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Double Fine Adventure
- thinkdevcode 15y agoThis project may exceed the previous highest donation record on kickstarter, which that record was awarded yesterday to that iPhone dock. Kickstarter is really starting to make some money I see.
- alanfalcon 15y agoElevation dock: $1,052,809 w/ 43 hours to go Double Fine Adventure: $1,026,265 w/ 32 DAYS to go There is no doubt in my mind that Double Fine will obliterate the record.
- skeletonjelly 15y agoWould love to see the graphs for these.
- fufulabs 15y agoAt this rate, this adventure game will also be ported to MS-DOS
- hackermom 15y agoFunny headline allusion error. It was a nice surprise to see that they were 100% funded in just 8 hours. I guess Notch's push made a big difference.
- amelim 15y agoAs far as I'm aware, this is a completely different project from Psychonauts 2. I don't think Notch had any real significant involvement in this Kickstarter campaign.
- sp332 15y agoNotch tweeted this and got them some attention. Oh, and he pledged $10,000 to this project. https://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/167551424396394496 https://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/167551424396394496
- agildehaus 15y agoThey're currently $300k over their goal. Amazing. Can we get a Kickstarter project going for an open-engine, updated graphics, Grim Fandango?
- int3rnaut 15y agoDo you think there is ever a risk to being "over-funded"? I know it sounds stupid, but it's an honest question.
- masklinn 15y ago'course there is, but Schafer and Gilbert have been in the industry for some 40 years combined, and Double Fine seems to be nicely run as a pretty tight ship. I think that's a case where it shouldn't be too much of a risk.
- peter_l_downs 15y agoYes. see: Duke Nukem Forever http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Duke_Nukem_Forever http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Duke_Nukem_Forev...
- InclinedPlane 15y agoYes! It's a pretty big risk too. But for a digital project like this with a limited number of physical rewards that risk is pretty small. For a project that's about physical production there are serious risks that smart folks should be wary of. It's one thing to produce a limited run of products (say, a few hundred) it's another thing to have to produce tens of thousands in order to satisfy pre-orders. For example, you might have a small team manufacturing stuff and you might be able to stretch out your production run from a minimum of a few days or weeks up to a year or so and that'll buy you a factor of 10 in production output, but if you get 100x or 1,000x pre-orders you may have to go to a dramatically different production system and hire staff, which could be enormously risky.
- rmc 15y agoFor games, yes I think there is. If you have too much money, you can drag it out, always adding new things, etc. If you are making a new OS (or web broweser, or something), then with more money you can develop more/better software. Linux has been under active development for 20 years, and will likely continue for many more years, Linux will probably never be "done", but a game can be "done".
- bishnu 15y agoI'm actually quite shocked that game publishers aren't lining up to give Tim Schafer all the money he wants. But I don't really know what's going on in that industry.
- alex_c 15y agoIndustry insiders correct me if I'm wrong, but Grim Fandango was pretty much the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended) of the pure adventure genre, because it had terrible sales. Simultaneously, it was a true masterpiece - one of the best in the genre. So it's not surprising that lots of people grew up loving adventure games and now have the disposable income and the nostalgia to fund a Kickstarter project, while at the same time making this a risky project for a game publisher.
- masklinn 15y ago> Grim Fandango was pretty much the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended) of the pure adventure genre, because it had terrible sales. Not precisely since it was followed by Escape from Monkey Island, but yeah Grim basically shuttered LucasArts adventure games, which in turn shuttered the adventure games genre until its revival starting ~2007 (Zack & Wiki, Broken Sword, Sam&Max Save the World, Strong Bad, Tales of Monkey Island, Machinarium, ...)
- jeffool 15y agoInteresting that the Wiki entry continually calls out a commercial failure and goes on to say: Total cumulative worldwide sales are estimated between 100,000 and 500,000 units. [61] The game is commonly considered a commercial failure, [62][63][64] even though LucasArts has stated that "Grim Fandango met domestic expectations and exceeded them worldwide".
- InclinedPlane 15y agoI wonder if it's the Radio Shack problem. Why make only a little money selling electronics components when you can make a lot more money with the same resources selling cell phones? See also adventure games based on new IP vs. FPSes based on Star Wars IP.
- sp332 15y agoThere are actually more donation tiers, but they're not listed on that page because KS only goes up to $10,000. http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/the_double_fine_adventure-adventure_is_here/ http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/the_double_fine_adve...
- f8seer 15y agoWow, I've never even heard of kickstarter. This is a space I'll be looking at!
- gavingmiller 15y agoWhat makes a project like this succeed so spectacularly on kickstarter? Is it because the video is so well done? Or because Tim Schafer is behind it? Or because a lot of people want to play an adventure game? Or the perfect storm of all of the above? Just trying to wrap my brain around it.
- Lewisham 15y agoIt's Tim Schafer going back to a game genre where he produced games that people (rightly) have an undying love for. The only surprise with this is that you wonder why he didn't do it already.
- toast76 15y agoNo surprise really; no publisher will support an adventure game. If it's not an FPS/Action/Sports game no one will touch it. It's the reason Schafer started doing "indie" games in the first place.
