Should Video Gamers Embrace or Fear Kickstarter?
If you keep up with video game news on a daily basis, you would have seen a trend that almost every game that is announced to be in development these days has the tagline “it is being funded by Kickstarter”.
This has led me to wonder if embracing Kickstarter is a good thing, or if it’s something that the video gaming community should avoid. For those who don’t know, Kickstarter is a “crowd funding platform” where people with big ideas and small bank accounts propose their invention in the hopes that people like you and me will donate small or large amounts of money to get the project off the ground.
It’s a great thing for many inventions, as pitching an idea to a technology giant these days will likely ensure the patent is snatched up without your product ever hitting shelves. As a result of Kickstarters’ popularity, some awesome products have been invented; one of my favorite being Studio Neat’s “Glif” iPhone tripod adapter.
Studio Neat is actually a great example of the ideals behind Kickstarter. The two man team who conjured up the idea to invent the Glif knew they were onto something awesome, but didn’t want to relinquish their idea to a mega corporation. The team’s website says it all;
Not too long ago the Glif was just an idea with nowhere to go. We knew it was going to be something people might like, but we needed a way to share it with the world. Typically, if you want to make a physical product (especially an electronics accessory) you have to be or sell to a large company, but we didn’t like that idea. We wanted to stay close to the Glif and more importantly, to our customers. So, after much thought, we decided to put the Glif’s fate into the hands of the masses and begin a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money required to make it a reality.
The guys at Studio Neat were probably one of the earliest examples of how crowd funding could be turned into a profitable business model — after all, you need not pay back that money once the project is off the ground, a luxury one wouldn’t normally get when being funded by a bank or a private investor.
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Kickstarter attracted indie developers, as you’d might expect, and a few hits were created. But as time went on, larger developers started migrating to the platform. One example would be the game Wasteland 2, which raised over US$2 Million on Kickstarter.
The original Wasteland role playing game appeared on PC’s back in the DOS days and was actually published by Electronic Arts. Now, it’s fair to assume that the licence for the game remained with the developers, Interplay Entertainment, who was bought out by Titus Software. Nevertheless, Interplay are the publishers behind classic games like Fallout and Baldur’s Gate — series that have raked in millions over the years.
Wasteland 2 is being developed by inXile Entertainment — which was founded by Brian Fargo, one of the founders of Interplay Entertainment. This is where the issue of Kickstarter, erm, kicks in. The fact is that the guys running InXile are industry veterans — not indie developers, and while that doesn’t automatically ensure a publishing deal with a major publisher, it’s hard to believe that the industry is so closed off that not one publisher in the world would pony up the dough to create the sequel to the hugely popular cult hit, especially when a proven team of developers are heading up the project.
Of course, another argument could be that by forgoing mainstream investors, the developers are free to craft their game however they like. But is that necessarily a good thing? We all know what happened the last time a developer was given free reign of a major title — we got Duke Nukem Forever. A publisher might force the developers to make tough and unpopular decisions, but at least they will produce a game within the time limit of one console generation.
Perhaps the most heard argument for Kickstarter is that the entire process is voluntary. No one is forcing you to donate money to developers. Also, since fans are funding the game, fans can input suggestions, get producer credits, earn cool merchandise and form a community around the project. All of these points are good.
The platform also gives the developers a chance to give back to the funders. In Wasteland 2’s case, the developers pledged to give anyone who donated $15 a digital copy of the game when it gets released. That’s a bargain, really, if you’re happy to endure the wait and all the hiccups along the development road. The team is also giving back 5% of all profits from the game back into the Kickstarter community with an initiative they’re calling “Kick it Forward”.
I just can’t shake the feeling that the system will, and probably already is, being abused. Already, the most popular games being funded are revivals of old franchises, Carmageddon being another example. This is obviously an unfair advantage — these games already have a fan base. Then again, these games being on Kickstarter in the first place is helping the platform’s popularity and as more people use the website, more people will find great games waiting to be developed by lesser known teams.
So, I’m personally on the fence here. But we’ve seen this type of system in the past; indeed the entire video game industry was founded on a similar premise. Computer clubs would get together in garages and slip some cash into a box of the project they liked the best. This is also how Apple Inc. started. Are we looking at a modern version of that system? A revolution in digital entertainment and utility that will itself spawn a multi-billion dollar industry in a decade or so?
Perhaps gamers should embrace Kickstarter after all, but like all investment decisions, it would pay to at the very least do a Google search on the people who are putting their hands out for cash. After all, it’s really not fair on the gaming community for the Nintendo’s, Sony’s, EA Games’ and Ubisoft’s of the world expecting gamers to both fund the development and purchase the final product.
What are your thoughts on Kickstarter? Discuss in the comments below.
