Torment: Tides of Numenera Shatters Kickstarter Record

[Andy Chalk]

Torment: Tides of Numenera Shatters Kickstarter Record

Torment: Tides of Numemera has set a new mark in the sprint to $1 million in Kickstarter funding.

As a fan of PC gaming and RPGs, it pleased me greatly to see inXile's Torment: Tides of Numenera, the long-awaited follow-up to Planescape: Torment, come out of the Kickstarter gate so strongly. But I don't think even the most optimistic old-schooler expected that it would do quite as well as it's doing, because it's doing better than everything that's come before it. Torment blasted to the million-dollar-market in just seven hours and two minutes, well over an hour faster than the previous record holder, the Ouya game console, which reached $1 million in eight hours and 22 minutes.

Only 21 out of the more than 37,000 successfully-funded Kickstarters have achieved $1 million funding and with Torment, inXile now has two of them. But while Torment is a runaway success and looks sure to blow away the mark set by the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter, which drew more than $2.9 million in backing, inXile chief Brian Fargo said that before launching the Kickstarter there were serious concerns about pushing the crowdfunding button too hard.

"Even though this was our second Kickstarter campaign, we were very cautious in our expectations," Fargo said. "We knew there were some negative sentiments regarding crowdsourcing fatigue, and the fact that we are still finishing Wasteland 2, but the massive community acceptance to our latest Kickstarter effort was overwhelming, unexpected and a great honor."

With 28 days go, the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera?ref=live] has now broken the $2.1 million mark, and inXile is piling on the stretch goals. The studio has thus far added gender-selectable PCs, the addition of three new writers, two new areas, more music and a new companion; if funding reaches $2.5 million, another writer, gameplay area and companion will be added, plus what promises to be an amusing video from Colin McComb apologized for the Second Edition D&D Complete Book of Elves.


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[Terrible Opinions]

And I was 1/22222th of that first million!

Now we just need a stretch goal where Monte Cook apologizes for Toughness.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

Wherever they put the "Also, Chris Avellone joins the team" stretch goal, they will hit.

 

[Legion]

I have backed this, and it is my very first Kickstarter. It looked really interesting and I am pleased to see developers who are clearly so passionate about what they are making. It looks like a lot of imagination is being put into it as well.

It's kind of funny though, I originally thought that it said it was going to be released December 2013, but it actually says 2014. Which is good in many ways I suppose, as I will have upgraded my PC or bought a new one by then.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

I have backed this, and it is my very first Kickstarter. It looked really interesting and I am pleased to see developers who are clearly so passionate about what they are making. It looks like a lot of imagination is being put into it as well.

It's kind of funny though, I originally thought that it said it was going to be released December 2013, but it actually says 2014. Which is good in many ways I suppose, as I will have upgraded my PC or bought a new one by then.

It's probably going to have pretty low hardware requirements. This is an RPG with a budget ~$5 million in the style of an old Infinity Engine game, after all.

 

[Legion]

I have backed this, and it is my very first Kickstarter. It looked really interesting and I am pleased to see developers who are clearly so passionate about what they are making. It looks like a lot of imagination is being put into it as well.

It's kind of funny though, I originally thought that it said it was going to be released December 2013, but it actually says 2014. Which is good in many ways I suppose, as I will have upgraded my PC or bought a new one by then.

It's probably going to have pretty low hardware requirements. This is an RPG with a budget ~$5 million in the style of an old Infinity Engine game, after all.

Oh, I'm not expecting that I will need a new one. It will just be nice to.

 

[Tom Goldman]

Really looking forward to see how the game turns out. More money = better.

Anyway, how big do you people think will the funds get? I honestly wouldn't put it past this game to gather somewhere in the ballpark of 8 million dollaros.

I'm going to estimate it'll slow down and end up at $4 to $4.5 million, similar to Project Eternity but higher. I think this one benefited from tons of pre-Kickstarter press and community awareness from the campaigns of Wasteland 2 and PE, which I can guess would expand even a bit further for this one. If it goes really, really high... well I guess we just don't know how far these things can go yet.

