Culture

Gamemakers Jump on Big-Money Kickstarter Bandwagon

Makers of niche games have taken to Kickstarter to pitch projects that publishers won't take a risk on. They're asking for big budgets. Some are getting far more than they asked for, some are having trouble finding fans. Here are five Kickstarter games currently looking to hit it big.
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  • Wasteland 2
  • Leisure Suit Larry
  • Class of Heroes 2
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For a while, Kickstarter was the sole domain of scrappy indie makers looking to scrape up a few thousand bucks to get a small idea out into the world. Then Double Fine changed everything. Although the studio was already well-established, selling its comedic games to big publishers like Warner Bros., Electronic Arts and THQ, it couldn't find a publisher willing to back a classic point-and-click adventure game, the sort of thing that made its founder Tim Schafer famous in the first place. So it took to Kickstarter, asking for $400,000 -- in Kickstarter terms, a lot of money. The project ended up getting $3.3 million, illustrating that the crowdfunding model could scale way, way up if the idea came from an established player with a large fan base. And then the floodgates opened. Since Double Fine's Kickstarter triumph, many more makers of niche games have taken to the crowdfunding site to pitch projects that publishers won't take a risk on. They're asking for big budgets. Some are getting far more than they asked for, some are having trouble finding fans. Here are five Kickstarter games currently looking to hit it big. Above:

Wasteland 2

Before Fallout there was Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic Cold War RPG released in 1988. Designer Brian Fargo has since gone on to found inXile Entertainment, creator of big-budget games like Hunted: The Demon's Forge. Fargo set a funding goal on Kickstarter of $900,000 -- more than double what Double Fine wanted but less than a third of what it ended up with -- to get Wasteland 2 off the ground. It hit that goal in two days and has climbed to $1.9 million since then with a little less than two weeks to go. As the tally climbed, inXile was able to make more promises about the finished product, which it expects to release in October 2013. It will release versions for PC, Mac and Linux. If it hits $2.1 million in funding, RPG maker Obsidian Entertainment will join forces with inXile to improve and expand the game.