"Crowdsourcing" a future for niche games...?

[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.

 

[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.

 

[Grall]

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]

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$

 

[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]

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.

 

[MfA]

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.

 

[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