Wasteland 2 - Interview @ Making Games

Brian Fargo was interviewed on a site called Making Games to talk aboutthe Wasteland 2 kickstarter, and mentions that fans make the best employes for his game studio.

Making Games Is there anything that you would do differently if you had to start all over again?

Brian Fargo That's hard to say since our campaign was extremely successful. I think we did become better over time when we did the campaign for »Torment: Tides of Numenera«. We had learned a lot from the »Wasteland 2« campaign in terms of being prepared for questions by the backers. People want to know along the campaign time what you're planning to do. Then there are things like stretch goals. We were kind of caught off guard on »Wasteland«, while on »Torment« we were able to think ahead of time. We were also constantly communicating that we would move the scheduled date, if we reached certain funding goals. The launch date depends on the scope of the game. This means if the scope of the game changes due to more capital, the release date will change as well. But as I said I think we learned and improved a lot over time. It really is an exciting learning process.

Making Games The first Kickstarter-funded games have now been released, and some of them haven't turned out as great as the backers had expected. What effect do you think this might have on the whole Kickstarter hype? Do you think people have become more skeptical already?

Brian Fargo With Wasteland 2 I wanted to exceed all expectations. I wanted to create something that's epic in size and made with heart and passion, so that people would say: »That's why Kickstarter is great.« We simply couldn't have made the game without Kickstarter. But of course I also heard that some games didn't turn out so well or barely delivered what had been promised.

There are plenty of people who like to back Kickstarter projects. I have backed over 100 projects myself, and I'm not skeptical. If I see a project that I like, I still go ahead and back it. Of course I've been disappointed, too, and have invested without getting anything out of it. But that's not true for the majority of campaigns. It doesn't keep me from helping other people make their dreams come true.

But there are just as many people who don't back Kickstarter campaigns in general, no matter what they are like or what they are for. This group just wants to talk about the campaigns that have turned out well (laughs).

I think we will continue to see an ever increasing amount of Kickstarter campaigns since there will always be projects that are interesting and where people think: Okay, here's a project I want to back. Go, take my money.