I Blog With My Face

Double Fine’s unprecedented success with its Kickstarter donation drive to produce a new game begs a question: Can this be a sustainable business model for the future of gaming? Before we tackle that weighty question, let’s start with some facts and observations, and wend our way from there.

For those of you who haven’t heard, Double Fine Productions, lead by Tim Schafer, decided that they wanted to start a new game. It is what they do, being a game production company after all, but still, they felt the itch. The being said, the problem with most independent developers (and Double Fine is one of the largest), is their inability to gain the financing necessary to produce their games. Many games that do get developed by indie teams are just labors of love, and any compensation for them comes at the end of the process, if it comes at all. Many actually just die on the operating table, and never see the light of day. Their producers are small 2-3 man teams, who need jobs to pay the bills. They can’t afford keep working all night in their garages, as they’ve got to get sleep at some point. The costs involved (the technology, the staff, the office space, and the energy requirements to name a few) in producing games like Call of Duty, Madden NFL, and Assassin’s Creed is the reason that Activision, EA, and Ubisoft exist at all.

So Tim decided he wanted to cut out the middle man. Enter Kickstarter. A website that accrues donations for creative projects, Tim decided to set up a drive there to see if he could get his game financed. He wanted $300,000 to fund it, and an extra $100,000 to film it.

He got that much in 8 hours. People didn’t stop. Currently, it’s at $1,521,422. For those of you busting out your calculators, that’s 3.7 times as much as he asked for. With 31 days left to go.

Unless something catastrophic happens, it’s easy to predict that this game will be a success. The talent is there, and so is the money. Gobs and gobs of money. But is this a sustainable business scheme for the future? That’s a little trickier to speculate on.

The buzz for this product may have really started when Notch tweeted “Let’s make this happen.” He was specifically talking about Psychonauts 2, but the internet noticed, and maybe Tim did too. It’s tough to say without interviewing him when exactly he got the idea to go to Kickstarter. It’s also tough to say if anyone else could have had the success in using Kickstarter that Tim Schafer has. He has the luxury of a great intro video, an impressive gaming resumé, and an amazing team. Though the games page on Kickstarter is full of projects that have been funded successfully, it’s tough to use that as a gauge to see the projects that have failed to be adequately funded, because they just don’t show up. However, there are plenty of games and other projects on Kickstarter that don’t have Tim Schafer behind them, and they get funded just fine.

But I think it’s the beginning of a new era, certainly. As with book publishing, game publishing is being… well not crowd sourced exactly, but definitely crowd financed. The major limiting factors for the creation for books and games have been money and avenues for distribution. But these walls are being torn down in this digital age. Distribution platforms such as Valve’s Steam, Amazon’s Kindle Store, and Apple’s iTunes, the bars for both the cost to produce these goods and the ability to spread them are being lowered substantially. Anyone with a computer can create something and spread it as they like. The real limiter then becomes, as it always should be, quality. The things that do well should be intrinsically more valuable than those that don’t. Because anyone can make anything, the good things will naturally rise to the top as more people examine, use, and play these games. The ones that are worth it will be talked about and shared, and the ones that aren’t will be forgotten.

As gamers, I think we should promote these trends for two reasons:

1. Encouraging the distribution of games increases their popularity be definition, giving us a broader and healthier community.

2. Having more options to pick from in terms of games gives us stronger games, and lets the medium develop as a true art form.

I realize that not everyone can afford to pitch in to the projects they would like to. Times are tough, and money’s always been tight for a lot of friends of mine. That being said, if you can’t contribute monetarily, please spread the word. These kinds of things need to be endorsed, for the good of both our hobby and community. And if you’ve got the time, and the inclination, then do so yourself. Get on Kickstarter, grab some friends, get out there, and make something. Do us all proud.