Double Fine’s record-breaking adventure game kickstarter has officially ended, closing out with $US3.3 million raised, as well as an extra $US110,000 from off-the-record premium backers. Great show, guys.
Double Fine Kickstarter Closes
Comments
17 responses to “Double Fine Kickstarter Closes”
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Andy
Good for them. Now if only Wasteland 2 can bring the same kind of response from the community.
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xWisp
I hate that its someone like double fine that got this much support and not someone like Superbrothers (Sword Craft & Sworcery)
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Badger
… because you hate good games?
Double Fine, Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert have a proven track record. They have fans that want to see this particular game happen, and want it bad.
Man of their fans have literally grown up playing their games. They’re offering people the chance to re-live some childhood magic by pre-ordering a game for $15.
Superbrothers are the new kids, without the epic nostalgia factor and without the proven track record. Maybe in 20 years time, when they’ve released multiple deeply loved games, they’ll have the same kind of massive, emotional fan reaction.
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DeeK
Now now, Mr McGarnical. I’m sure he treats puppies with perfect respect, even if he is what killed Adventure games.
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McGarnical
Every time you think a bad thought about a classic adventure game, God kills a kitten.
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Bryce
I had trouble getting into Monkey Island and I’ve never finished one
*stomp*
Oh god, Snowball! NO!
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jinxed
Perspective. As a $100 backer of the project I’m pretty excited. But 87,000 people backed the project. This means that a huge number of people want the game, and were happy to directly fund it, but realistically the publishers were also right. 87,000 sales for a commercial venture would be disaster.
I hope they do well on the back end to make publishers take notice.
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Morkai
maybe… You’re right in one sense, 87,000 sales wouldn’t have been great, but depending on the development costs, it may not have been as made as it sounds.
think of it like the SAW movies, they may not be raking in a billion dollars in ticket sales like Avatar did, but then they’re also only costing 10 million to make, not hundreds of millions, so it’s not so great a loss.
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Mawt
Another way to look at those number is 87,000 people pre-ordered a game they knew nothing about except who was developing it. In the space of one month.
Also, the $15 “standard edition” price point is for backers only. The game will also be released for purchase with a (slightly?) more expensive price point.I’m confident that Wasteland 2 will be backed successfully as well, and I think it presents a very interesting situation. Surely a bunch of execs for different publishers are currently in meetings to try and pick apart what just happened. In short, a $3M video game “pie” just go served up by Joe Public, and EA, Activision, whoever aren’t getting a cent of that. But all it proves is that a group of “industry veterans” and “well loved personalities” can make the games they want for the people that want them. I don’t actually think that this is going to have ramifications for “the next generation” of developers. More than likely new studios will follow “The Minecraft Method” of selling the game while it’s in development as “beta”, with no promises that it’ll actually ever get finished, etc…
Still, I’m very happy today seeing Double Fine get such support and the start of another kickstarter project to watch with great interest. If I can keep paying developers directly for the games that I want, I’ll keep doing it.
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Chemenski
The way I see it is that this does not reflect the overall market. Only a handful of people know about Kickstarter, let alone use it.
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hydrakana
Exactly. Before this I didn’t even know kickstarter existed.
If kickstarter had facebook levels of user activity then we would see some very impressive figures for projects like this.
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jinxed
Perhaps then we should just look at this as a new model. Not about profit but sustainability. We give you what you want, no matter how niche, we all get to eat and pay our rent, you get to determine how much you pay for it.
I suppose the thing is it does have to be small and niche. Could you do Shenmue 3 this way, as it is both large and niche.
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KungFuColin
I think it was a very clever way to raise money for development. I’m very keen to see how the game turns out.
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MrTaco
I know I didn’t back the game at all, because of all registration things and whatnot. But I’m still very interested in getting it once it comes out, and I’m sure there’s plenty of others who would be in the same boat.
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Metalisticpain
Perhaps double fine will keep doing it this way if it’s successful. Also with regards to kickstarter. It got onto every gaming website constantly, it got shared on Facebook by dedicated gamers + casual gamers. It hit twitter etc. I think it got all the exposure it needed. Now those that didn’t know about kickstarter do, and other projects can benefit.
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