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

DLC, Expansion packs, Pre order bonuses and all that s**t

Gaming is an expensive hobby, fact. Console games now cost £49.99...but that isn't the final cost for most games anymore. If you're relatively young DLC is probably the norm for you but us slightly older ladies and gentleman remember a more simple time. Let us go back in time.

Late 1998 I was introduced to one of my favourite games of all time, Baldurs Gate on the PC. At the time I believe it cost me about £30, If I was being truly honest my PC wasn't good enough to run it so I played it at a friends house. I won't go into detail about the game but it was engaging, difficult, full of things to do and had a decent sized campaign. This was my first introduction to an expansion pack (I guess early name for DLC), Tales of the sword coast was released in April 1999 and added roughly 30 hours extra game play to the original game. The key point I want to make here is that it didn't directly impact the main storyline/campaign.

Fast forward to 10th April 2015. Evolve was released to absolute uproar when DLC was available the day of release. Gone are they days games cost only the amount you pay for the actual game. At the time of writing, buying Evolve with all add-ons and passes would cost you a massive £68.68 (two and fraction a Baldurs Gates for you budding mathematicians!). Almost £70 for a game that, if truth be told, isn't technically finished. Are developers under too much pressure to meet a deadline that they throw out an unfinished product? Or do they know we will lap up everything they throw at us and see the big £££ signs?

I can't just pick on Evolve, pretty much all new releases do it now. Battlefield: Hardline has been released with a standard and a deluxe edition, the latter giving you access to more equipment. Mortal Kombat promises you bonus characters if you preorder and has DLC ready to sell on release date.

I don't necessarily have a problem with new content but some games now push for you to buy the content by locking parts of the game down, my previous article about Destiny is a key example. Call of Duty gives us maps from previous games, Rock Band/Guitar Hero bleed us dry with extra songs.

The way things are going it seems to me that if you don't get the content you put yourself at a huge disadvantage. Not just because you miss out on new features but in some games spending more money gives you an advantage over the competition.

Whichever way you look at it DLC is here to stay and will more than likely keep growing in price but what can we do, stop playing games in protest?

@joe_copson