I continue to be overwhelmed by the positive feedback and enthusiasm from the support I have gotten from Kickstarter. The groundswell of people cheering us on and the evangelism – people spreading the word – is unlike anything I have experienced. In fact, I would say the last week was the high water mark of my career.
We are closing in on the funding for 1.5 million which will allow us to add both a Mac and Linux version of Wasteland 2 to the release. One of the (more common) questions I am asked is whether we’ll support console and I believe it to be unlikely. It is imperative that we deliver the core PC experience that the fans are expecting here and I want to avoid any elements that could distract us. The console interface is quite different when you consider the input device and proximity to the screen whereas the Mac and Linux are pretty much identical to that of the “PC”. We will consider a tablet version due to the similarity of the screen and interface but even on that we need to do a bit more research.
There have been some nice human moments along the way that I thought I would share.
We started off strong in the first 24 hours raising nearly 50% of our minimum need but still I was nervous. All the signs of success were there but we all wanted it to happen so badly that it seemed to good to be true. Around 6:00 that first night we received an email from a wealthy software industry individual who is a passionate fan of Wasteland and offered to help fund the game if Kickstarter came short! Talk about feeling good. Of course I thanked him and said I hoped we would not need his assistance but he made my whole day/week/month/year.
On the next day I get a short tweet from an individual that confesses he pirated Wasteland as a kid and was donating to help make up for it. I of course forgave not knowing he had donated $10,000 dollars. An incredible gesture… now if we could get every pirate of Wasteland 1 to donate we could really beat the Kickstarter all time record.
Mason Douglass who plays the kid publisher in the Kickstarter video has gotten rave reviews for his performance. His delivery was great and I have had people wanting to contact his manager for parts in TV/film. I jokingly told him when we shot the bit that he might become famous from this. Perhaps he will.
And just today I got an email along with a donation from a kid who lived down the street from me when he was a teenager. His note was as follows:
“This message is intended for Brian Fargo. Brian, I was your next door neighbor when you used to live in Laguna. I was a pesky 15 or 16 year old kid that would come around and ask you about games. You would sit down and take time to talk to me about games, and the industry, and I just wanted you to know how cool it was that you didn’t blow me off. It meant a lot to me. Recently, I found out about your Kickstarter movement for Wasteland 2, and I contributed to it because I believe in you and your ability to resurrect the glory of the franchise. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, and thank you again for creating some memorable memories for me during my teenage years. Take care!”
It shows that being nice creates goodwill 20 years later.
And speaking of goodwill it occurs to me that we can harness the power of Kickstarter in a more meaningful way. Fan funding is bigger than me or Wasteland 2 as I have remarked before. The development community has come together to support us in ways that I didn’t think possible and our power as developers will ultimately come from us sticking together. Both gamers and developers have so much more strength than they realize. But in order to help facilitate the power of crowd funding I am going to suggest that all of us that do utilize this form of financing agree to kickback 5% of our profits made from such projects to other Kickstarter developers. I am not suggesting taking a backers money and moving it to another project.. I mean once a game has shipped and created profit that we funnel that back into the community of developers to fund their dreams. I am tentatively calling this “Kick It Forward” and I will be the first to agree to it. In fact, I will have our artists create a badge that goes on all Kickstarter projects that agree to support this initiative. Imagine the potential if another Minecraft comes along via Kickstarter and produces millions of dollars of investment into other developers. This economic payback will continue to grow the movement way beyond the current system. I hope others will join me with this idea and make this a true shakeup.
Let’s get the power shifted around a bit!
-Brian Fargo
I also had a pirated copy of the game in junior high, which I played the hell out of. When I finally had a job I did buy a copy, but I bought it used, so the developers never saw any of that money. Accordingly, I’ve bumped my pledge up a couple levels as a kind of late payment for Wasteland. (Not to $10k — I wish I could do that. But up to $150 from $50.)
