It was always a matter of when the System Shock reboot would get funded, rather than if. And while Night Dive didn’t walk away with squillions of dollars, it seems like gamers gave the developers almost precisely the right amount of cash to get over the line.
Let’s be honest: Kickstarter campaigns are all about the stretch goals. That’s what happens to the biggest and most exciting projects. It’s not a case of whether the developers raise $US1 million, but what stretch goals they have lined up for $US2 million, $US2.5 million, and so forth.
System Shock wasn’t going to raise money on the level of Star Citizen, but it was always getting over the line. It was at the finish line with 20 days remaining, and having a sturdy demo playable out of the gate was a great way to win fans over. But deep in the stretch goals, there was a small problem. See if you can spot it.
Night Dive originally had funding targets marked off as traditional stretch goals, but that since changed to a points system where backers could unlock goals through various “missions”. The missions were largely social media driven: retweeting Night Dive’s account a certain amount of times, following the developer’s Twitch stream, Facebook page, liking Facebook posts, that sort of thing.
Had fans unlocked just two more rewards, Night Dive would have been locked into one of the more physically uncomfortable stretch goals — getting a tattoo of Shodan. The process would have been documented for the whole internet to see as well, or at least that was the pledge.
Would have been hard to back out of that one.
So maybe it’s good that System Shock only raised as much support and funds as it did. Because now at least one developer’s skin can remain Shodan-free.
The System Shock reboot is due out in the middle of next year for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, with support for Mac and Linux as well.
Comments
7 responses to “The System Shock Reboot Got Funded, Minus A Tattoo”
I’m surprised more devs don’t get more tattoos of their games. I mean, when you think about it… a lot of larger studios have games that devour the lives of their devs for YEARS. And if you got started in your 20s, and retire in your 60s, doing NOTHING but gamedev, you’ve basically got… what. Let’s say an average dev time of 2-3yrs development, looking at maybe 13-20 titles as your life’s work, total. That’s definitely few enough for each one to be meaningful and special enough to commemorate with some ink. If you loved them, that is.
I work for the government, so there’s no particular logos going on ME in a hurry, but if I spent several years creating my guts out… I’d be very tempted to mark it.
Personally I’d find it too vain to ink my own IP onto myself!
frowny face
statement about ‘remember, you’re here for life’ (with a frowny face)
a brick wall (with bruised and battered frowny face from banging its head against it)
a bottomless pit (with frowny face falling in the hole)
…plenty of options relating to government….
http://www.leviathyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/040511_tattoo_hmed_11a.grid-4×2.jpg ?
Bleh, the release date and the ‘2’ is WAY too specific. But if I worked on Halo I’d totally get at least the logo.
I reckon it’s nigh impossible to be a raving fan of something you created. At the end of the day you mostly remember the hard graft and compromises. It’s impossible to see what is without remembering what you were trying so hard to make.
Even later on, when you go back and enjoy a game you worked on, you remember the team and the time, not the game itself. It’s difficult to translate that into a tattoo.
I’m not really the tattoo type, but I’d be totally down with a de Blob tattoo 😛