Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter finishes at $3,335,250

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure/?

by xelfer • 14 years ago

172 48 14 years ago

xelfer• 14 years ago

and it still seems to be rising, not sure how that's happening after the time was reached, maybe some are still completing transactions?

shingen• 14 years ago

Several impressive numbers in there.

100 backers at $1,000 a shot.

$38 per pledge.

Oh and exceeding the goal by nearly $3 million.

3lit3H4ck3r• 14 years ago

Awesome stuff! Truly a great day for the project, Kickstarter and the internet overall. Not only traditional publishers trembling, but their establishment middlemen financiers...only place to go from here is up with any single inventor or team with a concept that can catch the eye of the funding crowd!

jstevens85• 14 years ago

Traditional publishers trembling? That would seem unlikely to me given that one of the legends of the game development community only managed to raise a budget equivalent to an average XBLA game.

zacman85• 14 years ago

I loved Tim's (approximate) celebration quote: "I don't want to say this is the end of the game publishing as we know it...... I'm sure a few games will still need publishers." Classic.

robryan• 14 years ago

Seems to be the start of something big, Wasteland 2 launched today on kickstarted and is about to hit $400,000. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2

forrestthewoods• 14 years ago

Wasteland 2 being successful is far more impressive to me than Double Fine Adventure.

DFA was a perfect storm. Amazing and funny front man in Tim Shafer. A proven studio that has released multiple games of similar small scope in recent years. Plus a pair of guys (Tim + Ron Gilbert) who practically invented the genre in the early 90s. Amazing, awesome, and wonderful that they were so successful but not necessarily a sign of things to come.

Wasteland 2 on the other is a different story. A front man with strong pedigree, but most people have never heard of. A game that came out in 1988 and only ever sold 100k units (plus lord knows how many pirated copies). A studio that few have heard of.

With DFA it's easy to say that this Kickstarter fad is just a fad. With Wasteland 2 it shows to have a little more leg. I can't wait to see what large scale project is successful next.

psykotic• 14 years ago

> A game that came out in 1988 and only ever sold 100k units (plus lord knows how many pirated copies).

In those days 100,000 units sold meant a big hit. The original sales numbers for Secret of Monkey Island were in that neighborhood.

TillE• 14 years ago

Wasteland is of course best known as a precursor to Fallout, but it's extremely obscure compared to Fallout. I really can't figure out where the 10,000+ backers are coming from.

Kickstarter really could revolutionize the industry. This is incredible. We've seen small indie games on the order of $10k being funded all the time, but not $1M budgets. That's not enough for a AAA game, but it is enough to run a small studio rather than a couple guys in a basement.

Oh, and most importantly, the type of game promised (an old-school hardcore turn-based CRPG) is radically different from what's fashionable today, even among indies. They're not just making a sequel, they're reviving a genre. This is truly exciting.

nkoren• 14 years ago

13 hours later and it's about to hit $600,000.

Yes, I'd say this is starting to look like an actual phenomena rather than a fluke.

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

They're having fun with it already- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdq8odshMls

Aloisius2• 14 years ago

This was an amazing success especially given no equity traded hands. Game publishers shouldn't be the only ones worried.

While I don't see it being easy to do initial angel funding on Kickstarter, it clearly is possible to raise significant amounts of money if you either have a good product and/or a name.

nkassis• 14 years ago

Tim Schafer said it in an interview (with NPR I believe) this isn't replacing traditional publishers (yet followed by evil laugh).

I think the two can coexist. This was a great way to revive a game genre with following that is still to small for a AAA publisher to go after.

I think people who want to be successful with crowdsourcing like this will need to follow that pattern and attack small undeserved niche markets.

sirclueless2• 14 years ago

Do you mean "underserved"?

I agree that the two can coexist (and probably have to). Kickstarter might work for areas with untapped potential when the game is published by a recognized personality with public goodwill on their side. But to be honest, to actually do something novel and unproven, or with a budget that is larger than goodwill can provide, someone needs to take a bigger risk. And to make that happen the I think the risk-takers will need equity. So while I am happy to see this Kickstarter project grow so big, I don't think traditional publishing should or will go away, lest we end up with only the games that someone can pitch to public backers in a Kickstarter video.

wccrawford4• 14 years ago

A few people have been very vocal about the lack of equity and how "unfair" it is.

Personally, I don't really see their point. It's not an investment, it's a purchase... With a slight bit of risk. Some of the higher tiers are collector's items and a part of history, and unavailable otherwise. The lower tiers have the game for less than it will probably retail for.

I personally feel the risk is very low for both this and Wasteland 2, but others feel differently.

ErneX• 14 years ago

Plus some private backers gave $110,000 (Tim Schafer said that on the live stream from their offices) so that plus Kickstarter would be: $3,445,250

AceJohnny2• 14 years ago

Wasn't that included in the total? I wasn't sure what he said specifically.

ugh• 14 years ago

No, it wasn't: http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/the_partys_over_but_...

So they really got what they wanted plus three million in the end. (Minus ten or so percent, right? Five for Kickstarter, the rest for Amazon.)

OoTheNigerian• 14 years ago

They don't just have 87,000 backers. They have a tribe of 87 000!!!. This is absolutely impressive!!!

I am sure some shameless lobbyists or companies are thinking of how to put Kickstarter out of business.

axlelonghorn• 14 years ago

https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/178928061285277699

"$2.7MM!?! And it looks like our hourly rate is going up! Um, people... three million dollars... that was the budget of Grim Fandango!"

This has been such fun to watch happen.

vibrunazo2• 14 years ago

After watching the success of Double Fine Adventure and the Lois CK video. Do you guys think it's reasonable to assume that in the future, big hollywood blockbusters would be funded this way?

