Gas Powered Games Launches Wildman Kickstarter

[JonB]

Gas Powered Games Launches Wildman Kickstarter

Chris Taylor's newest game promises to be a mix of RPG, RTS, and MOBA.

Successfully concluding their countdown [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121194-Gas-Powered-Games-Begins-a-Countdown], Gas Powered Games has announced a $1.1 million Kickstarter for Wildman - which is advertising itself as a "thrilling mix of action-role-playing and real-time strategy." Gas Powered Games, founded in 1998, has experience in both of those genres, with previous offerings including Dungeon Siege, Supreme Commander, and Demigod. The Kickstarter describes the game as a series of MOBA battles, between which players go on RPG adventures to earn new treasure, equipment, and skills. Gas Powered Games says that they have already started work on Wildman, but will need funding from Kickstarter to finish it. "We want to follow more closely the examples of companies like Valve and Blizzard," says the Kickstarter page, "who iterate on as many ideas as possible before settling on the "right" features." They claim to have left some features blank for the final phases of design so that they can test out as many ideas as possible. Gas Powered Games aims to deliver the game within a year of the Kickstarter, so presumably by February 2014.

The Kickstarter promises a list of industry talent, headed off by Chris Taylor, the designer of such games as Total Annihilation and founder of Gas Powered Games. Additionally, the game will have music by Jeremy Soule, the composer for the Skyrim soundtrack.

The Kickstarter page admits that without the funding from the Kickstarter, the release date of Wildman will be "in jeopardy." There seems to be an implication that without the crowdfunding, Gas Powered Games may be unable to pay the salaries of its staff, and would have to seek external funding to finish. As Gas Powered Games says: "We will only release Wildman when it meets our quality bar."

The game's official site sums up GPG's optimistic opinion [https://wildman.gaspowered.com/wildman-is-alive/] on the project, saying that "We can't speak highly enough of what Kickstarter and crowdfunding represents for companies like ours. They represent freedom."

Source: Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gaspoweredgames/wildman-an-evolutionary-action-rpg?ref=recently_launched]


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[Abomination]

So many promising games on kickstarter, not enough fulfilled promises yet to encourage me to support every one.

If Wasteland 2 is a success I will probably kickstart everything that I think sounds like will be a great finished product. Until then I will not engage in any risky ventures.

Great that it has already been in development, I guess I will buy/investigate the finished product.

 

[Entitled]

So many promising games on kickstarter, not enough fulfilled promises yet to encourage me to support every one.

If Wasteland 2 is a success I will probably kickstart everything that I think sounds like will be a great finished product. Until then I will not engage in any risky ventures.

I think this doesn't make much sense. You already know what Kickstarter is, and how it works: You give money to a creator, and they are legally obliged to give you promised backer rewards for it later, so you are getting something for your money, unless they go bankrupt mid-development.

The only real risk about kickstarter projects, is whether or not the developer will go bankrupt. So whether or not Wasteland 2 happens to be successful, shouldn't significantly modify the probability of other games succeeding. It will only tell us how financially savvy inXile's leadership is about spending 3 million dollars, not about a fundamental nature of crowdfunding. And it doesn't tell ANYTHING about how likely Gas Powered Games is to complete their own game without bankrupcy.

If you are basing your trust of a business model on how successfully a single user applied it, you are willingly accepting biased anecdotal experiences over rational predictions. It's like saying that you don't trust the concept of banks, because you had a bad first experience with them, or that you trust money-making through bank robbery, because you had a good first experience with it.

 

[Abomination]

So many promising games on kickstarter, not enough fulfilled promises yet to encourage me to support every one.

If Wasteland 2 is a success I will probably kickstart everything that I think sounds like will be a great finished product. Until then I will not engage in any risky ventures.

I think this doesn't make much sense. You already know what Kickstarter is, and how it works: You give money to a creator, and they are legally obliged to give you promised backer rewards for it later, so you are getting something for your money, unless they go bankrupt mid-development.

The only real risk about kickstarter projects, is whether or not the developer will go bankrupt. So whether or not Wasteland 2 happens to be successful, shouldn't significantly modify the probability of other games succeeding. It will only tell us how financially savvy inXile's leadership is about spending 3 million dollars, not about a fundamental nature of crowdfunding. And it doesn't tell ANYTHING about how likely Gas Powered Games is to complete their own game without bankrupcy.

If you are basing your trust of a business model on how successfully a single user applied it, you are willingly accepting biased anecdotal experiences over rational predictions. It's like saying that you don't trust the concept of banks, because you had a bad first experience with them, or that you trust money-making through bank robbery, because you had a good first experience with it.

I want to see evidence that a game company can kick-start a successful quasi-AAA title before I risk any more of my money.

Presently we have not seen any of the most ambitious kickstarters completed. I want an example of the model succeeding before throwing any more money at the concept. Presently it appears to be a fad, kickstart to get funding for ambitious title... so far no results.

I realise that the success of one kickstarter will not directly or affect the success of another. But from a cautious investor's perspective one wants to see the business model succeed before venturing into the market again.

