Getting the Planescape rights to a game would be self defeating as WotC/HASBRO own it and they would be involved in the development. Which is the entire point of Kickstarter, avoiding the terrible influence/demands of publishers on games made today.

Okay, I think I have to limit myself now.

Double Fine Adventure
Wasteland 2
The Banner Saga
Pinkerton Studios CSG
Tex Murphy (upcoming)

undecided:
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
Leisure Suit Larry remake

Holy cow, this morning I just found out there's a Jane Jensen Kickstarter and a Kickstarter for a new Shadowrun game.

Okay, I think we need to set ourselves some ground rules...

1. I will not support a project that does not offer a boxed copy. Many of these games look like they're going to get their funding anyway and I can easily buy them when they get released on Steam with the added incentive of knowing how the game turned out.

2. I will not support a project that does not offer a full retail release. Sorry TAKEDOWN - funding an alpha on the hopes the investors will come out of the woodwork to support you is just too much of a risk.

3. I will not support a first time designer/people with no experience in the industry. I know this sounds harsh - but we've had a flourishing indie scene for many years now full of designers who made product without crowdsourcing. You need to build up your reputation and prove your value before asking for large sums of funding.

No, I did both. But was Kickstarter really meant to be a last resort for Big Names in the adventure game industry? I don't think so.

Darn... :(

Just a couple of numbers: 24 hours after kick-off DFA had raised over a million dollars. Jane Jensen has raised around $45,500 as I am writing this (slightly past the 24-hour mark). Both of them have the same goal.

There might be some issues with the marketing of Pinkerton Road's KS that some people have pointed out at the respective thread. But I am convinced that the biggest issue is that people are just running out of money.

People interested in AGs are a relatively small crowd (by comparison, Shadowrun Returns have basically already raised their $400K less than 24 hrs since kick off) and many people went all out with DFA and can't afford to support any other adventures.

Don't get me wrong - pretty much all the people on these forums are hardcore AG fans and they will contribute as much as they can to as many games as they find interesting. So before you give yourself as an example, please realize that it's the people who are marginally interested in AGs that should be the target group of KS projects! I am talking about those who would play maybe an adventure every year or so, or those who used to be into adventures but have moved on, or open-minded garden-variety gamers, or even those who play AG-like casuals. They are a huge group and each project has to try and convince as many of them as possible to fork over their small annual AG budget. I am afraid that DFA tapped out that group.

But even hardcore AG types must be running out of dough! Some more numbers: around 1% of the backers of DFA have contributed at least $250 but they account for around 15% of the funds raised (close to half a million). (And the most generous 0.1% account for more than 5%.) How many people, no matter how dedicated, can afford to give $5000 to more than one kickstarter project?

To summarize (and apologies for the length of this post), DFA have completely tapped out a huge group of people who care about adventures but cannot support more than one KS project. Jane Jensen can currently only reach out to the hardcore AG crowd. I am afraid to extrapolate what will happen to Tex...

Completely agree TerminusEst. I think that is what is happening.

I do hope she makes her target though. *crosses fingers*

1. I'm not in a good situation presently to support any kickstarter campaign but would do so otherwise for some developers. I do like boxed copies of a game but see the advantage to developers of releasing a download first - there seems to be enough people who like the immediacy of being able to get games almost instantly so would quite happily wait. But yes, if I supported something I would accept a download in the 1st place with the promise of a boxed version eventually even if it was just exclusive to supporters.

2. I would not consider contributing to a project that only goes to 'Alpha' stage and relies on further funding to complete - I don't see the point except for the developers trying to be modest & not asking for too much. In all honesty they are better off asking for the total amount they need to complete a game.

3. No, no, no, no, NO! to supporting first time developers - yes, I agree it's harsh! but I would need to see evidence of passion, skills & resourcefulness - if you have all of those qualities then you should have a completed game to present however low-cost & basic to convince me! :)

You ARE aware Kickstarter (using Amazon) does NOT take any money until the project reaches it's goal and date right?

Backing it, is the important thing. It's the one voice we have as a consumer and telling Publishers and their marketing departments we are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore.

I also think that the reward tiers in kickstarter need some work. The higher reward levels in most of the kickstarters are completely unappealing.

I can't imagine someone paying $10000 for a lunch with the developer. Thats one expensive lunch, its the kind of thing a millionaire might do. And once someone has put down 10K, its unlikely they are going to do that again for another game.

Since Double Fine was first, they maxed out all the upper tiers, but now I'm seeing the upper tiers going unclaimed for a number of kickstarters.

The upper tiers aren't really supposed to give you your money's worth, and no regular person can donate thousands of dollars for many games. Lunches, conserts, art, ingame characters... it's all very nice. They are supposed to raise money, not offer joyrides around the world or anything like that.

Exactly. The only person who is going to go for it are those who are emotionally attached to the genre, have a lot of money, and dont know what to do with it. How many people are there like this?

You cant copy the Double Fine model, simply because they were first and people pledged to it out of curiousity and to be a part of the buzz. It's a special one-off case.

And most of those who pledged higher tiers for Double Fine will probably not put >$1000 on another project.

