With game development becoming an increasingly expensive ordeal for game development houses, it isn’t surprising at all to read stories of developers trying to implement new and intriguing ways to drum up capital. And it wouldn’t surprise many to hear that the fine folk at Double Fine, who are behind such titles as Psychonauts, Trenched Iron Brigade, and most recently the genre-defying Kinect “experience” Happy Action Theatre, would come up with an innovative way to raise money without selling their collective souls to publishing houses or big financial backers.
With the hope for creating a new adventure game under the auspices of famed adventure developers Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert, but with the stark realization that finding enough capital through regular channels to make this occur would be incredibly difficult, the Double Fine crew decided to appeal directly to the general public, through a Kickstarter. With a lofty goal of $400,000, and hoping to hit their goal by Mar.13, it seems that they had no idea how this idea would turn out.
As of last count, roughly four days later, they have over 1.5 million dollars.
*as of 2:10pm February 13th.
This insane outpouring of donations towards Double Fine’s new adventure game development has, in a few short days, quite possibly changed the game for small and medium-sized developers looking to quickly raise capital. Though it’s unlikely that AAA, $100 million-costing titles aren’t about to be bankrolled by public charity any time soon, the idea that smaller, potentially struggling developers could publicly appeal to their fanbase and receive financial support. Somebody needs to get Michel Ancel on the line right goddamn now so that he can start a kickstarter for Beyond Good and Evil 2. (I’m entirely serious Ancel; I and the rest of the internet would be more than willing to help make BGaE2 a reality). Lets just hope that this kind of idea isn’t abused, and that we don’t wake up a month from now with every last development house, big and small, passing around the charity box.
This new adventure game, currently untitled, is slated for a PC Steam release this October.