Kickstarter: Could it throw publishers out of the loop?

I don't think so.

Big Publishers are still successful, I think this is just a good source for smaller projects that would normally get lost amongst the sea of AAA-budget titles.

Maybe revitalize some ignored genres and titles, but that's pretty much the extent of it.

 

This. There will always be audiences for $50million call of duties just as there will always be an audience for oldschool/niche genres like point&click and turn-based rpgs. If anything, I think kickstarter is opening up a new kind of game development that will exist alongside the publisher route

 

The real test is not doublefine or wasteland 2, it when people ask for $20,000 and deliver a product.

 

The answer to the title is no. My hope is that it's the start of a return of mid-sized developers, as Fargo keeps saying, which have been dying left and right during this generation due to the very high (and rising) costs of development.

 

Well, we will have to wait to see how successful each title is. If the games do really well at market, knowing how greedy these pigs are, they will feel left out of a lucrative opportunity. And I'll be glad.

Wasteland 2 should have a town of pig people in suits and tie and we get to battle them but every round our bank account depletes.

 

I think that there is a difference between raising $2 million and raising $50 million that can't be bridged by Kickstarter.

 

Like many others here said before me I see this kind of fund raising as a good way for small and medium developers who seek to get financing for titles that are a niche genre, or just don't have the appeal to attract the majority of gamers because of their design.

It may change the games market partly but won't affect the major publishers and developers in large way.
Don't forget that their products appeal to a very large group of gamers who don't mind that games are less 'hardcore'.

But now gamers such as us who also want games to suit specific tastes also have a voice.

I do hope that more smaller developers will take the opportunity to involve gamers more with their products.

 

kick starter is a great opportunity. If it helps to build some serious competition - that can be only a good thing for gamers.

The chance to see niche titles become more popular and have some effect on bigger titles is much higher. That is if that kick starter idea will show to be successful in the future. Might happen that AAA titles will go for more quality in their gameplay and story. Who knows.

But I would not want them to disappear completely. Just because you enjoy high quality food does not mean fast food becomes obsolete. Everything should have its place somewhere when it comes to entertainment. The issue is only if there is no room for the "quality" to speak so. And that is what happened in the last few years. Hence why I think the kick starter idea is a great thing.

There is a need for big companies with huge games offering you great visuals and simple entertainment but at the same time there should be enough room for experiments and projects that do not have a focus on visuals of the next generation or to impress the masses. It works for movies very well. I don't see why it cant work with games as well.

 

Very doubful. Yeah, getting 1-3 millions from dedicated fans is one thing, but funding huge project costing dozens, if not hundreds of millions is another thing entirely. it will probably create a new, relatively niche market, which really good, but big producers will certainly keep existing. They make the big-budget, blockbuster games possible, and those are a large share of the market.

 

Kotaku just did a similar topic.
and Obsidian is the subject of the news.

With Kickstarter, I would say it is a drastic way for game-developer to make their games now.

 

I dunno. The Kotaku article is quite full with... guessing and no facts. It's pure speculation and I wouldn't take it serious.



But while we are at it, The Banner Saga is on Kickstarter now too. I probably will give some dollars for it too, but not before next month.

 

And looks like The Banner Saga just got funded.

How about The Banner Saga's rather modest $100k goal? No product yet, of course, but after Schafer and Fargo, it shows that you can get funding this way even without a big-name auteur.

 

I'm probably going to kick in to Banner Saga before the end of it, I also kicked in to this project, which asked for $10k and is over 100 now.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light

"FTL, Faster than Light, is a game coming to Windows, Mac & Linux made by Justin Ma and Matthew Davis. It features a blend of exploration, discovery, ship management and real time strategic combat that creates an experience quite unlike other games in its genre."

 

Like others have already say, This wont throw publishers out of the loop, but it will mean the resurrection of "forgotten" genres of games that we would be unable to play anymore.

 

Speaking of forgotten genres, ex-ICOM Simulations dev David Marsh is resurrecting the old ICOM adventure games (remember Shadowgate or Deja Vu?), starting with FMV Sherlock Holmes (not a lot of $love so far):
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Adventure Mysteries

And Aaron Conners & Chris Jones are bringing back Tex Murphy:
Tex Murphy - Project Fedora Kickstarter Announcement

 

If kickstarter where a threat to the publishers they would have crushed it like megaupload was crushed

 

That "Banner Saga" looks very cool and I've kicked in.

I still stand by my original post that Kickstarter won't completely toss out big publishers it will sure allow indie gamer makers to get levels of funding that they probably couldn't of in the past.