Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Ends With a Bang

[mattaui]

I wonder just how similar it will be to Fallout? Not that it should be; I know Fallout is the spiritual successor, but they're two separate franchises in their own right now. But considering how much overlap of the staff between the two series, I daresay the similarities won't stop at "post-apocalyptic setting". I just hope it doesn't go in the complete opposite direction and take itself too seriously. At any rate, I'm super pumped for this, and can't wait for release!

From what I've gathered, it is going to be super serious, and having no publishers, will seriously address the 18+ issues that would be prevalent in a post-apocalyptic environment... along with some dark humour of course.

OT:

I would also assume from the concept art, unlike Fallout, this will be set in our post-apocalyptic world, as oppose to Fallouts "stuck in the 50s" world.

Actually, to stay true to the era of Wasteland, it should be stuck in the 80s.

 

[Andronicus]

I wonder just how similar it will be to Fallout? Not that it should be; I know Fallout is the spiritual successor, but they're two separate franchises in their own right now. But considering how much overlap of the staff between the two series, I daresay the similarities won't stop at "post-apocalyptic setting". I just hope it doesn't go in the complete opposite direction and take itself too seriously. At any rate, I'm super pumped for this, and can't wait for release!

From what I've gathered, it is going to be super serious, and having no publishers, will seriously address the 18+ issues that would be prevalent in a post-apocalyptic environment... along with some dark humour of course.

OT:

Ah, good. Dark humour is certainly well up my alley. Now all I need to worry about is what will come first: Wasteland 2, or Australia's 18+ rating for games...

 

[godofallu]

Honestly I think a majority of these kickstarter projects will end up in a disaster.

If the companies that actually know how to predict sales think these games will tank, then that's kind of a bad sign.

It's like a guy going to a bank for a loan to start up his new business and the bank says no because they think the business will fail. Would you be like "oh the experts at the bank said this would fail, here's 3 million have fun." I doubt it. 4/5ths of all businesses fail in the first few years, and I wonder what percentage of games fail.

 

[Jaeger_CDN]

If he does stick around (maybe because of this being a good person and karma stuff and such), I must admit that I'm a little worried that this might have a negative impact on any future Bethesda Fallout release (like axing it due to new competition / too much apocalypse on the market, etc.). I mean Beths Fallout is almost the perfect post-apocalyptic game I want to play, so I'm not sure how Wasteland intends to improve / beat that.

Adding drivable vehicles (such as the giant Skorpion-Tank thing on the picture) would be a good start though.

I doubt Wasteland 2 would have any effect whatsoever on Bethesda's Fallout. They are completely different games. The only thing they really have in common is that they are both post-apocalyptic.

Wasteland was the inspiration for the original Fallout, anything that Bethesda has done with was just taking it further into the FPS/RPG mode from an isometric turn based game.

The impression I got was that WL2 was going to go along those lines as opposed to what Fallout currently is.

 

[Corven]

How much of that will go due to the rewards and fees? Maybe we didn't get there after all...

Most likely a million, thats how much double fine lost to fees and rewards, so they were left with about 2.2 mil when it was all said and done.

 

[Jaeger_CDN]

Honestly I think a majority of these kickstarter projects will end up in a disaster.

If the companies that actually know how to predict sales think these games will tank, then that's kind of a bad sign.

It's like a guy going to a bank for a loan to start up his new business and the bank says no because they think the business will fail. Would you be like "oh the experts at the bank said this would fail, here's 3 million have fun." I doubt it. 4/5ths of all businesses fail in the first few years, and I wonder what percentage of games fail.

I would think the pedigree of Brian Fargo and his experience in the industry would give him a much clearer idea as to how to use the money generated effectively. Granted the Tim Schafer kickstart project would be another I would have felt comfortable in putting cash into as well if I wanted to.

