The Video Game Kickstarter Thread of the Future of Passing the Risk to the Consumer

Frank

Frank

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2

Like Dave put below, Brian Fargo, one of Interplay's founders, has begun a Kickstarter for a sequel to Wasteland. What is Wasteland? Well, Wasteland was the game that Fallout was the spiritual successor to. Fallout was originally meant to be a sequel to Wasteland, but they didn't own the IP. Fargo has brought a lot of the original Wasteland team together for this.

I'm kind of weary on the thought of more and more companies trying to do this and I think the bubble will pop SUPER fast if any of them fail to deliver but this is one of the few I can get on board with. All we need now is for Fred Ford and Paul Reiche to someone splinter Toys for Bob off of Activision, quit it with the Skylanders and start up a Kickstarter for a true sequel to Star Control and I think I could die happy.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/widget/video.html

God I miss old Interplay. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Freespace, Descent, Planescape: Torment. They were the champions of PC RPGs.
 
Frank

Frank

This may actually be the real dream team of CRPGs together again. This is a good portion of the crew together responsible for Fallout, Fallout 2, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment. Some of the best RPGs ever created. If Double Fine can do 3 million for a point and click adventure and these guys can't do 2/3s of that for this. I'm gonna be bummed out so hard.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Shegokigo said:
My only exposure to Shadowrun was the amazing SNES game. I loved that game.
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That was also the only good one. The rest have been awful, mainly because the people who'd buy the rights didn't "get" the feel of the setting. These guys would probably do better.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy



Jane Jensen and her husband Robert Holmes are creating the CSG (Community Supported Gaming) to create a series of mystery-based adventure games.

The video is great and their daughter (who co-composes the music with her father) is damn hot. :unibrow:
 
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Frank

Frank

Gabriel Knight 3 had some of the absolute most esoteric dream logic puzzles ever to put vomited into a genre known for it's esoteric, dream logic puzzles.

It was also one of the last mainstream adventure games made before they all but died.

Hilarious video game writer Eric Wolpaw (lead writer of the portal games) was back in the day when he just had a website called Old Man Murray says it best:

http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html
 
Gared

Gared

AshburnerX said:
Shadowrun Returns completely funded in 28 hours, still has 23 days to go.

So yeah... this should be good.

Leisure Suit Larry remake is at almost 200k.
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I was pretty skeptical of another Shadowrun game. After all, who can forget Microsoft's transgression? Breaking the one hard and fast rule of the setting "there is not, nor shall there ever be, any technology or magic that allows for teleportation" before you even leave the tutorial isn't going to garner you a whole lot of applause from fans of the franchise. It's good to see who the developers on this project are though. Maybe we'll finally get a good SR video game that doesn't require an ancient console.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

This is the first kickstarter I'm interested in enough to actually pledge as much as to get a copy.

That 10,000 pledge so far is the coolest I've seen so far:

Previous rewards + Mike Mulvihill, who led Shadowrun game development at FASA Corp., will COME TO YOUR TOWN TO RUN A TABLETOP GAME OF SHADOWRUN FOR YOU AND FIVE OF YOUR FRIENDS. (He'll even buy some snacks
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Jay

Jay

Honestly though, this stuff if blowing my mind.

How much are publishers fretting this may be the "way of the future"? Cutting out the middle man. The suit. The guy who ruins franchises or companies since the fan base will pay for development for games directly by giving money?
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

It'll never be the answer for AAA projects that don't have a big name behind them, but this does exist as a means for big names to get pet projects out the door or for indies with buzz to get their projects out the door. I doubt it'll carry over to consoles as well: You might spend a million bucks just to get your DVDs made, not to mention licensing fees from console makers.

Still really impressive and definitely worth doing.
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Jay said:
Honestly though, this stuff if blowing my mind.

How much are publishers fretting this may be the "way of the future"? Cutting out the middle man. The suit. The guy who ruins franchises or companies since the fan base will pay for development for games directly by giving money?
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They're not even remotely fretting.

