[Zaphod]

Or only if you have a big name to begin with?

I don't know the answer, but this is bound to make one wonder.

Long story, short: Tim Shafer raised close to a million $USD in half a day for an unspecified "Double Fine [point & click] Adventure".

[AlphaWolf]

Every day I'm surprised Bobby Kotick hasn't asked for donations to help their bottom line.

[Zaphod]

[Silent_Buddha]

Tim Shafer is also reportedly working on a new Psychonauts game. Or at least finalizing a deal to finance it.

That has me excited as I loved Psychonauts on PC.

Regards,
SB

[Brad Grenz]

They've already broken a million. At this point the bigger question is whether Kickstarter can evolve to be more like Kiva, where the "contributions" actually become investments with the opportunity to earn a payout on profitable projects. This is basically a distributed form of venture capital, so it only seems fair that people be compensated in a like manner.

[Grall]

Originally Posted by Brad Grenz

This is basically a distributed form of venture capital, so it only seems fair that people be compensated in a like manner.

I don't see how it would be "fair". Fronting say, ten dollars for a game doesn't represent any significant effort into making said game - or even any effort at all, you're just wiring over a small sum of money.

Why should you then be paid for the work other people did? You already have become compensated; you got the game that you paid for, and now, the making-of documentary as well.

No, that idea doesn't jive for me. Also, it would become a bit of an administrative nightmare, with potentially tens of thousands of people (or even more) who are to be paid back relatively small sums, so lots of losses in overhead involved.

[KKRT]

Originally Posted by Grall

I don't see how it would be "fair". Fronting say, ten dollars for a game doesn't represent any significant effort into making said game - or even any effort at all, you're just wiring over a small sum of money.

Why should you then be paid for the work other people did? You already have become compensated; you got the game that you paid for, and now, the making-of documentary as well.

No, that idea doesn't jive for me. Also, it would become a bit of an administrative nightmare, with potentially tens of thousands of people (or even more) who are to be paid back relatively small sums, so lots of losses in overhead involved.

He wasnt talking about 10$ donations but for example 1000$

[MfA]

Originally Posted by Grall

Why should you then be paid for the work other people did?

For taking the risk of non delivery, paying someone up front with no penalties for non delivery other than reputation damage is a little different from buying a game normally.

[KKRT]

http://www.wmdportal.com/

Doing it the same way, but actually threat donations as shares.

Also there indie site that funds part of investment, they've supported Q.U.B.E.

So yes, i'm pretty sure its future for indie, especially on PC.

[Brad Grenz]

Ah, I hadn't looked at the WMD site, but I'd heard the guys behind NFS: Shift were doing something like that. You also have examples of devs like Crate Entertainment trying to fund development through presales.

It seems like the advantage of using Kickstarter is transparency and stability. You know the budget, exactly what you're getting for your money and nothing happens until they have enough money to actually accomplish their goal. Some of the smaller operations you're just throwing money down a paypal black hole and you never know if progress is actually being made or if the dev is going to go under.

The Indie Fund, however, operates like a proper investment fund. It was started with money from a bunch of successful indie devs and designed to help up and coming projects, but it's ultimately being run with an aim to make money. That's pretty different from the crowdsourcing model.

[Brad Grenz]

Right. If you paid $15, $30, $50, you're just preordering a game. But at a certain point if you donate more you're basically doing so to ensure it gets made. There are people who tossed in $100, $500, $1000, $5000. You can't just keep tossing posters on the pile, nor is this a charity auction where a large donation to get your name in the game seems fair. This is a profit-minded venture, after all.

[Sxotty]

Originally Posted by Brad Grenz

Right. If you paid $15, $30, $50, you're just preordering a game. But at a certain point if you donate more you're basically doing so to ensure it gets made. There are people who tossed in $100, $500, $1000, $5000. You can't just keep tossing posters on the pile, nor is this a charity auction where a large donation to get your name in the game seems fair. This is a profit-minded venture, after all.

This is a good synopsis. It would be great from an egalitarian point of view as well since this is one of the problems with VC in general is that it is sort of an exclusive club b/c you need lots of money to play.

[ban25]

I donated $100. I have many friends at DFP, and indeed, I live 3 blocks away. They're not a wealthy studio. After BL shipped, they missed payroll for 5 weeks while trying to secure funding. But they are talented, scrappy developers and Tim has enough name recognition to make crowd sourcing like this actually work. I can only think of a handful of other developers that could do that, but then again, they don't need the money...

[RenegadeRocks]

AAAindie is also working on a similar kindof model except there's no guarantee their game will get finished as they keep working as money trickles in.
This feels much safer to put money into as we know the project will start only if the required money is gathered. I like this model, but for other devs to work this way they will have to showcase their game concept before People put in money. Others don't have the fan following Tim enjoys.

[Zaphod]

So, all things said and done they ended up with $3,36 million +$110 thousand. After Amazon, Kickstarter and cost of promotion/rewards have taken their share, I assume that leaves a little south of 3 millon for the game budget. IIRC, they said Stacking cost about 2 million, so that's quite good for risk-free funding (no revenue sharing with these investors).

And in other news, Brian Fargo has also passed a million in a couple of days for his Wasteland 2 pitch.

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm really hoping the Wasteland 2 project is successful. I still vividly remember playing it for the first time way back in 1988. Odd thing is I could swear I played it in 1987 but Wikipedia claims it was released in 1988. The graphics obviously haven't held up, but the game is absolutely brilliant.

It'd be nice to see a publishing house like Interplay come around again, although I'm not sure a publisher by gamers and for gamers will ever succeed (too many niche products and too few blockbusters to fund the inevitable losses niche products will generate). It's absolutely amazing to think of how many absolutely incredible games Interplay released, yet in the end they still went out of business.

