Has Kickstarter Kickstarted?

I picked up my copy of 'Pillars of Eternity' yesterday and played about an hour to get a feel for it. If you have read a previous article of mine you would have seen I am a massive fan of the Black Isle games, which at the time were a massive success. PoE was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, who were founded in 2003 after Black Isle studios were closed when parent company Interplay had financial troubles.

Anyway, enough game developer history. One reason PoE is hitting the headlines is because it was crowd funded using Kickstarter.com, the site gives people the opportunity to share their ideas with the public giving them the chance to pledge money towards developing the idea into a final product. Obsidian obviously done something right as the asked for $1.1 million....and ended up with almost $4 million! The game has since been released and is picking up rave reviews. So my question is, are crowd funded projects the way forward?

September 14th 2012 - March 25th 2015, that was the time period from the announcement of the project to release date. During that period Obsidian gave constant updates to how things were looking, showed concept art and told people that pledged what rewards they would be getting their hands on. Obsidian did have a major advantage though, they are already an established development team. They already have Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dungeon Siege 3 and South Park: The Stick of Truth on their CV, gamers were more than likely to trust them with their hard earned cash.

So who else has profited from crowd funded projects?

Before PoE, the highest funded project was 'Broken Age' which was developed by Tim Schafer, who rose to fame working at Lucasarts games and then was the mastermind behind the highly successful 'Grim Fandango' (recently remastered, absolutely give it a go if you like your point and click adventures).

If I said the name Takashi Tateishi, how many of you would know where I am going next? (I wouldn't have...) If I said the name 'Mega Man' does that turn on a few light bulbs? Well he is another person who is involved in a kickstarter campaign (Takashi, not Mega Man) with the upcoming release of 'Mighty No.9'. Described as the spiritual successor to 'Mega Man' fans jumped at the chance to plow their money towards the game. Only 900k was requested, it pulled in a massive $4 million.

By the looks of things it seems crowd funded projects are becoming more and more popular, these were just two games that gathered a massive following and were hugely popular. I guess it is easier for fans to get behind projects they feel a part of, we are offered incentives for putting more money in. PoE gave you chance to name a weapon or non player character. The remastered Carmageddon offers you the chance to have your face in the game.

So for experienced teams of developers it seems like a logical choice to get funded, I think only time will tell if this will rub off onto teams starting out in the game making world.

The big boys will still release the blockbuster games regardless but I think if you fancy something different take a look at the crowd funded projects. You may find that bit of nostalgia you're after.

@Joe_Copson