So, everyone else on Kickstarter needs to find a way to make the higher tiers appealing to common folks like you and me, otherwise they just wont raise any money from those tiers. Its that simple.

As someone who works in development, there are people who will donate - and regularly - to projects that they have an emotional connection to.

For some, $10k is nothing. So the number of campaigns has little to do with the "whales."

Also, DFA raised the traffic to KS and especially the video GW section to a degree that projects across the board are seeing funding levels thought impossible only a month ago.

There is no crowd KS fatigue. Or high donor fatigue.

Beyond that, is the Ag community's - and just the Ag community - an unfortunately small niche genre of a multiblion $ industry being stretched to what it can support?

I fervently hope not, but it's possible and supports the tired conclusion that we are not a financially viable audience to make sustainable games for.

If you don't want that to be true, if you want this to be a revolution and not a fad - bust out your wallet. I have no problem supporting this cause like I do the political candidates and local non-profit causes I give money to.

I'm extremely emotionally involved in Jane and Al's success.

A Kickstarter for Little Big Adventure 3 with Frédérick Raynal would get me really excited. I would pay a lot for that.

Well, lets hope that there are enough of those people still around and willing to do it three or four times more. I dont see them backing any of the other projects...

How about something like this: If you pledge 10K you get 1% of the profits + all previous tier rewards.

So, if the game goes on to make half a million (after deducting expenses), the backer gets 5K back. If its a mega hit, the backer might even make a profit.

If they limit the tier to 10 backers, the developers can raise 100K, and will have to part with 10% of profit at the end. They can keep the remaining 90%.

I don't know about the legalities involved, but it might entice more people to pledge at higher levels.

I think one of the good things about the fatigue is that Jane Jensen's project actually has a chance to make some money after the game gets made unlike Tim Schaffers project. I'm still undecided about contributing to her project or not but probably will when they're close to reaching their goal.

Although maybe there's 1 or 2 people left in the world who hasn't contributed to Tim's project yet.

If only Schafer made so.

I think that Kickstarter is a great idea, but it banks on the developer's previous reputation and his/her fans. So really, the call goes out to an already established population. As much as I'm an adventure fan, I'll only happily contribute to someone who makes a game I'm willing to play. Gabriel Knight 4, Myst 6, Obsidian 2, RotS/Omega Stone sequel - I'd be there with bells on.

Why no one interested in a KS for Gabriel Knight 4 yet?

I like GK but have never finished any of the games. Personally I could not handle the camera in GK3 it made me sea sick, its the reason I never play 1st person games.

I totally agree with Kurufinwe. It's a bit too much right now, and many feel like "me too!" efforts that have been quickly thrown together just to jump on the bandwagon. The adventure game audience probably can't sustain this many fan-funded projects at the same time, neither monetarily or in terms of interest.

I also want to point out that DFA is by no means the first adventure game to go the Kickstarter route. The soon-to-be-released Resonance ran a Kickstarter campaign back in 2009. It raised $2k (which was actually not a bad result, though obviously it's only a fraction of the total funding of the game).

That's debatable. You could just the same argue that the adventure game audience has already grown in numbers based on the hype around the most interesting and largest kickstarter adventure game campaigns. You could also argue people's enthusiasm can still go on for quite a while - people feel like they're buying their future games this way - coolest titles there have been for years - and not just being charitable to some small indie creator.

I think any "skeptical" predictions and evaluations are currently pointless. Even announcing the Tex Murphy campaign so early on at the price of some momentum might not have been a bad move. The situation is too unprecedented.

No offence intended to the Kickstarter groups, but there is a certain "begging for change" feel to this situation. When Double-Fine did it, I got excited because it seemed like a cool idea to invest in a game for a change. But then when everyone else did it, I got the same feeling I get when I'm swarmed by homeless people and charities on the street. They know I have money, they saw me give some away, and they'd like some too.

I think it's my sympathies at play more than anything, because I know giving to these Kickstarter projects is a voluntary thing. But I'd still feel bad if Al and Jane didn't make over $3M for their games as well - and I totally want them to succeed. I'll probably give to their projects once I get my job situation sorted out, but for now, I think all the hype is gone. At least until after my first investment goes through. It's all too much at once.

I do appreciate the Tex Murphy team giving us a heads-up, though. Holding out until later gives us more time to comfortably ease into supporting their project.

Because Activision owns the rights to GK.

No, this analogy doesn't work. You're not giving your money at Kickstarter to bums, who will spend it on grain alcohol. You giving them to well known artists, who would love to make high quality games for fans, but the studios doesn't see enough profit in them.

We will see if the Kickstarter games will have the same quality, as when they were produced under a big studio. I'm just wondering, what will happen, if a successfully funded project's budget is grossly under-projected, and the money run out in the middle of development. Will they just splice the game together as is to deliver something to backers? Or just start another kickstarter?

Also none of these kickstarter projects actually come to our face and beg or force us to do anything. I understand the feeling, I wish I had a lot more money so I could back every nice project there is, but that is my personal guilt and I am the one who's going through those projects and clicking the links myself, no one is forcing it down my throat and the project owners aren't putting any guilt on me (some donators might do that though but that's another issue).

