It may not work for everyone, but for a second time it looks like Kickstarter will come through.
By Chris Pereira, 03/14/2012
Double Fine amply demonstrated what Kickstarter is capable of. Its proposed old-school graphic adventure set a record for the service by raising more than $3.3 million in just over a month despite its goal being to generate only $400,000. That was an unusual set of circumstances though, as Tim Schafer has built up a tremendous amount of good will with gamers to the point where they're willing to hand over their money to get a game that doesn't have so much as a name yet.
But for all of the talk over the last month about how Kickstarter could change the industry and fund all sorts of projects fans have been wanting to see for years, we've yet to see a significant amount of money generated by anyone other than Schafer. While it's impossible to say right now whether this is another exception that can be added to the list alongside Double Fine or a demonstration of what can happen when turning to the Kickstarter community, we now have another project asking for a good deal of money that is likely to get it.
Interplay founder Brian Fargo expressed interest last month in turning to Kickstarter to finally get the funding needed to produce a sequel to 1988's Wasteland. Fargo and his current company, inXile Entertainment, finally went ahead with their plans for a Kickstarter yesterday, seeking more than twice as much as Double Fine did: $900,000. The game's cost has been estimated at $1 million, though Fargo is offering to pitch in the last $100,000 to reach that figure if it's necessary. At the current rate, he can go about finding something else to spend that money on.
With this positioned as "probably the last chance for a Wasteland sequel," backers have pledged in excess of $700,000 (accurate as of this writing; the figure shot up $60,000 as I was writing) after only about a day. Several people have donated in excess of $5,000 and $10,000, and almost half of the current 12,449 backers have pledged $30 or more. It's a remarkable showing of support for a game some believed would not be able to generate much interest in 2012. It's all the more impressive considering it's made pretty clear the game won't be completed until late 2013 following six months of pre-production and a 12-month development period.
Wasteland is a game you don't hear a lot about these days, not having the benefit of a re-release on Good Old Games or some equivalent to drive discussion. That is not a reflection on its quality or significance, though. While I have no doubt it would fail to impress younger gamers who have never played it before, its influence can't be denied -- as Fargo explains in the video above, Fallout was created when EA wouldn't hand over the rights to Wasteland. And the Fallout series was heavily inspired by Wasteland, which featured branching paths, moral decisions, and other elements we praise games for even today.
Making the safe assumption that the next 33 days will be able to yield the remainder of the money needed, Wasteland 2 will be staying true to its roots. The developers -- the team includes people involved with development of the original Wasteland and the first two Fallout games -- have promised to make this a top-down, turn-based strategy game where you'll manage a team of characters, just like in the original.
It seems some lessons may have been learned from Double Fine's Kickstarter, as slightly more detailed plans for what will happen if the goal is exceeded were provided this time. "At $1.25 million, the money will go primarily into making the world bigger, adding more maps, more divergent stories and even more music," the page reads. "At $1.5 million, the world gets even bigger. You'll have more adventures to play, more challenges to deal with, and a greater level of complexity to the entire storyline. We'll add more environments, story elements, and characters to make the rich world come alive even more. We will even be able to bring Wasteland 2 to OS X for Mac lovers. And after $1.5 million the sky is the limit."
Clearly, there is still interest in the game, even if only from a fairly small, niche fan base. Like the Double Fine game with the adventure genre (which, Telltale aside, is not exactly at its peak when thinking about the point-and-click variety), a successful Kickstarter campaign for Wasteland 2 could encourage others to bring back games we never thought we'd see again. Wasteland falls into that category for sure. While Fargo had spoken repeatedly about doing a sequel since obtaining the rights from EA a decade ago, it had been a very long time since the original was released and this particular genre is also not thriving, making the likelihood of a publisher putting up any amount of money unlikely.
One noticeable difference between this Kickstarter and Double Fine's is the average pledge. Double Fine's ended up being just over $38 per person, compared with over $56 for Wasteland 2. That's an enormous disparity. It's possible the latter will come down as more pledges are made over the next month, though it wouldn't shock me to see it stay a good deal higher than Double Fine's. Wasteland 2 may not have the potential to be a multi-million seller, but the fans that are still out there have a voracious appetite for a game like this and seem to be willing to prove that with their wallets.
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