Dhruin
SasqWatch
That's the way it used to be, and that is the way I want it.
Like when I bought the Baldur's Gate 2 Collectors Edition and it came with a free…Oh, snap!
Maybe I missed the posts where people said that specifically, but it seems to be somewhat of a strawman. I thought were saying they don't and won't support this sort of bonus for whatever reason - and any message they wanted to send was directed to the devs and to that effect rather than being some political statement to the larger industry.
I hate when people call strawman - just make your point. I quote from just a couple of posts above:
For me crowd-funding is partly about showing the established gaming studios that I'm not happy with them, and that I'm looking elsewhere when spending my money.
Ummm, no they don't. There is only a handful of games that have cost over 50 million in the entire history of gaming… The typical funding is around 15-20 million dollars for a AAA game.
1-3 Million dollars of "no strings attached" and "in advance" funding is a HUGE deal. The other important thing to realise is that there is still room for growth. Imagine what is going to happen if something like Wasteland 2 or Shadowrun Returns turns out to be an awesome game and sell like hotcakes. Kickstarting could well become the norm and as it becomes better known the amounts being pledged could easily climb to 5 million plus. I think that is very exciting.
I'm talking from a sales potential perspective, where major publishers are looking for revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm sure they have looked at this as a curiosity - but I'm also sure they have decided this has no relevance to their major markets. These projects - almost by definition - are hardcore, niche products that will have limited production values. Attempts to go more mainstream with Kickstarter will mostly fail, because the mainstream has little reason to engage with Kickstarter.
Wasteland 2 won't sell millions of copies (in my opinion) and EA won't care that inXile may never approach them to develop a title again.
That doesn't make it any less exciting for the enthusiast - I think we're totally in a new world for niche games, which is hugely exciting but it doesn't send a message that major publishers will care about.