Brian, I don’t know if you read the comments, but here’s something I’ve been thinking about ever since I read your Kick It Forward announcement on Kickstarter and especially the terms you used, like “into the community of developers to fund their dreams”, “both gamers and developers have so much more strength than they realize” and “the development community sticks together”.
Kicking It Forward is a great idea, but I can’t help feeling it’s limited. What I do mean with this is that by aiming to fund other Kickstarter projects it’ll basically fund only legal entities in the USA. But the development community does not consist only of USA based developers. Nor are all backers and gamers USA citizens.
I do understand where you’re coming from with Kickstarter making the development of Wasteland 2 possible and all that. But it seems kind of unfair to the developers based outside of the USA that only the USA based part of the development community can/ will benefit from money made from gamers around the world.
If we’re really talking about actually empowering the community of developers and gamers, shouldn’t Kicking It Forward be open to the developers in the rest of the world? And before anyone tells me that it’s not up to you to dictate the way Kickstarter operates, maybe this “the development community sticks together” has or should have more layers to it.
I’m no developer but I’m a gamer for the past 20+ years of my. My interest in indie games (productions) is steadily growing, but the way the mainstream “game industry” is working makes it extremely difficult for indie developers that don’t fit their bill to get their ideas funded (as brilliantly demonstrated in your own video). Maybe this is a great chance to actually make a difference for both developers and gamers. Why not try to lift the current limitations and include them all?
Thanks for listening,
Aura
P.S. Needless to say I’ll see you in Wasteland 2, right?
Incredibly, Wasteland 1 was one of the very few titles I actually bought for the C64 as a kid. I remember my dad driving me and my brother to some game store in another city to get my hands on that game. It was one of my biggest inspirations to become an artist, so thanks again.
Brian you rock! Wasteland was the best game I can remember playing while in High School on my c-64:). Before that it was Questron (you may remember it, but many probably wont). I will never forget things like nuns with machine guns or angry rabbits (nods to other older pop culture:)).
Thank you for keeping the dream alive, By GAMERS for GAMERS!!!!!!!!!!
I never paid attention when I was younger to the devs, but since I have had kids(and waaay less game time), it is so important to know who is behind the games we play. I loved almost every game you listed in your kickstarter video! Please make sure there are still plenty of genera nods like the red shirts in the Star Trek 25th anniversary game too!
Thank you so much for bring Wasteland back! I can only hope this will inspire more people to bring back games from the golden age of PC games and introduce them to a whole new generation. I love to see new stories told in all my old favorites. Good luck and God speed.
Nice!!!
I hope the funding will rise to the 1,5 million so we can have Mac and Linux versions also!
Yes. It is very good decision too because it expand the circle of even more fans of this project.
No need to hope any more: mission accomplished, the funding now is over 1.5 millions.
So, congratulations to mr. Fargo and the others at inXile: I need to wait at least the first of april (because of technical reasons on my bank account), but that day (or at least before the deadline) I will probably donate something (the minimum 15$ to obtain at least a free copy seems a good deal for me).
Wasteland 2 be! It was little predictable that this project will get fan money so fast. But it is awesome! It means that Wasteland hasn’t been forgotten and will never be forgotten. Old school rules!
As a long-time fan of Wasteland, Bard’s Tale, Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale (etc.) I’ve always loved the top-down, squad-based tactical RPGs. The single best implementation was Jagged Alliance 2. Also, X-COM 3, while a flawed game in some respects, really had a fully 3-D map that made for some confusingly fun fights. Best wishes to the Wasteland 2 team – I’ve put my money where my mouth is, now its up to you make the game happen.
I can’t wait to play Wastleland 2 but I was wondering will the game allow me to hook up the Xbox 360 controller to the game? I play most PC games these day with the 360 controller. So if given the option that the game allows that controller support too over just keyboard & mouse I would be thrilled. So please let me be able to play the game with that controller option also.
So… How about a Bard’s Tale update…
I have fun with, result in I discovered exactly what I used to
be looking for. You’ve ended my four day lengthy hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye
A simple and intelglniet point, well made. Thanks!