- teamonkey 15y agoThat much is easy to explain: no-one will invest the money needed to fund it. That's where kickstarter wins (in this case, at least).
- gokhan 15y agoI woke my pregnant wife up 10 minutes ago to tell her that I'm sending Kickstarter $15 to back a project because they are the ones who made the games we played together years ago and will make the same type of game with the money. She almost danced to the news. We live in some city you never heard of, in Turkey.
- bh42222 15y agoI know reddit has a "cool story bro" meme, which means the opposite. But this IS a cool story!
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- cgoddard 15y agoIt's really amazing he raised that much money so quickly, with so many in the higher tiers as well, especially since the higher tiers of funding are still a donation and do not provide any equity in the project. I suppose the original art wouldn't be worthless though!
- InclinedPlane 15y agoWhat better use of one's money than to change the world? To help get something created that you will enjoy? Imagine if the world didn't have ice cream or steak? How much money would you pay to live in a world with those things?
- atesti 15y agoAnd right after this adventure he should create a sequel to Brütal Legend!
- Melyan 15y agoCould this work for a project that ended up free for everyone? What would the rewards be?
- egypturnash 15y agolimited-edition t-shirts limited-edition action figures dinner with the devs cool gold-colored cd/dvd/usbkey/etc with the software your likeness as a minor character limited-edition plush toys Basically any kind of promotional tchotchke you can think of. It would have little intrinsic worth but it would be RARE which means that if the product became well-loved it would be worth something down the line when you decided you no longer had room for it - and until then it's an item that tells people something about you. "Oh man is that the commemorative bong for Psychonauts 2? Holy cow I loved that game."
- petercooper 15y agoOn a tangent, is there anything as well designed and with as many features as Kickstarter but that can support projects from outside of the US?
- arkx 15y agoI'm not sure if it's a match featurewise, but http://indiegogo.com http://indiegogo.com looks and feels very similar. Nikodemus Siivola used it to fund SBCL threading improvements: http://www.indiegogo.com/SBCL-Threading-Improvements-1 http://www.indiegogo.com/SBCL-Threading-Improvements-1
- Aloisius 15y agoSigh. PC game. I'm not sure how long it's been since I've even seen a PC. I suppose I could kick in some money and hope it works under Virtualbox.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- ido 15y ago"PC" these days is often a general name for "desktop or laptop computer" - it doesn't mean it won't have a mac version.
- georgekv 15y agoIn the FAQ, they mention additional release platforms would be one of the first things they would add should they raise enough money. I think chances are good then since they've quite surpassed their initial goal!
- skeletonjelly 15y agoI think you're confused sir. The Apple ads told us that PCs are old and unfashionable. PC's are about personal computing, not lifestyle like Macs are. Macs can't be PCs.
- robryan 15y agoThe gaming audience on windows is still far bigger than osx.
- Zirro 15y agoRead the FAQ first. In there they state that their top-of-the-list priority if they exceed the initial 400 000 dollar is supporting other platforms.
- thristian 15y agoMaybe in a couple of years somebody will talk them into adding it to a Humble Bundle. I donated, on the off chance of it someday running on a platform I own, because hey, at least I can get a neat game soundtrack and documentary.
- OSButler 15y agoOne interesting response in the reddit thread about this was someone saying "...now you can fund the shit that nobody still wants to play?", followed by "20.000 is nothing", when another poster pointed out that over 20.000 people were already backing this project. This seems to be exactly the publisher's point of view. If you consider marketing, development costs, console licensing fees, ... paying everyone involved in the project and to make sure that there's still profit left over for everyone involved, then 20.000 people buying your game is not that much. However, for me this kickstarter project is kind of the opposite of pirating, where the developer gets the money before the development process has even started and they don't need to worry if they will break even, since the original goal has already been reached anyway. Plus, as already mentioned several times, they cut out the middle-man with this approach, so that this could definitely open doors for new & interesting projects. Even though 20.000 is not much for a publisher of a AAA title, I am pretty sure that the final amount will turn heads in the gaming industry and might spawn some new developer <-> customer relationships similar to this kickstarter funding.
- noonespecial 15y ago"kickstarter project is kind of the opposite of pirating". I love it. Maybe even Kickstarter is the dual(1) of pirating? (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duality
- pkamb 15y agoPlease be Maniac Mansion III.
- teyc 15y agoSome analysis here: 1. The publisher in this case has a track record, so there is less risk involved. 2. $15 for an adventure game sounds "well priced" 3. There is a bit of risk reversal on the pledgers since the game might turn out to be awful. This is compared to buying a game after it has been reviewed. 4. However, the risk is only $15 5. There is much nostalgia, and even if $15 is wasted, it would have been a nice way to thank Tim for the good times in the past. 6. Presumably the game might cost a little bit more when it is released. 7. What happens if the publishers blow out their budget? It is a sizeable team.
- lukeholder 15y agoThankyou for your analysis. http://i.qkme.me/35z247.jpg http://i.qkme.me/35z247.jpg
- teyc 15y ago:) I didn't have time to expand on the ideas.
- jvdh 15y agoAnd like he states in the video: 8. If the game does blow up in their faces, there will be video evidence of it for all the backers to enjoy.