i wouldn't be too sure that being self published is a good thing for Jane Jensen. Even with a publisher pushing for the game to be finished, it took years for Gray Matter to see the light of day, and it wasn't that great when it did finally come out so i wouldn't like to see how long it takes her to release something when she doesn't have anyone pushing her.

Personally i think it's a bit of a piss take for this and the LSL project to be on Kickstarter at all, while indie developers like Indiestone (Project Zomboid) and Chris Bischoff (Stasis) are struggling under the constrants of self funding. Surely these developers have made enough money over the decades they've been making games to fund these games themselves?

There is an article on the front page of gamespot right now mentioning the Pinkerton Road kickstarter. Granted it's about kickstarter projects in general (and not entirely positive in tone) but still, that kind of exposure on one of the biggest gaming sites will hopefully result in plenty of new pledges.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/whe...w-aaa-6371530/

edit: And now it's on the front page of one of Swedens biggest gaming sites aswell. I think having news-worthy things happen along the way is really important for a long kickstarter like this to keep the momentum going. Hopefully Jane has some more revelations planned for the next month. I was slightly pessimistic of this even making 300k for a long time, but i'm slowly starting to put those worries aside :)

Why would you think it was Jane who caused the delays? I'm much more inclined - and to be fair, I don't know the whole story - to believe it was problems with publishers, changing them to get the right feel, their constant input and changes to the game, etc etc

Designers, I tend to believe, have an idea and know where to go with it, but outside input can slow them down.

Also, I highly doubt the Al Lowes/Jensens made that much money off the Sierra heydays to finance games.

I'm not entirely sure Jane wouldn't be working for casual companies if she still didn't have to pay bills. Unfortunately, with/without Jensen/Lowe, those smaller indies are going to struggle until they can make a name for themselves people relate to.

JenLowe (ha ha, ahem) had the advantage of having a Sierra behind them to start their careers and make names for themselves - it's an uphill battle to not start with a major developer/publisher (for instance, Ken Rolston could probably start a KS pretty easy). That being said, I'm more than happy to support both - except, as Heather Logas and Andrew Plotnik have shown, the indie developer, the one who doesn't have as big of a professional reputation/livelihood to maintain, also carries a bigger risk for an investor.

I say, good luck, to all - but I can not, express my utter joy and happiness at what Kickstarter has done to story-based gaming. Although, I'm aware part of it is just nostalgia, but it's given smaller developers an opportunity they never had before.

First of all, Gray Matter's development didn't take so long because Jane Jensen couldn't get her design finished. In fact, if I recall correctly, she finished her design years before the game finally shipped.
If you read the Post Mortem by Scott Bilas about Gabriel Knight 3 (another game that was significantly delayed), then you'll notice only positive mentions about Jane's contributions. To quote:
I wouldn't say publisher dtp handled Gray Matter very wisely. For a start, they gave it into the hands of a largely unproven Eastern-European studio (I think Tonuzaba Entertainment). Maybe they thought it would be cheaper this way? I'm just speculating. Turned out this team couldn't get it done, so then Wizarbox handled further development duties and got it barely out of the door, probably (I guess!) well over the budget dtp bargained for.

Secondly, Jane indeed funds the Kickstarter project partly herself. But a good adventure game, especially as ambitious and substantial as we expect from her, doesn't come cheap.

Thirdly, I think she deserves the money because of the good name she got. You have to be proven or otherwise have an incredibly intriguing pitch at hand to be able to raise this kind of money. You know, you can't just say you want it to get it. That's just how it goes.

One thing you can be sure of: Jane is not greedy for looking for 300k to start this company. :P They are cutting every corner and pulling every string they can.
i respect the stuffing out of indie gamers who get quality games made on low/no budgets.
But that doesnt change that making a game with: professional voice actors, lots of animations, physical distrubiton, cross platform... costs hundreds of thousands of dollars easily.

My only concern right now for the Kickstarter is the gap between $300k and $600k in terms of incentives. Once the campaign nears $300k Jane may need to introduce some smaller incentives for reaching $400k, $500k, etc. Otherwise, once it hits $300k (which probably will be 20 days or so), there won't be much time left in the campaign and there won't be any incentive. Plus, this kickstarter already has some of the most generous donations from its backers so the key is finding more people now versus later.