You're right in saying that there will be a number of projects that have a greater potential to fail shortly out of the gates but that's the same in any business. Kickstarter is basically venture capital funding (high risk)for the masses on a small investment scale unlike those shown on Dragon's Den or Shark Tank on TV which present ideas for a big pay day.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Oh hells yeah. Good to see them succeed. And us get more bang for our buck too. More quests? A deeper world? A mod kit? Yes please.

 

[UnderGlass]

I wonder just how similar it will be to Fallout? Not that it should be; I know Fallout is the spiritual successor, but they're two separate franchises in their own right now. But considering how much overlap of the staff between the two series, I daresay the similarities won't stop at "post-apocalyptic setting". I just hope it doesn't go in the complete opposite direction and take itself too seriously. At any rate, I'm super pumped for this, and can't wait for release!

Well Brian Fargo was pretty clear in the [a href=http://www.ripten.com/2012/03/27/brian-fargo-talks-wasteland-2-abysmal-publisher-treatment-and-having-fun-again/]ripten interview[/a] that anything specifically Fallout belongs to Bethesda now so they'll be careful there. Considering a lot of what made Fallout unique was in reaction to not being able to use the Wasteland license, I don't really see it being a problem. With Wasteland they had a good idea of the world they built.

As far as humour, anyone who remembers the Agricultural Center with it's 30ft broccoli forests, alliterating pears, rampaging 'varmints' and killer bunnies knows you've got nothing to worry about. Wasteland will deliver lols and post-apocalyptic gut-punches in equal measure.

So, your avatar ... is that a drop-bear?

 

[UnderGlass]

Honestly I think a majority of these kickstarter projects will end up in a disaster.

If the companies that actually know how to predict sales think these games will tank, then that's kind of a bad sign.

It's like a guy going to a bank for a loan to start up his new business and the bank says no because they think the business will fail. Would you be like "oh the experts at the bank said this would fail, here's 3 million have fun." I doubt it. 4/5ths of all businesses fail in the first few years, and I wonder what percentage of games fail.

To the contrary, these projects are already more likely to "succeed" if you judge success by making a profit. When a developer accepts publisher money to make a game they are instantly in the hole for that amount of cash. In addition to the publisher getting to dictate how that money is spent and forcing focus-group led compromises and changes to design. There are also many examples out there of how publisher involvement hugely inflates development cost. Worse, the development money is actually an advance on revenue, the small percentage of each sale which actually gets back to them. Meaning they won't see any profit from sales until the publisher has recovered it's investment. So most small studios have to have other projects already lined up as soon as the game ships, so they can keep the lights on and their staff employed.

With Kickstarter the fans have paid the development costs up front. The backers keep a bunch of devs employed for the next year and a half, then any sales of the finished product are instantly profitable. Even if they only sell some paltry amount, let's say 10k copies at $20 on Steam (I'd imagine it would cost more), it doesn't matter. That's still $200k worth of sales that go immediately into their pocket! And let's be honest, a game of this pedigree is quite likely to sell a lot better than that. If 50 thousand people purchase the game that's a million they get to put directly into the next project. Now they can go and do whatever they want. Unadulterated profits are coming in to pay the bills and keep everyone on staff and they get to plan their next project on their own terms. Maybe they want to do a sequel to their game? Well now they can, they don't have to ask anyone's permission because the IP/brand belongs to them. They have the creative control.

 

[Andronicus]

I wonder just how similar it will be to Fallout? Not that it should be; I know Fallout is the spiritual successor, but they're two separate franchises in their own right now. But considering how much overlap of the staff between the two series, I daresay the similarities won't stop at "post-apocalyptic setting". I just hope it doesn't go in the complete opposite direction and take itself too seriously. At any rate, I'm super pumped for this, and can't wait for release!

Well Brian Fargo was pretty clear in the [a href=http://www.ripten.com/2012/03/27/brian-fargo-talks-wasteland-2-abysmal-publisher-treatment-and-having-fun-again/]ripten interview[/a] that anything specifically Fallout belongs to Bethesda now so they'll be careful there. Considering a lot of what made Fallout unique was in reaction to not being able to use the Wasteland license, I don't really see it being a problem. With Wasteland they had a good idea of the world they built.