I was also drawing the analogy towards charities as well - things I wish I could help with more often because I know it's for a good cause, but a sudden onslaught of them simply overwhelms me.

I think it's just the personal shock of seeing so many Kickstarter projects pop up in so short a time with so many big names attached. And everybody's enthusiasm for these projects is contagious, so it's a mixture of shock and personal guilt for not being able to donate to everyone right away.

Not to mention I still feel like there's more surprises coming.

Sheesh, I'm totally lost by all this money talk because I can't see what money has to do with creativity. Money won't give anyone good ideas for a game, and it's the ideas that count. Sometimes creative people just burn out, like writers get writer's block, and how will money help that? Seems like someone could blame not having funds for the reality of not having the creative ideas. The ego does need a lot of protecting for all of us, and for creative types that probably goes double.
Personally, I rhink Roberta and Ken Williams did the smart thing when they quit and went on to other things, much as I was so sorry to see them go.

There are 3 kickstarters online related to adventure games now and one coming next month(Tex Murphy).

Sheesh, I don't see what is "overwhelming" you people. I actually wish we had more adventure projects to back. I understand not being able to pledge 100 bucks to every cool project that pops up, but the lower tier options? Always agreeable. I am far from rich myself(I'm a student on a tight budget).

Unless of course you are those pirate guys that bankrupt the people who make the games you play...

The ugly side of Kickstarter: the risks in backing game dev campaigns are greater than you think

An interesting read.

Yeah, it worries me with many kickstarters iv seen that they havnt fully thought out the expenses of the rewards. For pinkerton road for example, for any 5k+ backer they are flying an entire band to you anywhere in the US!!! That could easily cost half of the 5k by itself. (possibly closer to the whole 5k if theres several+ people in the band and moving equipment...)
..and..theres 25 of those available... thats a tour!! That costs alot of money.

If Scarlet Furies is touring US anyway, adding those private gigs to the existing tour isn't that expensive or difficult... and even if they have to travel somewhere just to do a private gig, they can always try to do some public gigs in the area during their trip.

The link Winterfury posted was a good read. For sure there are risks in Kickstarter, and I would never give money to some unknown indie team for their first game project. I'm really excited about Jane's CSG model and I hope her studio will be a success, but only time will tell.

Excellent read! Very much sums up my view on Kickstarter.

That is a very good article that all backers need to read.

Anyone expecting that the $300k that is raised is all game funds needs to realise that out of that money comes Kickstarter and Amazon's cut, Taxes, the cost of all the various "rewards" and probably other costs all before one line of code is written.

I try to only back experienced and know developers. One's who know all that stuff and can budget for it, ones that i'm fairly sure will deliver a game at the end of it.

It is going to happen sooner rather than later that one of these projects is going to be a spectacular failure either through non completion of hte game or just delivering something cheap and dreadful that doesn't live up to the lofty ideals the backers envision.

Backers beware.

It was interesting to note that the author mentions that Kickstarter uses the term Backer rather than Investor. A Backer gets into the game expecting something more tangible, e.g., a T-shirt, than does an investor who is looking at a financial return on the money invested.

I would certainly agree that the complete cost of doing something has probably been grossly underestimated by the vast majority of those seeking development funding. When one factors in the cost of printed stationery, the stamp, the time cost of the person folding and stuffing an envelope, etc., the cost of a simple thank you letter easily approaches $5. My guess is that most people don't think further than the cost of the stamp.

I have wondered the same thing. I guess backers are expecting same kind of stuff that they get with deluxe versions of big AAA games. It would make much more sense to give backers all sorts of digital goodies, because they are usually cheaper to develop and distribute. For example a 'making of' documentary is a one time cost and after that the digital distribution costs nothing.

http://www.violentgamerreviews.com/2...tarter_29.html

Kickstarter scam project.

Let's keep our motivations in check and not give into paranoia.

That PA article misses the important point that we're risking our money to give a chance to creators who wouldn't be able to fund their games otherwise. No 100% success guarantee, no immediate reward - and that's quite clear.

If some other backers are willing to give money to anything that looks remotely pretty on a video clip, then indeed - given what's available in stores - it's an investment just not worth the risk.

Indies with promisong, interesting pitches should be taken into consideration though, not just experienced developers with bussiness people on board.

In some cases, yes. There are a few people who've been trying to get funding for years and this is their last attempt.

BUT, I get the feeling that many folks are seeing the fan response to a few campaign and thinking about kickstarter as their 1st choice. It's risk free money, and if it goes through, great - you can keep your money in the bank and transfer the whole risk to the fans.

Especially indie devs -- if an indie needs 10K for a project, they dont need kickstarter. Don't tell me they can't put in 10K from their own savings or raise it from friends and family. I stay clear of all these project - Anybody raising small amounts on kickstarter just hasn't tried hard enough to raise the money - and that is a warning sign about commitment in big red letters.

Right, there are no indies who are barely making a living. Everyone who needs a small sum of money is much more suspicious than the big spenders.

But somehow I backed 2 adventure games for 2K or less: Resonance and A Life Flashes By and both resulted in most worthwhile productions. And no one did find it strange the creators used kickstarter.