We tell a lot of stories about Kickstarters that go horribly wrong. For a change of pace, here’s one that’s doing just about everything right.
Last November, Monkey Island designer Ron Gilbert launched a Kickstarter for an old-school point-n-click adventure called Thimbleweed Park. He set a realistic funding goal — $US375,000 — as well as a reasonable estimated delivery date — June of 2016. They succeeded, raising $US626,250.
Although Thimbleweed Park isn’t done yet, Gilbert and crew have been doing a few things that make it stand apart from your average Kickstarter.
* They have scoped out a hard budget — and then made that budget pretty transparent.
* They have been posting regular updates over on the Thimbleweed Park blog, ranging from hire announcements to granular posts about the intricacies of how they’re programming save files.
* They’re showing gameplay — and it looks fantastic.
At risk of counting my Kickstarters before they hatch into actual games, I must say I’m super-impressed by this one. It’s been both interesting and professional. Wish I had backed Thimbleweed Park instead of Unsung Story!
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6 responses to “Now Here’s A Kickstarter That Does Things Right”
Not only that, but my reward was delivered the second the Kickstarter finished!
Only crowdfunder I’ve ever backed. Can’t wait!
I’ve backed two kickstarters; Thimbleweed Park and Broken Age (and I really enjoyed the later).
Tsk. It’s a shame he didn’t have a, “Shit we could never have possibly anticipated that cost us three to six months,” section for realism.
All the same, it’s a little disturbing that he’s actually felt he had to go to the trouble of explaining why a video game kickstarter should include a budget for paying its devs a living wage.
What have we become that this is something not simply assumed?
True. I’m always wary of any Kickstarter that is asking for less (or truly, for not much more) than the simple formula: Number of Staff Members x ((at least) Minimum Wage x Estimated time of delivery). Sadly, this means I’ wary of around 80% of the videogames in the platform.
Hmm. I backed Obduction by Cyan Worlds (creators of Myst) and although it doesn’t look like it’s going to fail, it’s had a big setback announced today. I hope we get it next year. It was due to happen this one.