As far as humour, anyone who remembers the Agricultural Center with it's 30ft broccoli forests, alliterating pears, rampaging 'varmints' and killer bunnies knows you've got nothing to worry about. Wasteland will deliver lols and post-apocalyptic gut-punches in equal measure.

So, your avatar ... is that a drop-bear?

I am aware that Fallout and Wasteland are very much segregated in regards to intellectual property now. I haven't actually played the original Wasteland though, so killer bunnies and broccoli forests is a very welcome prospect. I never expected it to be Fallout; I just hoped it wasn't going to go completely dark and gritty and humourless.

Also no, it's not a dropbear, and anyone who shows you a picture of one is a liar; noone's seen one with their own eyes and lived to describe it.
As for the picture, dunno if you know it, but it's one of the characters from Raskulls [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raskulls], which is an Australian game too, so makes sense to throw a koala in there

 

[Realitycrash]

WOOOOAHH!

Well done everyone who contributed.

Now begins the long and painful wait for it to be released

For real. This is going to be a long wait XP

I survived the Duke Nukem: Forever development, I have the patience of a god in flesh.
Wasteland 2 has nothing on me.

(And oh, that needs to be on a t-shirt).

 

[Realitycrash]

Honestly I think a majority of these kickstarter projects will end up in a disaster.

If the companies that actually know how to predict sales think these games will tank, then that's kind of a bad sign.

It's like a guy going to a bank for a loan to start up his new business and the bank says no because they think the business will fail. Would you be like "oh the experts at the bank said this would fail, here's 3 million have fun." I doubt it. 4/5ths of all businesses fail in the first few years, and I wonder what percentage of games fail.

To the contrary, these projects are already more likely to "succeed" if you judge success by making a profit. When a developer accepts publisher money to make a game they are instantly in the hole for that amount of cash. In addition to the publisher getting to dictate how that money is spent and forcing focus-group led compromises and changes to design. There are also many examples out there of how publisher involvement hugely inflates development cost. Worse, the development money is actually an advance on revenue, the small percentage of each sale which actually gets back to them. Meaning they won't see any profit from sales until the publisher has recovered it's investment. So most small studios have to have other projects already lined up as soon as the game ships, so they can keep the lights on and their staff employed.

With Kickstarter the fans have paid the development costs up front. The backers keep a bunch of devs employed for the next year and a half, then any sales of the finished product are instantly profitable. Even if they only sell some paltry amount, let's say 10k copies at $20 on Steam (I'd imagine it would cost more), it doesn't matter. That's still $200k worth of sales that go immediately into their pocket! And let's be honest, a game of this pedigree is quite likely to sell a lot better than that. If 50 thousand people purchase the game that's a million they get to put directly into the next project. Now they can go and do whatever they want. Unadulterated profits are coming in to pay the bills and keep everyone on staff and they get to plan their next project on their own terms. Maybe they want to do a sequel to their game? Well now they can, they don't have to ask anyone's permission because the IP/brand belongs to them. They have the creative control.

Only problem that I see is..How many will buy the game? 35.000 backers, and most (gonna go with atleast 20.000 of them) already own the game (i.e have backed with more than 15 bucks), so those won't be buying the game. If 50.000 in addition to these 20k buy the game, then yes, they will make a million..But that's 2 million less than what they have right now. I.e they would have to sell 150k copies just to reach the funding they have for this project. And how often do that happen for indie-games (even hyped ones)?
I dunno, anyone have the average-sales data?

 

[UnderGlass]

I wonder just how similar it will be to Fallout? Not that it should be; I know Fallout is the spiritual successor, but they're two separate franchises in their own right now. But considering how much overlap of the staff between the two series, I daresay the similarities won't stop at "post-apocalyptic setting". I just hope it doesn't go in the complete opposite direction and take itself too seriously. At any rate, I'm super pumped for this, and can't wait for release!