 

[Entitled]

Presently we have not seen any of the most ambitious kickstarters completed. I want an example of the model succeeding before throwing any more money at the concept. Presently it appears to be a fad, kickstart to get funding for ambitious title... so far no results.

Well, so far all the relevant games are inside their expected development times, so if any of them would already be released, that would be a miracle. But they have shown lesser "results" so far, such as progress in dev. updates, there were many minor games that were already released, and there are many other branches of Kickstarter with a good track record. (The new year banner at Kickstarter.com has a nice summary of some of them).

from a cautious investor's perspective one wants to see the business model succeed before venturing into the market again.

Then again, sometimes the logical probabilities implied by a business model, are better indicators than a personal perspective.

Do you think that a large percentage of companies like inXile, Frontier, Obsidian, or Double Fine are going to file for bankrupcy? Or that people like Peter Molyneux, Neal Stephenson, Chris Roberts, or Tim Schafer, will be dragged in front of a court and forced to pay compensation for breach of contract?

These are not rethorical questions, I'm not saying that they won't, just that you kind of sound like you aren't really considering that *this* is what Kickstarter being risky to backers implies. When Kickstarters will actually start to fail to deliver, there will be mor to it than Obsidian changing their minds and not making project Eternity after all, it won't be a "so far, no results" state. There will be class action lawsuits, and companies trying to pay back as much backer money as they can as compensation, and then getting liquidated to pay back as much of the rest as possible, OR getting sentenced for fraud.

 

[Abomination]

-Snip-

The thing is I've yet to see a finished product. I don't care about how the company behaves before or after the release of what I kickstarted. I only care about the end result.

So far I have seen no end results, the actual product they have been developing.

I understand there are legal reasons forcing them to eventually produce SOMETHING, what I care about is WHAT that something produced is like. I don't care about development times, I care about quality of finished product.

So far I have seen no quality finished products of an AAA ambitious nature. Ergo, I will not invest any more of my money until I know the model can be successful.

 

[wgar]

This is GPG, they have released a fair few AAA titles now so what's your point? Why does the source of the money matter now all of a sudden?

With games like Wasteland they were pulling together a team that's never worked together before but GPG have been in the business a while (since mid 90s if you included Cavedog), whereas Wasteland 2, FTL, Star Citizen, Elite, Planetary Annihilation, and Project Eternity (to an extent) are all brand new groups. I'd hardly call $1 million budget a AAA game as well, it's closer to being an indie game than a AAA one.

 

[Abomination]

This is GPG, they have released a fair few AAA titles now so what's your point? Why does the source of the money matter now all of a sudden?

With games like Wasteland they were pulling together a team that's never worked together before but GPG have been in the business a while (since mid 90s if you included Cavedog), whereas Wasteland 2, FTL, Star Citizen, Elite, Planetary Annihilation, and Project Eternity (to an extent) are all brand new groups. I'd hardly call $1 million budget a AAA game as well, it's closer to being an indie game than a AAA one.

Kickstarter is to fund risky ventures. Ventures so risky that typical producers - those who have made fortunes by backing the right projects - are unwilling to invest in. It matters a LOT.

So I am waiting to see if there is a good, ambitious game spawned from Kickstarter. Also Wasteland 2 has Obsidian backing and Brian Fargo leading the charge. Those are the heaviest of the heavyweights in the genre. It doesn't mean they will be successful.

I have invested $100 to kickstar Wasteland 2, that's enough to buy 2 AAA titles. I want to see a return on my investment before I throw more money after uncertain money.

 

[Strazdas]

Look, i liked your supreme commander, i loved demigod, but this feels like your trying to make warcraft 3 part 2.

also if AAA company cant fund thier own new IPs that probably mean they dont expect to make any money back on it, so it already shows they arent really hoping it to be good.
kickstarters are for people who cant get funding save for selling out to activision whirpoor or something. but when prime time companies start using them as "we develop for free and keep the profits" its not really working as intended.

 

[Laryen]

Look, i liked your supreme commander, i loved demigod, but this feels like your trying to make warcraft 3 part 2.

also if AAA company cant fund thier own new IPs that probably mean they dont expect to make any money back on it, so it already shows they arent really hoping it to be good.
kickstarters are for people who cant get funding save for selling out to activision whirpoor or something. but when prime time companies start using them as "we develop for free and keep the profits" its not really working as intended.

So take any game you own and pop it into whatever system it's for. Now pay attention to the beginning...how many companies do you see with their logos?

I'll use the games you listed as an example. Supreme Commander would be THQ, Gas Powered Games. Dungeon Siege would be Microsoft Studios and Gas Powered Games. Demigod would be Stardock and Gas Powered Games. What I have listed is publisher, developer. Publishers will fund developers to make games for them.

Lets use another example since you so lovingly used Activision. Lets look at the Call of Duty series. The Modern Warfare line was developed by Infinity Ward. The Black Ops line was developed by Treyarch. Most people (you included I'm assuming) just know them as Activision games.

It looks like GPG is looking for funding to both publish and develop their own game.

Keep in mind...the nature of a kickstarter and being rewarded for your support. In this case $20 gets you a digital copy of the game. Also keep in mind that you won't actually be charged until the project is fully funded, which virtually guarantees completion.