Precinct Crowdfunder Calls It A Day With Less Than 10% Funds Raised

[Karloff]

Precinct Crowdfunder Calls It A Day With Less Than 10% Funds Raised

The team's hopeful it can do this again some time.

Precinct [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126035-Precinct-the-Spiritual-Successor-to-Police-Quest-Hits-Kickstarter], the police procedural based on the Police Quest series of Sierra fame, is no more; it has expired and ceased to be; it is an ex crowdfunder. Jim Walls, the man behind the original series, and some Sierra veterans took the project to Kickstarter a while back but discovered that it wasn't as simple as they'd hoped to get funding that way. So Precinct shut down its Kickstarter and opened up its own crowdfunder, but managed to raise less than 10% of the $400,000 ask. The Precinct team has shut down this second funding effort, thanked its fans, and hopes it can try again someday.

"We're fighters and fought our best," say the Precinct team. "Unfortunately, our best wasn't good enough to overcome the challenges with crowdfunding Precinct." Under the terms of the scheme, backers weren't to be charged for their pledge until the campaign reached $25,000, the proof of concept stage. At time of closure it had only raised $11,956, so nobody's out of pocket. The Kickstarter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126672-Precinct-Kickstarter-Shuts-Down] had been slightly more successful, raising about $17% of the ask, but it's clear that the appetite just isn't there for a revived Police Quest.

"The backing community are wonderfully supportive of Jim Walls making a new game," say the Precinct team. "Likewise, our team remains passionate about Precinct and are hopeful there is a way to make Precinct a reality in the future."

Source: Precinct [http://fund.precinctgame.com/]


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[Abomination]

I remember playing Police Quest and having no idea what so ever what to do... because I was like... 7.

That being said, the timing of this was a bit late. Perhaps after some of the big hitters have had a shot, like Wasteland 2 and Broken Age. If they succeed better than Shadowrun: Returns then perhaps we'll be on to something.

For now, I'd suggest most Kickstarter projects just keep it in the conceptual stage until folks who Kickstart A: have more faith and B: have more funds.

 

[Chessrook44]

Misspelled the title as "Precint" in the title there. Might want to fix that.

 

[Johnson McGee]

I would say they should've advertised this better, but then they would have needed a kickstarter for the advertising for the kickstarter.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

cave story is having some problems.

...What? Look, the original game was made and released for free - Why would anyone expect a Kickstarter for whatever they plan to do with it next would work? At this point the only thing that would work is making a HTML5 version, as that would pretty much cover all the bases on porting it to whatever devices in the future. Past devices like the SNES, well... That would definitely take a lot more work.

OT: Crowdfunding is going to be very hard for niche games, especially ones like Precinct, where there is little exposure of and to remember about the game it spiritually succeeds. You could argue that Shadowrun falls into the same place, but remember that Shadowrun didn't start out as a series of video games.

 

[Entitled]

the problem with kickstarter is that now we have seen some fruits of some kickstarters and they were mostly....well...meh and okayish.

people anticipated much more to get out of a deal than what they recieved.

for example the shaddowrun returns game that was successfully funded and finished, is not that much of an exiting experience. its lukewarm at its best.

Star Command is a running joke after having 2 kickstarters behind it.

cave story is having some problems.

so people started to become more cautious with kickstarter.

plus only a dozen people played police quest and a handfull of them liked it.

This has nothing to do with why this particular Kickstarter failed. Kickstarter in general continues to successfully fund as many games as before, if not more.

The "problem" is, if there is any, that how these successes were treated a year ago was the textbook example of a Hype cycle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle]'s peak point. Shadowrun Returns, Wasteland 2, or the Ouya, were not praised for what they were, but for the future that they were expected to represent. "Imagine what if this and that game could also get crowdfunded!" "Imagine if crowdfunding could entirely liberate gaming from publisher control!"

But these were never supposed to be their goals. Shadowrun Online or Double Fine Adventure didn't promise that removing publishers from the equation will provide the "bestest games ever", just that it will provide a specific genre that has been ignored. It was aimed not at the average Escapist reader, but at the niche fandom that would pay to play ANY old-school RPG, great or otherwise.

By now, we have reached a Plateou of Productivity phase, where users start to realize what Kickstarter is the best at. Niche fandoms continue to throw millions of dollars at projects like Warmachine: Tactics, or HEX, or Satellite Reign. Except that now, generalized gaming news sites report these only for what they are; niche PC games with little interest from their readerbase (in other words, don't report them at all), so they can focus on failures, or scandals instead, which have a wider general appeal.

 

[Retardinator]

And all this time they've spent working on crowdfunding, they could've spent working on the game, assets, anything. Perhaps release a small demo or something and raise awareness. But no, games can't be made without that initial pile of money which makes or breaks the #includes in the code.