Torment hits 900K goal in 6 hours
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I didn't see a thread for this - I apologize if there is one already.
Torment: Tides of Numenera
InXile, who recently had a successful kickstarter campaign to make Wasteland 2, put another project up this morning (california time). They hit their goal - a lofty $900,000 before lunch. Currently they're at 1.2 million, and work day still hasn't ended.
Some of you may recall the discussion here about InXile's strange crowd-sourced asset experiment via the unity store - where artists would make assets to Wasteland's style and specifications in the hope that it would be purchased and used in the game (at standard Unity store prices) - and potentially purchased by enough others to make the time/effort pay off. I and others thought this method was pretty crummy for a number of reasons. I am curious to see if they try something similar with this project.
I thought it might also be a good discussion given the recent and fairly public failure of GPG's kickstarter campaign, Wildman - What the differences were between the projects, their presentations and perceptions. I think that Kickstarter is an interesting Phenomena, and while it isn't perfect it's definitely worth further study.
Torment: Tides of Numenera
InXile, who recently had a successful kickstarter campaign to make Wasteland 2, put another project up this morning (california time). They hit their goal - a lofty $900,000 before lunch. Currently they're at 1.2 million, and work day still hasn't ended.
Some of you may recall the discussion here about InXile's strange crowd-sourced asset experiment via the unity store - where artists would make assets to Wasteland's style and specifications in the hope that it would be purchased and used in the game (at standard Unity store prices) - and potentially purchased by enough others to make the time/effort pay off. I and others thought this method was pretty crummy for a number of reasons. I am curious to see if they try something similar with this project.
I thought it might also be a good discussion given the recent and fairly public failure of GPG's kickstarter campaign, Wildman - What the differences were between the projects, their presentations and perceptions. I think that Kickstarter is an interesting Phenomena, and while it isn't perfect it's definitely worth further study.
Replies
I think the key difference between this and Wildman is that this is a successor to what many people consider to be the greatest game ever, made by members of the original team, whereas Wildman was a new, unknown franchise, made by a team with little commercial success in the genre.
It definitely is interesting to look at why some projects succeed and others fail, but this particular project, to me, had absolutely zero chance of doing anything but epically succeeding.
As Erich said, I think most of the really successful Kickstarter games appeal either to nostalgia or to a "this is a project the MAN wouldn't let us make" mentality. Wildman did neither.
Also it's worth consideration that Wildman didn't succeed per se, but did lead to a buyout of GPG that allowed at least some people to stay employed, so that's some kind of success anyway.
That's a good point - I think there's a lot more traction in nostalgia than in innovation or trail blazing.
It is interesting the "screw the MAN" spin Torment's video - to my recollection they did a similar sketch for the Wasteland campaign - when turn around and set up a crowd-sourcing system to potentially pay an artist pennies/hour for assets. I don't know that the thoughts behind that idea were malicious, but at the very least they didn't put too much thought into what the artists were actually getting out of it - at the very worst they were taking advantage of people just eager to "get my stuff into a game"...which is pretty "the MANish".
still, even with no gameplay videos (other than the flashes they showed of Wasteland) the story sounded interesting enough for me to drop some money, basically pre-ordering - which is how i find myself using kickstarter most of the time.
EXACTLY!!! Not just grabbing money from people and a project never sees the light of day.... Seems a bit shady...
The original torment is probably my favorite game ever. But this is exactly how I feel. I've backed a good ten projects so far and nothing has delivered. Really hesitant to back anything again
There was never really any chance of this Kickstarter not being huge. It's a game, more or less, that people have been wanting since the Planescape game back in 1999. It passed $70k 15 minutes after starting. 5 people have already pledged for the $10,000 category.
Because I want to become there friend and have them support my Kickstarter, Anthony wants a Jetski!
start backing board games, comics and other projects like that, you'll feel better in no time.
My thoughts too man, it blows my mind just how much cash people are willing to throw in!! Things have never been so good for the indy developer!!
Or Notch.
I'm super happy with my Wasteland buy though, the updates they've given are great, the game seems to be turning out how they described they would make it, there not blue sky bullshitting anyone about what the game is going to have in it. They explain the choices they made and why they made them, even the choice to start the Torment kickstarter. They explained their desire to keep their current team together, and right now their pre-production guys(concept artists,designers) are ramping down from Wasteland. So rather than fire them cough cough, AAA. They're trying to transition into another project. I say go for it, Torments not for me, but i'm super glad they got what they asked for.
To me InExile is running a kickstarter(Wasteland) EXACTLY how a kickstarter project should be run: explicit, clear project goals. And lots of open communication to the backers.
For the people who are starting to feel ripped off after backing 10+ projects, yeah, you kinda binged there on kickstarter. Wasteland was the only kickstarter I backed. Not to say there weren't a lot of other ones i was interested in. Wasteland was the only one i said to myself "Even if they fuck it up i want to see what they would do if they could do this kind of game again"
It's a buyer beware market, we live in an age of impulse buys. A lot of people have 0 control over their own spending.
When you're related to Wells Fargo it probably stands to reason that you know a few people with 10 grand burning a hole in their pocket.
I back these projects because it gives them the ability to work on what they want to work, and what I would want them to work on, if the end-result is good or bad is less important.
That is why I don't cry about long development times or delayed kickstarters, since a 4 or so big kickstarter backings could've instead gone towards colonial marines.
This. Really. Deliver something before collecting again. I can't say I'm keen on the two- product focus.
Not sure it sounds like it's going to have that much of a plot...
"One man...with the desire for a Jet Ski...needed the money to buy one..... release date scheduled for summer 2014!"
I never managed to play Planescape Torment, loved the Icewind Dale and BG games though.
I agree I hope they pull these off, think it's great he's keeping his writers/concept artists paid and working but, what about the 3D/texture/environment artists that aren't done with wasteland. I know they will get paid either way but will they be pushed to the brink of being burnt out?
Depending on their delivery time-frames of-course.
Artwork posted on the kickstarter looks great though.
One product at a time development is why so many studios fail, you have staggered development like this so there's no lull period where you have to lay people off.
At least I hope that's what they're doing. I think it's great that they moved people to a new project rather than just dropping them entirely - and they have been doing pretty regular updates on Wasteland, so it's not exactly vapor.
(this song is all digital afaik)
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