Kickstarter Retrospective - How Did the Major Projects Fare?

[HiddenX]

GamingBolt takes a look back at the major Kickstarter projects:

Many, many years ago, game developers were faced with some rather stringent choices. Developing the game they wanted required bending to the will of publishers. Often times, some projects just weren’t worthy of being funded and never went beyond the creator’s imagination. However, in 2012, Kickstarter changed the industry’s means of acquiring funding significantly. It’s not as though it became just a platform for indie developers to garner some funding – big-time studios like Obsidian Entertainment and Double Fine Productions relied on Kickstarter to bring their visions to life. And while there may not be a significant rush akin to 2012, Kickstarter is a viable platform to make various dream games a possibility. Look no further than Castlevania series producer Koji Igarashi’s spiritual successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night which currently sits at $2,002,090 in funds with 28 days to go.

However, what about some of the bigger names of the Kickstarter craze? Where are they currently, where are they headed and what made them so unique? We take a look back at some of the biggest Kickstarter projects since 2012 along with the various successes and controversies that have followed them to release.

• Divinity: Original Sin
• Wasteland 2
• Star Citizen
• Broken Age
• Mighty No. 9
• Shadowrun Returns
• Pillars of Eternity

More information.

 

[HiddenX]

They should have mentioned some of the big failures (Deathfire by Guido Henkel or Shaker by Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall), too.
Or the many more unknown minor projects that have a hard time to get funded -
only then you get the whole picture of todays crowdfunding.

 

[joxer]

Never heard of Broken Age and Mighty #9, refused to have anything with Shadowrun ponegame, backed the rest.

Shaker failed because it didn't look serious. I bet everyone seeing that title thought we'll be getting this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWgvGjAhvIw
What would we do in that game? Sing "shake it baby"?

 

[Xian]

No mention of projects that have yet to deliver either. The first Kickstarter I ever backed was Grim Dawn over 3 years ago and still no finished product, only Steam Early Access. They are still working on it, another update was just released last week, but I am waiting on the final version to play. At the time I backed it the estimated release was October 2013.

 

[rjshae]

It was a decent overview of a selection of KS funding successes. Thanks for posting.

 

[HiddenX]

Kickstarter and Indiegogo are awesome. Many games would have never seen the light of the day if these platforms wouldn't exist.
But not every promising campaign is a success.

 

[joxer]

Grim Dawn

Didn't back that one so it's either a phonegame, MMO or endless trashmob respawn grinder theme park.
Meriwether was also estimated for november 2013. but things got a bit longer than that. It's still in works, beta 2 got released a month ago.

IMO there is no reason not to be patient with crowdsourced projects or call a project that didn't appear when planned as nonsuccess.
We saw what happens when a game is rushed on the market by a publisher many times by receiving bug ridden and almost unplayable products. We also saw that many publishers refuse to fund games we want to buy but are instead pushing their own "agenda" what we should play aka dumbing down.
Those publishers are the reason crowdfunding exists and is turning millions of $ around.

 

[Turjan]

Never heard of Broken Age...

You were missing out on lots of delicious drama.

 

[joxer]

Drama? No, thank you. I saw a few episodes of Santa Barbara, the show that was aparently so bad noone watched it. It got eventually cancelled after…
Um, how many episodes? Can't remember.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Barbara_(TV_series)

 

[Turjan]

Drama? No, thank you. I saw a few episodes of Santa Barbara...

Heh, Santa Barbara is somehow fitting, giving how expensive that city is. Here it's the story of an "indie" developer with offices in San Francisco. Which basically meant the kickstarter money was just a drop in the bucket. After the Spacebase DF-9 debacle, their rep was at an all-time low. At least the second act of Broken Age seems to be decent.

 

[Kordanor]

Never heard of Broken Age

It's the game which made Kickstarter to what it is today. If there wasn't a broken age, we likely never had an Wasteland 2, or Pillars.

But it is likely better known as "The Doublefine Adventure".

Personally I didn't back it either. Didn't really see a lack of Adventures. Then again, I am German.

All in all I am pretty happy with Kickstarter. I think I backed around 50 projects now and they make up for the majority of the games I play these years. Better games than before, and good deals if you use common sense when pleding.

 

[Dez]

Shaker had never a real chance because their pitch was weak and they just tried to ride with the old school train without having a clue what their game was about. Thats just a wrong way to do kickstarter.

As for Guido's failed projects. I think the orginal pitch about Thorvalla was way more intresting than deathfire. Still both projects had a clear vision and he can't be blaimed for that. Maybe the ideas & concepts just didn't speak to modern audience.

 

[HiddenX]

I think the main old fan-base of Guido is still in Germany. And many Germans don't use Kickstarter, because they mostly use debit cards or Paypal instead of credit cards. These payments methods are unfortunately still not allowed on Kickstarter.

 

[Kordanor]

Actually it is since the Launch in germany:

What payments methods are accepted for pledges?
Right now, pledges can be made with any Visa, MasterCard, or American Express card.

Backers based in Germany, pledging less than €250 towards a German project, will also have the option to use direct debit as their payment method.

Well seems to be limited "towards a german project". So in the case of Guido, who lives in the US, he would still be screwed if he can't do it from Germany.

 

[HiddenX]

That's new for me - thanks for the info! Would be nice if debit card payment weren't restricted to German projects.

 

[ilm]

Thats right broken age act 2 is out. I didnt receive any mail or download :s metacritic isnt very positive either. Im not as harsh but they should have handled it much better. Too much money to voice actors (frodo and me) and general mismanagement. If you see what inexile did... They earned quite some trust from me.

Of the projects I backed wl2 is on top, dos is very close and I have yet to play poe. Broken age is trailing it by a margin, though I still had fun with it. It just was too expensive

 

[Sacred_Path]

I'm very satisfied with how the kickstarters I supported turned out, not in small part due to the business practices of Larian and InXile. I totally got my money's worth and more.

The kickstarters I was on the fence about that failed all suffered from weak pitches that were simply too vague - Thorvalla, Deathfire, Shaker, Seven Dragon Saga, Aloran, The Black Triad come to mind.

 

[Kordanor]

By the way: GameStar.de also just did an interview with one of the kickstarter founders, talking to him about their goals with Kickstarter, and their opinion about different aspects, like that you need to have a name to earn big money there, like that some companies want to use it just for advertising and so on.

Only the first few seconds are German. The conversation itself is English.
http://www.gamestar.de/news/vermischtes/3085949/gamestar_tv_kickstarter.html

 

[figment]

I backed most of those except Mighty No 9 and did DOS via this site. Actually backed about 27 total games and generally I'm happy so far but am a little disappointed overall at the moment. About 10 or so of those have shipped final versions so far.

At the moment, PoE is definitely the best game of the bunch and very happy with Shadowrun. Not happy with the Elite single player offline being nixed but I guess that was my own fault for believing the Q&A. Also not really happy with Jagged Alliance deliverable but I knew that was a big risk. Dead State may have fixed itself but I haven't tried that latest patches so dont know but I really want to like that one.

 

[mbpopolano24]

I am glad about Kickstarter, and I am glad I learned how to watch out for potential issues. Overall, the only outstanding project for me is D:OS, but admittedly Kickstarter played just a small portion of its budget and success. W2 was also quite good in my opinion, and with the EE it has the potential to reach D:OS. PoE was exactly as I expected, quite bad, so I was not surprise. Shadowrun was OK. The other small projects I backed were a mixed bag, several did not deliver.