But I've definitely got my fingers crossed for this. Hopefully it'll be another turn based tactical RPG.

Regards,
SB

[Zaphod]

With the Wasteland 2 project having passed 2.1 million with 10 days still to go, more game designers from days of yore are throwing their hat in the crowdfunding ring.

This time we have moved from LucasArts and Interplay to a couple of Sierra alumni:

Jane Jensen (Gabriel Knight) is seeking $300K for an (organic farm-inspired) adventure game studio. At the time of writing, they sit at $73K with 42 days still to go.

Al Lowe (Leisure Suit Larry) wants to "Make Leisure Suit Larry come again!" and needs $500K to remake Land of the Lounge Lizards. His current tally is $197K with 25 days remaining.

The former certainty made me remember that I wish I could play GK1 on my tablet, while I probably could survive without a(nother) LSL1 remake.

[Silent_Buddha]

Oh hell, I'll kick in a bit for a remake of LSL1. Relive the naughty days of 8-bit computing, only not in 8-bit anymore.

Hopefully it can scrub the horrible nightmare from my mind that was the last LSL (rip off) game.

Regards,
SB

[Zaphod]

The original LSL was the first game I ever bought. Still have the box somewhere. It taught me a lot (of (naughty) English vocabulary), and perhaps that's the exact reason don't feel inclined to chip in for a do-over.

I would pay for a quality "adult" (both in the LSL and GK sense) story driven experience on a mobile device, though.

[Silent_Buddha]

If they get enough funding through this they plan on offering it on multiple devices including mobile. As well if they get enough funding they plan on adding additional content.

Regards,
SB

[Zaphod]

And here's some ex-Bioware people making "The Banner Saga", a role-playing game merged with turn-based strategy, wrapped into an adventure mini-series. Really like the art on this one and the combat gameplay looks a bit like HOMM3 (with vikings). They're 4x funded at $435K with 12 days to go.

Jordan Weisman has also met his $400K goal (and $285K more) with 20 days to go in his bid to make sure (an old-school) Shadowrun returns to a computer near you.

Seems evident that Schafer's success wasn't just an one-off, but it might get "crowded" out there [sic]. With ever more developers jumping on the bandwagon, it'll be interesting to see who'll manage to attract the necessary attention once all and every Kickstarter campaign just isn't newsworthy anymore.

[Demirug]

I think it would be even more interesting to see what's happen if the first of this big kickstarter projects are finished. I am pretty sure that we will see many people that are not satisfied with the results. And we although need to consider that there might be projects that are not in a playable state at all when there is nothing left from the budget.

I am pretty sure that some of the projects we are now seeing popping up at kickstarter where pitched to a another investor before. But the crowed is less critical and don't request a business plan for such a project.

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by Demirug

I am pretty sure that some of the projects we are now seeing popping up at kickstarter where pitched to a another investor before. But the crowed is less critical and don't request a business plan for such a project.

That's certainly true, and some of the projects linked above more or less pitched them as such: "We have exhausted every other option for funding, it's this or never".

And then you have these guys, who pretty much asked for $200K, not to actually build a game, but to give credence to their venture capital fund drive.

$200,000 is a lot of money, but doesn't seem enough to fully fund the game.
We have investors (not publishers, but VC folks) who are interested but unsure if there is truly a market for real tac shooters. This seed money will be enough to fund startup and show the investors the market is real.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Demirug

I think it would be even more interesting to see what's happen if the first of this big kickstarter projects are finished. I am pretty sure that we will see many people that are not satisfied with the results. And we although need to consider that there might be projects that are not in a playable state at all when there is nothing left from the budget.

I am pretty sure that some of the projects we are now seeing popping up at kickstarter where pitched to a another investor before. But the crowed is less critical and don't request a business plan for such a project.

Absolutely. That's why the pledges I've made there have been for projects with significant nostaligia factor being done by some of the original team.

That way I view it as giving a little back for originally giving me so much pleasure. Hence, Wasteland 2 and LSL remake are mostly to thank them for making the original Wasteland and LSL.

Of course, I'm also hoping that at the end of developement I'll have something I enjoy playing, but if not, it's not a big deal to me.

I'm unlikely to take a chance on something new. So while I like Tim Shafer and liked some of his games, I wasn't quite willing to plonk down money on a new project.

I also fully expect that some projects on Kickstarter may eventually turn out to be just pure money grabs and nothing may materialize.

Regards,
SB

[Demirug]

Originally Posted by Zaphod

And then you have these guys, who pretty much asked for $200K, not to actually build a game, but to give credence to their venture capital fund drive.

That's a great Idea maybe I should do this too. I am pretty sure most of the people have not read this small part at the end of all this text.

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

Absolutely. That's why the pledges I've made there have been for projects with significant nostaligia factor being done by some of the original team.

That way I view it as giving a little back for originally giving me so much pleasure. Hence, Wasteland 2 and LSL remake are mostly to thank them for making the original Wasteland and LSL.

Of course, I'm also hoping that at the end of developement I'll have something I enjoy playing, but if not, it's not a big deal to me.

I'm unlikely to take a chance on something new. So while I like Tim Shafer and liked some of his games, I wasn't quite willing to plonk down money on a new project.

I also fully expect that some projects on Kickstarter may eventually turn out to be just pure money grabs and nothing may materialize.

Regards,
SB

That's properly the best way to see it. But I fear most people would have high expectations for the money they put into such a project. In the long run this big projects could do more harm to the Kickstarter idea then they help right now.