Not to pile on, but you seem to have an odd view of the situation. Even if Jane were lazy without someone pushing her and even if she were as wealthy as you seem to think, not having her company on Kickstarter would probably have very little effect on the indies that you mention. People are putting their money into it because she has proven herself to enough of her fans that they want more games from her.

There has been a lot of discussions about Gray Matter on these forums and elsewhere that pretty strongly indicates where the mismanagement problems with the release came from, and very little, if any placed it on Jane. You also have an odd notion of how much money the developers made. Remember, they were just employees that did not have the rights to their creations. They may or may not have been paid well for their labors, but it seems very unlikely that many of the Sierra employees got rich simply by working at Sierra.

Jane just added some great new tiers, one being the novels of GK1 and GK2 to the 50$ tier, as e-books. I've always wanted to read those. She also said that there is a chance she'll do a second game as well, even if they don't reach 600K.

I'm getting really excited about this CSG-thing!

Wow! Given that the GK2 novel sells for over forty bucks on Amazon.com, that alone makes the $50-tier worth it for me.

She had a good job with steady income, that she left to make the games she felt the fans requested. That´s a very different situation from the one that the Project Zomboid developers are going through.

I mean, the reason for the kickstarter is not to desperately get this one game out the door, but to get a studio started that´s going to deliver classic adventure games on a regurlary basis.

For this she´s using, as I understand it:
1. Kickstarter
2. Personal saving that she and her family are putting in the studio
3. Development team that stand by to work on provisions from the game.

I really don´t think that´s a plan to should seem offensive to anyone.

marcd2011's comment pretty much epitomizes the ignorance surrounding Jane and the project. Jane, lazy? I think not. A lazy person doesn't have the motivation to do what Jane has been doing for years and is now trying to do again. A lazy person is, however, someone who sits behind a computer screen making ignorant comments and carping about other, industrious and productive people.

There's no problem with Double Fine, with all their success, doing a Kickstarter, but when Jane does it people throw shit fits.

I said it once, I'll say it again - there is no single person more unappreciated in the gaming community by her own fans than Jane Jensen. Though, marcd2011 may not be a "fan" in the sense of someone who appreciates another person's work.

I won't present any jumps to conclusions about the blatant, willful ignorance of Jane's project. I will say it's awful to see how people have responded to this wonderful news about her Kickstarter project.

People have been whining for Jane to make another GK4. She makes a huge step toward doing it, and people still bitch like entitled brats.

I love your attitude! I don't get why people just want more of the same.

So without having played a JJ game before (despite owning two), I pledged $16 for the game. I read the Moebius description and decided it's something I want to be in on.

I think Jane has done an excellent job with her biggest fans i.e the folks already signed up. She's been more than generous and forthcoming with her time and keeping us up to date.

But we need more people like orient...and that ain't going to be easy.

This next hundred thousand is going to be one tough slog.

Time is on our side though...for the moment!

Ok, in order to predict whether she will make it, kicktraq is useful.
The trending amount of $540 k is not realistic, i would disregard that (it's a trend and not a prediction anyway).
However, if you look at the pledges by day, don't look at the average of $12k (the influence on the average from the early bump is too large), but at the minimum (excluding today, as that is still going on). The minimum (pretty constant over the last 5 days) is approximately $5k. Let's say if the minimum will decrease with 25% over time (guesstimate), you will still have approx at minimum $3.75k per day. If you multiply that with the number of days left (30), you will still get $125k in addition to the $ 200 k raised already. This would mean that, if you use the minimum pledge per day as "predictive", she will raise $325k, and let's add an uncertainty of 10%, it will be $325 ± 32 k.
Therefore, it is not unlikely she will make it ;-)

I agree that Jane has done an excellent job of catering to her hardcore fans, and she has also been great at updating project during the campaign. The project page looks a lot more compelling to me now than before the vote.

Unfortunately, the growth of new backers has not increased has much as I hoped after this weekends vote. And looking at the trend is seems tough even reaching about 340k which is very sad. To me the most important part of a kickstarter campaign is the pitch video, and the only chance I see in increasing the numbers of backers per day is remaking the pitch video and focus it on the Moebius game.

Jane Jensen's company Pinkerton Road now has a forum up:

http://pinkertonroad.com/forums/

Hey! Now i'm not claiming credit for this but the other day on her Facebook I said that she should consider releasing those books as ebooks and she responded.
Maybe this is evidence of listening to fans?

She is very, very much listening to her fans and has been throughout this campaign. :)