A common argument from copyright supporters is that it wouldn't be possible to fund such movies without heavy copyright enforcement. But after watching the recent success of Kickstarter and Lois CK. I feel it's getting easier to convince artists that a better world is possible.

sp332• 14 years ago

Hollywood blockbusters are more of an investment banking scheme than a way to fund the making of movies. I don't mean to be cynical, really. But the Hollywood (in particular) works is incompatible with this funding model.

vibrunazo2• 14 years ago

Could you expand on that, or point to where I can read more on it?

marquis• 14 years ago

Independent films can work this way: cast/crew will not get paid, in return for a percentage should it be successful. However it's not possible to do this indefinitely as said crew gets tired of working for free after a while (much like any Kickstarter project wouldn't get a second go if they didn't deliver).

jerf2• 14 years ago

A periodic topic that has come up on HN in the past few weeks is how people can make money in a non-copyright world. A common example brought up is the commission model, where payment is made in advance, but I think people subconsciously discard it as a real possibility because they can't imagine how it could actually happen.

Here it is.

Yes, Double Fine (and Brian Fargo with the Wasteland 2) come in with a pre-existing reputation worth millions, but while you're there, poke around on Kickstarter's other projects. I never had before, and I am astonished what is on there and has been successfully funded with no apparent name-brand power that I'm aware of. Just look at this stuff: http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/games/most-fu...

There are things that targeted $10,000 and handily blew past them.

Relevant to HN's interests as I browse through: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meetpoint/startup-fever-...

Anyway, back to my point. I think it's time to stop theorizing about how maybe the commission model might work someday in the future maybe sorta, because it's happening now. (The fact that I never even considered browsing around on Kickstarter is itself a testament to my own subconscious bias against the idea.)

emeltzer• 14 years ago

Yep, we targeted 10k for this project (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tocguide/toc-guide-to-sf...) and with 24 hours to go we have 15k. We certainly don't have any name-brand power!

6ren• 14 years ago

It's a good point and a step on the way; though these projects are not copyright free (the doublefine one is DRM-free, but not free).

Will people pledge money, knowing that the game will be equally available to everyone (i.e. they aren't getting exclusive access in return)? Maybe special bonuses (like doublefine's) will compensate? But what if they also are copyright free...?

Perhaps people paying more than the purchase price indicates that they don't mind others getting it for less? Here are the distributions (the last three aren't representative, because the number of units was limited):

  $    15      47,946
  $    30      24,636
  $    60       1,090
  $   100      11,530
  $   250         900
  $   500         148
  $ 1,000         100  SOLD OUT
  $ 5,000          10  SOLD OUT
  $10,000           4  SOLD OUT

A game on kickstarter that's free for everyone else would test this. EDIT this free comic + paid hardcopy seems close http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3701721 (raised $1,254,120)

gurkendoktor• 14 years ago

> but I think people subconsciously discard it as a real possibility because they can't imagine how it could actually happen

Or because it clearly gives power and responsibilities to the consumer. If the game sucks, I will still have paid for it. The role of the investor suddenly was forced onto me as a consumer, and I really don't want to have to do that. Going through kickstarter and reading up on each person's credentials is not worth my time, I'd rather have a third party do that (and they will only do it if they have Copyright to protect their guesses.)

brianobush• 14 years ago

seems like the idea of platform for funding ideas (kickstarter) has proved itself as a valid idea.

wccrawford4• 14 years ago

I think it's a bit early to decide that. DoubleFine Adventure and Wasteland 2 are really big hits with the fans, and this is the first time this has happened. There's a lot of emotion involved here.

If this were new IP and/or new devs, it wouldn't be nearly so crazy.

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it's not going to be a free ride in the future just because these 2 groups did it. They're going to have to work hard for it... Probably a lot harder than these 2 projects did.

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

This isn't the first time this has happened. Remember that little game "minecraft"? The game was effectively developed live while pre-orders were sold that allowed people to play the pre-release code. It raised more money than both of these games before it was released. Enough to create a game company with several employees working on other games as well.

The fact should be firmly established now: it is feasible to bootstrap the funding of games and even the creation of game companies.

Of course it's not going to be easy, and for some people it's going to be harder than for others. But it's always been that way. Making games has always been hard, it's a rather brutal industry that is not very rewarding for most of the people in it.

delackner• 14 years ago

Happy to see they put some of the extra money to adding Mac support. I wish I saw that news before the window closed, since I ignored the project on first hearing about it because they were going windows-only.

Now I see that the Wasteland 2 project also says it is Windows only, but "Maybe" they will add mac compatibility if they get 1.5mil.

This suggests that Kickstarter needs a new feature: Pledges that are conditional not just on the project succeeding, but pledges that are conditional on the project exceeding successive tiers of ambition.

wccrawford4• 14 years ago

I think Kickstarter will start to add more features like that, now that these giant successes have started. Previously, the money was so low that it wasn't really worth doing things like that.

grimborg• 14 years ago

Shame that I didn't see this before, I would have sent some cash! I'd love to play a new adventure game by Shaffer/Gilbert.

VikingCoder• 14 years ago

I'm a backer, and I'm super-excited. I'm probably a weird one, though, because I don't think I've ever played a Tim Shafer game before.

One of the projects that got me really excited was Nataly Dawn's:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/555488012/nataly-dawns-f...

She wanted to raise $20,000 to record her first solo album. Nope, she got $104,788. This is the kind of thing that can change someone's life, and it's exciting to see it happen to independent artists.

Plus, people aren't "voted off the island" each week...

I'd love to see stats about Kickstarter - for each category, what are the percentages for funded or not. For each category, a graph plotting how much people asked for, and how much they received. Stuff like that.

Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter finishes at $3,335,250

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