Well Brian Fargo was pretty clear in the [a href=http://www.ripten.com/2012/03/27/brian-fargo-talks-wasteland-2-abysmal-publisher-treatment-and-having-fun-again/]ripten interview[/a] that anything specifically Fallout belongs to Bethesda now so they'll be careful there. Considering a lot of what made Fallout unique was in reaction to not being able to use the Wasteland license, I don't really see it being a problem. With Wasteland they had a good idea of the world they built.

As far as humour, anyone who remembers the Agricultural Center with it's 30ft broccoli forests, alliterating pears, rampaging 'varmints' and killer bunnies knows you've got nothing to worry about. Wasteland will deliver lols and post-apocalyptic gut-punches in equal measure.

So, your avatar ... is that a drop-bear?

I am aware that Fallout and Wasteland are very much segregated in regards to intellectual property now. I haven't actually played the original Wasteland though, so killer bunnies and broccoli forests is a very welcome prospect. I never expected it to be Fallout; I just hoped it wasn't going to go completely dark and gritty and humourless.

Also no, it's not a dropbear, and anyone who shows you a picture of one is a liar; noone's seen one with their own eyes and lived to describe it.
As for the picture, dunno if you know it, but it's one of the characters from Raskulls [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raskulls], which is an Australian game too, so makes sense to throw a koala in there

What?!

You .. you mean that nice man who sold me this authentic candid shot of a dropbear attack was a mountebank?

Spoiler: Dropbear ATTACKS!!

 

[Jaeger_CDN]

.. you mean that nice man who sold me this authentic candid shot of a dropbear attack was a mountebank?

Spoiler: Dropbear ATTACKS!!

Absolutely since it's a shiny red X

 

[UnderGlass]

Spoiler

Honestly I think a majority of these kickstarter projects will end up in a disaster.

If the companies that actually know how to predict sales think these games will tank, then that's kind of a bad sign.

It's like a guy going to a bank for a loan to start up his new business and the bank says no because they think the business will fail. Would you be like "oh the experts at the bank said this would fail, here's 3 million have fun." I doubt it. 4/5ths of all businesses fail in the first few years, and I wonder what percentage of games fail.

To the contrary, these projects are already more likely to "succeed" if you judge success by making a profit. When a developer accepts publisher money to make a game they are instantly in the hole for that amount of cash. In addition to the publisher getting to dictate how that money is spent and forcing focus-group led compromises and changes to design. There are also many examples out there of how publisher involvement hugely inflates development cost. Worse, the development money is actually an advance on revenue, the small percentage of each sale which actually gets back to them. Meaning they won't see any profit from sales until the publisher has recovered it's investment. So most small studios have to have other projects already lined up as soon as the game ships, so they can keep the lights on and their staff employed.

With Kickstarter the fans have paid the development costs up front. The backers keep a bunch of devs employed for the next year and a half, then any sales of the finished product are instantly profitable. Even if they only sell some paltry amount, let's say 10k copies at $20 on Steam (I'd imagine it would cost more), it doesn't matter. That's still $200k worth of sales that go immediately into their pocket! And let's be honest, a game of this pedigree is quite likely to sell a lot better than that. If 50 thousand people purchase the game that's a million they get to put directly into the next project. Now they can go and do whatever they want. Unadulterated profits are coming in to pay the bills and keep everyone on staff and they get to plan their next project on their own terms. Maybe they want to do a sequel to their game? Well now they can, they don't have to ask anyone's permission because the IP/brand belongs to them. They have the creative control.

Only problem that I see is..How many will buy the game? 35.000 backers, and most (gonna go with atleast 20.000 of them) already own the game (i.e have backed with more than 15 bucks), so those won't be buying the game. If 50.000 in addition to these 20k buy the game, then yes, they will make a million..But that's 2 million less than what they have right now. I.e they would have to sell 150k copies just to reach the funding they have for this project. And how often do that happen for indie-games (even hyped ones)?
I dunno, anyone have the average-sales data?

