fair, it has to be free. Look at the greatest competitive games of all time: Counter-Strike, Dota 2, Valorant, Rocket League and Fortnite. Every one of them lets players of any financial status compete on the same level as players who can spend. In those games the best players win, and not just the best of the players who can afford to keep up with the meta. The core vision of Origins is to bring that same free and fair competition to digital card games.
Fair competition is right. Pay-to-win is wrong. Owning what you pay for is right. Spending without real ownership is wrong.
So every one of you sharing Origins with your friends or your audience can be proud, because you're sharing the best customer experience in digital card games.
My ask
Thank you to everyone who has come to defend Origins. My only suggestion is to spend 90% of our time talking about free-to-compete and ownership, and 10% correcting misinformation.
We know what we have will change digital card games forever. When we're this small, all attention is good attention, so use it to get the word out about why Origins is so special.
What's next
That's enough of the good-versus-evil stuff. Here's what's coming:
- A roadmap AMA
- Tell Your Local TCG Shop About Origins Day
- A full overview of the competitive scene, covering tournaments, rewards, formats and more
Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this, and to everyone building this with us. This is the beginning of something we'll look back on in ten years and be amazed at how big it became.
Love you all.
-Tim