Not only won't this touch the scale of AAA development for anyone but the big names, but even if it did, publishers would <i>love</i> to assume no financial risk for a project. They do a ton more than just pay the bill, so if someone else could pay it for them before they did anything, I guarantee you they'll jump on it.

EDIT: Hell, half the reason games get rushed out the door is because they go over budget/time. If you knew that you had a guaranteed $10M in sales waiting for you, hell yeah you'll be fine spending an extra million over the $4M you've already spent.

The only guys for whom the videogame Kickstarter trend might be a cause to worry are the big retailers, and that's purely because Kickstarter lends itself to alternate methods of distribution (even physical distribution).
 
Frank

Frank

As I said in my opening post, and the reason I'll only throw in for the littlest amount possible, I don't doubt that some of these projects are not going to be able to be completed with their budgets or in the timeline provided. Sure, we all know that Schaefer can put out a small game in a short amount of time, it's what DF does but the others are really unknowns. Even Wasteland 2, which I'm absolutely stoked that it's happening (and made it's 2.1 million, so Chris Avellone is onboard, whoopa!), is being made by inXile who's had troubles with budgets and deadlines in the past. I'm not going in for 250 bucks for some giga-pack of neat shit for a game that very well could not happen.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

SpecialKO said:
They're not even remotely fretting.

Not only won't this touch the scale of AAA development for anyone but the big names, but even if it did, publishers would <i>love</i> to assume no financial risk for a project. They do a ton more than just pay the bill, so if someone else could pay it for them before they did anything, I guarantee you they'll jump on it.

EDIT: Hell, half the reason games get rushed out the door is because they go over budget/time. If you knew that you had a guaranteed $10M in sales waiting for you, hell yeah you'll be fine spending an extra million over the $4M you've already spent.

The only guys for whom the videogame Kickstarter trend might be a cause to worry are the big retailers, and that's purely because Kickstarter lends itself to alternate methods of distribution (even physical distribution).
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Kick starter projects don't need publishers... like at all. Software developers can release games direct to the public. And if you think this won't be an issue if they start gaining popularity, I refer you back to the debaucle that happened when Steam first made the scene. The publisher of Half-Life 2 sued valve over allowing direct access to the game and cutting them out.

If Kickstarter gets too popular, you can bet the publishers will show up, subpoenas in hand. Well more likely legislation of some sort.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Legislation? If Hollywood can't enforce the studio system in the digital age, I really don't think Big Publisher can do it with games. The more likely culprit will be contract clauses that prohibit them from crowd-source funding like this. I doubt many would sign those though.
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Bowielee said:
Kick starter projects don't need publishers... like at all. Software developers can release games direct to the public. And if you think this won't be an issue if they start gaining popularity, I refer you back to the debaucle that happened when Steam first made the scene. The publisher of Half-Life 2 sued valve over allowing direct access to the game and cutting them out.
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You misunderstand my post. The publishers are the ones who are going to be starting Kickstarter projects if they can be shown to be viable enough. They have every reason to go that route if they think it will work (getting paid upfront before development for guaranteed sales figures? Executive wet-dream).

Making good games is about a lot more than software development. Tim Schafer doesn't need help because he already has a multi-multi-million dollar company that worked with big publishers for years. Double Fine can afford to hire their own marketing staff, researchers, ad people, brand artists, etc. Most indies don't have that. If they're happy with the small-scale they don't really need it, but if they're not, Kickstarter is probably not going to get them there. They just don't have the brand recognition. Kickstarter had games on it a long time before Double Fine took their shot. Know who has brand recognition and recognizable IP sitting around? Pubs.

Also, Sierra sued Valve because they paid a significant portion of the bill to develop the game and Valve went around them on distribution. Completely different set of circumstances.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

I just spent 2hrs perusing the Kickstarter page..... wow. Just wow.

You all should definitely look up "Steelie" and "Remee". I know I'll be buying both of those when they hit stores.
 
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