It really depends on what's being offered, who's offering it, and how they offer it.

Tim Schafer's project was a success because he's built up a ton of good will, and time and again proven himself to be trustworthy, friendly, funny, and dedicated to delivering quality products. He was also offering a type of game that otherwise simply couldn't exist. It was the perfect pitch.

Wasteland 2 kind of rode that success, delivered a pretty good -if partially vague- pitch for another style of game that otherwise people simply would not get. It was supported by everyone who missed the old non-FPS Fallout games.

Then the crowdsource shooter kickstarter was posted, and I just saw nothing to get behind there. The market is flooded with shooters, and nothing in his pitch made it sound unique. It didn't help matters that he insulted gamers (even if second-hand) by stating he'd been told Console Gamers were too dumb to buy his game. Or that he admitted in the description he put it up entirely because of the success of the Double Fine Adventure.

Honestly though, what's really hurting it now is that certain sites are now blocking discussion of it, perhaps feeling like they've become a platform for e-begging. Currently you will be banned on 4chan if you attempt to post a link to a kickstarter page. If the projects can't go viral anymore, they can't get support.

Oh, and the whole thing lost some legitimacy with the posting of the Your World project, not to mention indiegogo's Arkh Project, which has been an embarrassment for much longer.

Auditorium <3

Can't wait to get my goodies, totally worth the money!

Co-op Auditorium sounds like shit. Keep other people the fuck away from my Auditorium.

Kickstarter was founded in 2008, and since, many have tried using it to get ideas off the ground. Not everyone's a success story. Before Borut Pfeifer was a designer on upcoming XBLA strategy game Skulls of the Shogun, he pitched a puzzle/action game set during the post-election riots in Iran. He figured it would take $15,000 to make that game--he got only $2,925.

IT'S NOT RELIABLE AT ALL TAKE THIS GUY WHO WANTED TO MAKE A TRAIN BOMBING IRAN PUZZLE GAME

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS KICKSTARTERS YOUR LUCK IS ABOUT TO RUN OUT

All kickstarter did was flood the indie game market with money and create a bubble, tons of games are bound to get hurt by it, especially as big and fancy games with million dollar kick starters get all the attention while other, equally interesting games are kicked under the carpet.

Everytime Patrick posts one of these stories, I get in trouble

Attention Kickstarters... no one who doesn't know/trust you is going to donate to you. That's why Schaffer succeeded.

For me, Kickstarter is somewhat of a risk/reward thing. I'm not going to order a freaking iPod dock, for example, when it won't be delivered until July 2012 (by which time iPhone 5 will probably be out soon). Or a board game that only tries to sell its art and has exposed very little of the actual game.

Tim Schaefer, Brian Fargo, and other people with real reputations are the exception to the trule because people are just going to kickstart based on trust. But most other gaming-related projects look and sound really risky. You really have to know how to pitch a product; otherwise, you won't even be able to find a publisher.

I'm entranced by kickstarter and it's potential as a financing tool, thanks for this article!

@The_Boots said:

I think people might be being a bit too negative. I mean, think about what we're saying! I helped a single guy quit his day job as a lawyer and set out to do something productive for a change: make a cool looking video game! I think the problem is that after such incredible successes as Double Fine, we're losing sight of the fact that $60,000 is still a LOT OF MONEY.

That what I say, sure there a pitfalls and not everyone gets fully funded...but that is the point. People keep saying, "Well it’s not the little guy who gets funded." But I say, "Well that is maybe for the best." A rag-tag bunch of people in a basement with just a good idea are no ready to take money from people and get a product out in most cases. Unless you have made a game and sold it on the Apple store or some PC shareware site, they you probably dont have teh inferstucture or management to handle an Kickstarter game. And, such rag-tag groups are likely bad news, because when they don't produce anything decent having burn all the money... everyone looks bad.

On the investing side, I'd tell people to give $15 and then keep their expectations in check. If you cannot afford to LOSE (totally get nothing for your money) you should not be sniffing around a site like Kickstarter. If $15 is just a few cups of coffee to you and you like the prospect of a neat idea seeing the light of day then you have the correct mindset. If you are going to whine and cry when you don't get what you feel is $15 worth of value for $15 paid in -- JUST STAY AWAY.