Actually, over 60,000. Every one of which owns the game in one form or another. It's true, that is a huge dent in future sales. Yet the risk is no different for any game funded by a publisher. Except if it had been funded that way, and if only 60 thousand people purchased the game after launch (or a fraction of that since the game wouldn't be going for 15 bucks), then that would not be enough for the developer to make any sort of profit either. They would still be in debt to the publisher. Also, they would have lost their IP and would likely stand little chance of working on it again.

Ultimately it doesn't matter that much. They've employed staff and run a studio for 18 months and produced a product at the end of it. That product, the attached IP and all revenues belong entirely to them.

If the product sucks so bad that 0 people after the backers purchase it then .. bummer. It's hardly a disaster though. Everyone got what they paid for and the dev is in the black. And don't forget that even awful games like Amy sell. I'd be willing to bet high that after the reception this game has received merely as a concept (60 thousand people willing to buy it before it's even been made!), that it will make decent sales. To all those who were curious or interested but not willing to put money on a game they hadn't seen, but also to the legions of people unaware of its existence. How many publishers get that kind of assurance of market interest before investment?

As for future projects? Brian has said that assuming Wasteland 2 only enjoys modest success (quite likely, no-one has any illusions about the demographic for this kind of game) then he'll pitch his next one on kickstarter. Same as he'd have done with a publisher, except he'll enjoy getting up in the morning and going to work to make the kind of game he wants to make.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is going to be so epic.

 

[A.Balthazor]

Only problem that I see is..How many will buy the game? 35.000 backers, and most (gonna go with atleast 20.000 of them) already own the game (i.e have backed with more than 15 bucks), so those won't be buying the game. If 50.000 in addition to these 20k buy the game, then yes, they will make a million..But that's 2 million less than what they have right now. I.e they would have to sell 150k copies just to reach the funding they have for this project. And how often do that happen for indie-games (even hyped ones)?
I dunno, anyone have the average-sales data?

You are doing your math wrong.

Say the cost of producing the game, manuals, boxes, collectors edition stuff, and special parties is 3 million.

Costs = 3 Million

To make it profitable, normally a game has to sell enough copies to cover costs and then some. So say the market for this game is 100,000 copies sold, at $50. That is 5 million in revenue, netting 2 million in profit.

5 million revenue - 3 million costs = 2 million profit

Now in the kickstarter scenario, say you have 3 million costs, but this is paid for via kickstarter revenue. The downside, as you point out, is that the backers will not purchase a game, since they are entitled to a copy. There are appoximately 60,000 backers, and let's just assume they all get a copy. That leaves a market of 40,000 retail copies sold, at $50, that is 2 million in revenue. How does that work out then?

2 million revenue - 3 million costs + 3 million kickstarter = 2 million profit

In this fictional scenario there is no difference in overall profit.

I think the most important thing to point out is the eliminating of a lot of financial risk this method brings to game development. By pre-paying for development and only having to promise the completed game plus misc. rewards, you are spreading a tiny amount of risk amongst a very large number of people.

It may allow game developers a lot of freedom, or it may allow them to get access to larger and more conventional sources of funding to expand the game or develop sequels based on this low-risk foundational venture.

 

[Darknacht]

If the companies that actually know how to predict sales think these games will tank, then that's kind of a bad sign.

The thing is that the publishers have no idea how to predict sales as proven by these Kickstarter games, publishers are saying that no one wants to buy these games but they are getting over $3 million in fully paid preorders, this proves that people do want to buy these games.

 

[godofallu]

If the companies that actually know how to predict sales think these games will tank, then that's kind of a bad sign.

The thing is that the publishers have no idea how to predict sales as proven by these Kickstarter games, publishers are saying that no one wants to buy these games but they are getting over $3 million in fully paid preorders, this proves that people do want to buy these games.

These venture capitalists/investors are buying a dream. Not a finished product.

It isn't possible to know they want the game that will/might be made.

Interesting business model, I just don't think statistically the majority of them will turn out well.