

Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter finishes at $3,335,250 - xelfer
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure/?

======
jerf
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...](http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/games/most-funded#p1)

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-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meetpoint/startup-fever-the-
board-game-0?ref=category)

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.)

~~~
6ren
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)

------
robryan
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
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
> 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.

~~~
Macsenour
My first game for the Commodore 64, a port, sold 18,000 copies. It was
considered a big hit at that time, 1983.

------
Aloisius
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
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.

~~~
sirclueless
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.

~~~
kennywinker
With the recent crowdfunding bill obama just signed, I hope to see a
kickstarter-like site that offers equity instead of "rewards". There are lots
of businesses that don't work well as kickstarters, but could work with an
equity model.

~~~
sirclueless
Even so, I have my doubts that mob mentality and viral marketing will prove to
be reliable diviners of good investments. That said, they may be every bit as
good as say, a gated community of silicon valley entrepreneurs and angel
investors. After all, in a sort of perverse coincidence, these people purport
to predict mob mentality and viral potential. Maybe crowd-funding is just
trading the experience and insider knowledge of the investor community to cut
out the middleman.

In any case, I fully expect both sources of funding to produce plenty of gems,
so I would fight to make sure both can survive and be strong.

~~~
bermanoid
The main thing crowd-funding has over big investors is that rather than having
to predict what the mob will be interested in, the mob can be part of the
investment process.

Sure, they might not be as good at judging potential to execute as a seasoned
team of investors, but they'll be a lot better at gauging interest levels.

I also wouldn't underestimate the potential of having a lot of tiny investors
becoming product evangelists; if you've got a thousand people putting $50
apiece into a project, that's not only a thousand first users, it's also a
thousand real people that will happily post links to Facebook, mention the
product in a blog, recommend it to their friends, etc. Especially because they
presumably were interested in it in the first place.

------
zacman85
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.

------
axlelonghorn
<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.

------
vibrunazo
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
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.

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

~~~
zipdog
Try: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting> for a starting point
(esp. 'Examples'). Also note that states often provide generous tax subsidies
to film projects filmed in their territory. Some films can profit their
investors without making any money at the box office (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uwe_Boll>)

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

~~~
ugh
No, it wasn't:
[http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/the_partys_over_but_...](http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/the_partys_over_but_the_adventure_has_just_begun/)

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.)

------
delackner
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.

~~~
wccrawford
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.

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

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

~~~
wccrawford
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
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.

~~~
wccrawford
That was different. When I bought Minecraft, I was able to say to myself, "For
this price, if I never get an update, it was worth it."

That's not the case with these kickstarters.

------
OoTheNigerian
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.

------
grimborg
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.

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

------
VikingCoder
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...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/555488012/nataly-dawns-first-
solo-album)

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.

------
shingen
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
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
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.

~~~
Ralith
An _average_ XBLA game makes millions?

I need to change careers.

~~~
ido
He was talking about budget, not profits. I don't know about average but I
wouldn't be surprised if quite a bit of XBLA/PSN ( __not __XBLIG) are made at
around that budget point (AAA games on the other hand commonly have budgets in
the 10s of millions, some ever more).

The _common_ XBLA game probably loses money.

