Last week, inXile Entertainment managed to take in $4.18 million on their Kickstarter project for the RPG, Torment: Tides of Numenera. To make those numbers even more outstanding; they had only asked for $900,000 to begin with. In managing this amazing feat, Torment: Tides of Numenera became the highest funded game on Kickstarter, beating out Obsidian Entertainments' Project Eternity, which managed to bring in $3.98 million. What amazes me though, is how quickly the landscape of Kickstarter has changed. I myself, have only supported one project, and thats Camouflajs Rebuplique. That was last year in May and the project just managed to pull itself over its $500,000 goal in the final hours. Now I suspect that a lot of the last minute pledges were people in the wait and see mode, trying to deduce whether the project would make its target before throwing their money into the ring. But even so, when you consider the great pitch they had, the updates they were providing which proved an intention to move forward and coupled with Jennifer Hale and David Hayters involvement in the project, one would suspect, that the original goal of $500,000, would have been easily surpassed.
Fast forward 12 months later, and projects are amassing well over $2 million and are easily doubling or tripling their original asking price for their projects to become a reality. I still to this day struggle to understand how these pitches are gaining such support. To be clear, Im not saying that these pitches are poorly formed, but rather where has all this faith come from? Very few of the high (over $500,000 budget) flyers have come through. I could count on one hand the games that have been released at the very least in its beta stage, and while most remain in development others have missed their release dates and/or gone completely dark. Which brings me to the ultimate question. Is this level of growth sustainable? I find it very hard to believe that we will see costs balloon out much more. We are now entering the release window for many of the games who have been pledged over $500,000. I have no doubt there are very talented people behind these projects, and I admire their courage in trying to accomplish a project of their own. But in reality; mistakes will be made, miscalculations not factored in and projects will inevitably fail. The bubble will burst and in the end gamers will become more savvy in their choice of projects. Kickstarter is a great organisation. I only need look at what the dedication of various people have brought us today. Where would the Orange Box be if it wasnt for Portal? What else serves as a better procrastination device than Minecraft? Would the MOBA genre have ever spawned without the modding community that gave us DotA? Kickstarter will give people like them, a chance to follow their own dreams, whilst having some financial backing. We may see the next big thing spawn from one of these project; just dont expect every project to be a success story.