Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Interview @ Cliqist

Cliqist interviews Dan Vavra to talk about his RPG  Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Cliqist : Are you surprised at how quickly the Kickstarter campaign took off? 

Dan Vávra : I believed that there is an audience for this kind of game and that with all the stuff we have it should be possible to reach our goal. Of course, that my confidence was a little shattered by the refusal from publishers, but if I didn’t believe that they were wrong, we wouldn’t have started the campaign. On the other hand we were not prepared that it would be so quick or for the great response from all different sides.

Cliqist : You’ve mentioned previously that you did a lot of Kickstarter research.  What has been the difference between your campaign and the campaigns of other industry veterans who have struggled with getting funded?

Dan Vávra : I think, that the most important thing to do is to have good game and great stuff to show. Those who had problems usually didn’t have that much to show. There are very few campaigns that showed interesting, good looking game and didn’t get funding. Of all the campaigns out there, Chris Roberts did the best job. Period. So when I wasn’t sure how to do something, I looked how he did it.

Cliqist : When I saw your video on launch day and heard that the Kickstarter campaign was essentially a co-funding campaign I was nervous that there would be some backlash.  Campaigns that have revealed similar funding plans in the past have been met with complaints and cynicism from people saying that they were only using Kickstarter as marketing and that it defeated the purpose of Kickstarter; but not you.  Why is that?

Dan Vávra : I understand that. If I had the money to fund the game on my personal account I wouldn’t dare to go to Kickstarter. Or at least I would clearly state, that I will finance an extensive part of the budget from my own sources. Nobody likes greedy people who don’t want to take risks. You go to Kickstarter when there is no other way and it was exactly our case. If the Kickstarter wasn’t successful, the game would not happen. We have a strong investor, but after all the rejections from publishers, he really wasn’t throwing money in our direction.  His money is not our money and we had to prove to him that the game is worth investing in and the only way we could come up with more was to go to gamers directly. The way it works also doesn’t mean, that the more money we raise, the less he will invest. Every penny we raise on top of our goal goes into the development as a bonus over our original budget, so we will be able to make the game better.