 

[OniaPL]

I'm just glad to see that kickstarter doesn't seem to be a simple fad it looked like in the beginning. Hopefully we'll see a lot more similar projects in the upcoming years.

 

[Vegosiux]

Really looking forward to see how the game turns out. More money = better.

That's true to an extent, but one should not underestimate the effect time has as well - more time devoted to the project = also better. Well, I suppose "time is money"...

Still being cautiously optimistic and keeping a keen eye on this, my final judgement is reserved for when I actually see the end product.

 

[tautologico]

this is definitely one to back. its funny that the types of games publishers abandoned because they werent viable are breaking records and its not even sales but investment

We still have to see how these highly-backed games on KS will fare in terms of sales. Will they sell well if they're good, or will most people who wanted the game already got it through KS? Of course, to the developers there's no risk if the game doesn't sell well after the KS because the costs were already covered, but we don't know how it will go.

And let's look at the number of backers... Project Eternity got less than 80k backers, Torment should get about 80-90k, 100k tops. CoD sells 13 million copies. Each year.

The success of these KS projects shows that there are niches out there that are not being filled by current offerings in the market, and Kickstarter helps devs connect to the public and fill those niches. But they're still niche titles, it's not like these successes spell doom for traditional publishers.

 

[FEichinger]

this is definitely one to back. its funny that the types of games publishers abandoned because they werent viable are breaking records and its not even sales but investment

We still have to see how these highly-backed games on KS will fare in terms of sales. Will they sell well if they're good, or will most people who wanted the game already got it through KS? Of course, to the developers there's no risk if the game doesn't sell well after the KS because the costs were already covered, but we don't know how it will go.

And let's look at the number of backers... Project Eternity got less than 80k backers, Torment should get about 80-90k, 100k tops. CoD sells 13 million copies. Each year.

The success of these KS projects shows that there are niches out there that are not being filled by current offerings in the market, and Kickstarter helps devs connect to the public and fill those niches. But they're still niche titles, it's not like these successes spell doom for traditional publishers.

And yet, these niche games can break even much easier than CoD can. Cut down the budget, don't push the dev and suddenly you have a cheap but awesome game that gives a moderate profit.

Spread EA's entire budget across twenty games of that kind every year, don't charge a freaking 60 bucks for it and there you got your "safe bets" as a publisher.

 

[LordMonty]

Backed this on day one, just upgraded my pledge love this game and kickstarter.

Personally I have supported 5 Kickstarts so far Torment, Shadowrun, Banner saga, Project Eturnity and Wasteland 2. I'm so screwed for time in the coming year so much cool stuff also you may spot a theme of games I like missed out on Double Fine and regret it a little bit but i'll live as i've got enough to play coming out soon.

 

[xorinite]

Updated my journal.

Very excited about this one, Planescape: Torment is always brought up when people talk about an excellent story in a game. A sequel to that? I'll go back it now.

 

[Tradjus]

Whatever guy said "A Planescape sequel would never sell" has just cost the industry millions of dollars.
I'm sure he'll never work again.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I think we should take bets on how much money will it reach within the kickstarter time limit. My previous prediction of 3.5m was completely low so I see I must raise the stakes. I am guessing it will get in between 5.5m - 8m when this is all over.

 

[FEichinger]

I think we should take bets on how much money will it reach within the kickstarter time limit. My previous prediction of 3.5m was completely low so I see I must raise the stakes. I am guessing it will get in between 5.5m - 8m when this is all over.

There will probably be a bunch of people who receive their paychecks on the 15th or 28th-31st this month. I think an estimate somewhere around 5M is appropriate.

 

[Legion]

I think we should take bets on how much money will it reach within the kickstarter time limit. My previous prediction of 3.5m was completely low so I see I must raise the stakes. I am guessing it will get in between 5.5m - 8m when this is all over.

Personally I don't think it will go too much higher. It's done fantastic, but I think it will begin to slow down.

I don't think it will make much beyond $3 million.

I'd be delighted to be proven wrong of course.