Just posted an article promoting the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter effort on http://www.skylandgames.com . Congrats on your success!
It is really refreshing to see all of the excitement building around this and I love the idea that the unfettered internet is finally becoming a powerful vehicle for connecting content creators directly with their fans! Very cool stuff. I am a big fan of linux and am really happy to see that the game is going to that OS as well!
Playing Wasteland is one of my fondest childhood memory. I lost count of how many times and hours I played the game. I can’t put into words how excited I am that you are able to get the original gang back for the sequel!
I will definitely put my support behind this project! Thanks for never giving up on this dream of yours and we’re all rooting for your team to see it all the way through!
Thank you Brian Fargo and your whole team at inXile.
It’s been a long time since i felt hope when it comes to an upcoming RPG.
The genre these days has been watered and dumbed down to where it’s like drinking salt water to quench your thirst but i hope this project might be the turning point.
If we can prove that there’s a demand for well written dialogue and a challenging story and gameplay maybe we can look forward to more titles in the future that takes us back to when you could lose yourself in an RPG instead of just losing time and money.
And even if this doesn’t happen you, mr. Fargo and the team you put together are just about the only ones i trust to allow me to loose myself again even if it’s just for one last time… though i sincerely hope that it won’t be the last.
The hours of fun and the number of moral dilemmas your previous games have put me in and continue to put me in are amongst the best i’ve had infront of the screen.
So i just wanted to say thank you for this initiative and i’ll be making a contribution as soon as this months paycheck arrives.
Id like to point out that if someone decides to make a hardcore pvp game, ala ultima online (the original not the “current”) or shadowbane. that would probably mass enough pvp maniacs to grant 15 million dollars in pledges.
I was a huge fan of Wasteland and the news about Wasteland 2 are more then exciting. I’m absolutely thrilled about the Linux client that I consider as done – only 20k missing in 25 days … easy easy
As a freelance editor for a few German Computer Magazines I try to spread the word as much as possible and also via my own Blog that has got quite a good reach in the German Linux world.
Sooooo looking forward to Wasteland 2 …
Price is what you pay, value is what you get… I feel a real sense of value with this funding model. I’m paying to get something made it want, and supporting people I like.
I’d prefer to get all my games this way… even as an outsider I’ve grown a level of loathing for game publishers, and distribution monopolies, all that crap. I see their margins are created by ripping off consumers. Hype machine marketing, sock puppet reviewers, mediocre copycat games without risks, compressed development cycles, cut content and day one dlc.
Finally a viable alternative emerges. I wonder how far it will go.
I remember as a kid of about 11 or so recieving both Wasteland and Bard’s Tale III in the mail on the same day. Man I played Wasteland for hours and hours on an Apple IIe with it’s ugly green monochrome monitor. I enjoyed that so immensely. As you can imagine I am a programmer myself now starting a new job and I fully intend to take a sizeable portion of my first paycheck and donate it to this.
Unfortunetly I cant donate at the moment to project, unemployment and finacial issues. I would definetly do so if I could.
If you would increase the time the kickstarter project will be open or open up another source we can donate to the prjoect after it closes on Kickstarted would be awesome. as I have gotten a job which I am starting soon in and will have good payment once I get the first payment.
Anyway of this post it kinda made me drop some tears of joy and to see the enthusiasm of all this surroundinc Kickstarter game projects As you have said bring the power back to the developer. As a Big PC gamer since I remember myself. It bring real good joy that this is something that really will happen again. We all know that Big Publishers have kinda ruined the Gaming industry (shown in your Video very well).
Hope everything goes well and more old time Game developers will be able to use this way to fund their projects and do what they really want to and not the publishers.
Greeting from Iceland and to say there are loads of folks here that would like the game.
it made*
mr fargo! this is amazing! what you write about is EXTREMELY exciting! it my life ~50% better
only one more thing left, deliver a very good game!
best wishes and good luck!
ps: you have my full support on kickback project, and i will continue supporting kickstarter projects, if i find them worthy, and spread the word of course.