Double Fine Crowdsources An "Old School" Adventure Game…In About Eight Hours (Updated!)
Double Fine, the independent development studio behind such titles as Psychonauts and Stacking, decided to try something a little different in an effort to fund an upcoming, old-school-style adventure game that they want to make. They started a Kickstarter page, in an effort to crowdsource their efforts to raise funding for it:
Big games cost big money. Even something as “simple” as an Xbox LIVE Arcade title can cost upwards of two or three million dollars. For disc-based games, it can be over ten times that amount. To finance the production, promotion, and distribution of these massive undertakings, companies like Double Fine have to rely on external sources like publishers, investment firms, or loans. And while they fulfill an important role in the process, their involvement also comes with significant strings attached that can pull the game in the wrong directions or even cancel its production altogether. Thankfully, viable alternatives have emerged and gained momentum in recent years.
Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community. They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision. It’s the kind of creative luxury that most major, established studios simply can’t afford. At least, not until now.
They set their goal at a modest level: $400,000 raised by March 13th, 2012 (far less than the $2 million mentioned above!). They hit and exceeded that goal in just eight hours, and are currently sitting at $705,510 (as of the time this article was drafted; they may well be north of a million dollars at the time of its publication).
RPS, among other, notes that this raises some pretty interesting questions about the future of indie game development, and game development in general. After all, Tim Schafer — the head of Double Fine and an adventure game development legend — couldn’t get publishers to sign off on investing in the project; adventure gaming is (supposedly) dead. And yet, when he asked the audience, they couldn’t give him money fast enough! ($710,123 now, by the way.)
So how “in touch” with what the gaming audience wants are the major publishers, exactly?
Heh…did I just ask that question on an Ultima website? ($714,105)
Exit question: Could any of the projects I cover on Aiera perhaps be supported this way? Sanctimonia, maybe?
The First Age of Update: Double Fine has announced the platforms the game will be released on, and as you might expect, it’s the usual list of suspects: PC, Mac, iOS, and some versions of Android. Oh, and one more: Linux. Because Double Fine are cool like that.
29,920
BACKERS
$1,126,884
PLEDGED OF $400,000 GOAL
32
DAYS TO GO
This is great and in a similar vein this Kickstarter to reprint various Order of the Stick books is doing fantastic also…
8,027
BACKERS
$592,587
PLEDGED OF $57,750 GOAL
11
DAYS TO GO
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/599092525/the-order-of-the-stick-reprint-drive
A good idea but I tried it long ago and failed epically.
I have some theories about why that was and Kickstarter in general.
First, they do no advertising at all (search google for “project funding” or “kickstarter” and notice the lack of Kickstarter ads). Consequently Kickstarter site traffic is largely generated first by those trying to obtain funding and second by enthusiastic pledgers spreading the word through forums, social media, email, etc. What that means is that unless your project is so profound that it markets itself, you need to have serious marketing skills across the spectrum for your project to hit the “viral” tipping point. A useful part of that also includes an established group of interested parties and distribution mediums such as a few thousand Facebook likes, Twitter subscribers or daily web site hits.
Second, some projects are selected by Kickstarter staff and flagged as “recommended”, which gives them front page rotation. This generates a tremendous amount of traffic which is essential for projects that don’t have serious marketing campaigns in place. The flip side is that if you project is not featured by staff and does not have a marketing campaign it is almost certainly doomed by virtue of practically no one ever seeing it. As with most advertising, the more people see the more people buy.
Third, a successful project requires a reasonably high production value intro video with a lot of face time from the project lead (preferably charismatic, but not always so). Sometimes voice overs are enough when project-related media is being displayed, but people need to see something and be entertained if not intrigued. This makes the project seem more “legit” or “real” to the prospective pledger, and the entertainment factor ironically plays a large part as well.
What this means is that to have a successfully funded project you mainly need to:
1) Be able to reach a huge number of people or be lucky enough to be chosen as a featured project by Kickstarter staff
2) Have a nice intro video that is either extremely entertaining, interesting or sells the project using traditional sales and marketing techniques
Secondary but important factors include setting a realistic monetary goal, giving people enough time to see the project based on how fast you can bring eyes to your project page, and finally having a project that is interesting enough for people to pledge to and spread the word about.
Double Fine, being an established studio with iconic staff, was easily able to nail every one of these points and thus the insane number of pledges and pledge amounts. The same thing would happen if Apple created a Kickstarter project and sent one tweet and one Facebook post mentioning it.
I on the other hand I’m just some guy coding in his basement who can barely say “Hi” in front of a camera. My web site gets almost no traffic and almost no one knows me on Facebook or Twitter. Kickstarter didn’t feature my project last time around, and according to the viewcounter I embedded in the page I got very few views (they hide page hits from you so I cheated). So anyhow, as exciting as the prospect of escaping poverty is, I don’t think I have the heart, skill or time to market successfully.
Also I hope their game is awesome and spawns many other adventure titles. I loved all the *Quest games back in the day.
No, Sanctimonia, you’re thinking of the Sierra guys. These are the LucasArts guys. Monkey Island, not King’s Quest.
42,167
Backers
$1,516,924
pledged of $400,000 goal
31
days to go
Um can we say WOW.
True, but they were both, basically, point and click adventure games.
Of very differing styles, though. But yeah, Kickstarter funding isn’t quite as easy as it seems.