There isn’t a collection of updates concerning Obsidian this week, so much as there is a bit of a story to tell. It relates, as well, to the recent crowdfunding success enjoyed by Double Fine.

RPGWatch tells the first part of the tale, detailing how Obsidian’s Chris Avellone and J.E. Sawyer responded to fan inquiries regarding the possibility of Obsidian crowdfunding…say…a low-budget, old-school isometric RPG.

Avellone’s response was probably the more tantalizing…

Hmmmm. I admit, I’ve got Kickstarter fever now. I feel like a bunch of doors suddenly appeared in game development.

…but Sawyer let slip that Obsidian have, evidently, talked about the possibility of doing something along those lines in the past. Interesting.

Chris Avellone decided to double down on his earlier comments, however, and posted this tantalizing little feeler post on the Obsidian blog:

Out of curiosity, if Obsidian did Kickstart a project, what would you want to see funded? (You can respond in comments or to @ChrisAvellone on Twitter, whichever you prefer.)

GameBanshee goes on to report that, as a follow-up to all this, Avellone subsequently posted another blog update in which he stressed that Obsidian weren’t actively pursuing a Kickstarter initiative at this time, though he did say that he is discussing the possibility with Obsidian’s owners.

Oh, and he let slip the results of his impromptu survey. Not surprisingly, the Internet wants a Planescape Torment sequel:

If interested in the results, the most responses concerned in order of preference (note that there’s likely bias here considering the author of the Twitter and the blog post below):

– Planescape 2/Planescape Spiritual Successor.

– An Isometric turn-based/pause RPGs in general.

– The “other” category – this fell into game suggestions and mechanics and genres that were only suggested by 1 or 2 folks. I read all of these.

– Make whatever you want, we’ll support you.

Again, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. And even if my Excel-burned-eyes are dry from tabulating responses, it’s good that there was such a strong amount of feedback in the first place.

Honestly, I’m not sure what commentary can be made here, at present. On one hand, the success of Double Fine in their initiative with Kickstarter proves that for at least some highly-regarded independent gaming development companies, crowdfunding can be the way to go both as a means of gauging fan interest in a project, and as a means of actually securing funds to complete that project. On the other hand, one wonders whether there wouldn’t be a saturation point, a time past which even the most ardent fans of games “as they once were” would say “you know…I’ve donated to a lot of these projects already…” and think twice before opening his digital wallet.