Double Fine Adventure Crosses $2.5 Million In Kickstarter Funding

An anonymous reader writes "Double Fine Adventure, the crowd-funded adventure game from Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert (of Monkey Island fame), just crossed the $2.5 million mark in funding on Kickstarter. So far, about 73,000 enthusiastic backers have contributed an average of $35 dollars each, with 3 extravagant backers going as far as to contribute $10,000 (earning them a lunch with Schafer and Gilbert, among other goodies). The total sum is over 6 times the amount Schafer and Gilbert were initially hoping to raise ($400,000). Schafer released a few pictures showing what he's doing with all the money. The project has received attention in mainstream media (sort of), with NPR's Morning Edition covering the story."

Comments

Schafer wins the Internet

[DWMorse]

Click the pictures link, it's worth your time.

Re:Schafer wins the Internet

[Xemu]

I agree. I believe my investment is in safe hands.

Re:Schafer wins the Internet

[0100010001010011]

It appears seemingly more responsible than what Wall Street has been doing at my money.

Crowd-funding

[alexgieg]

Crowd-funding is how entertainment will work in the the not too distant future, as far as creators are concerned:

0) Start by making something good, although probably for free, thus starting to build a reputation;
1) Offer to do something, for money, proportional to your reputation;
2) Get funded by the crowd;
3) Deliver a good end result, and with it improve your reputation;
4) Loop back to 1 as much as you need or want;
5) Retire.

Copyright? What for?

Re:Crowd-funding

[Anonymous Coward]

Music you say ?

0) Start by composing a few good tracks , although probably for free , play in a few pubs thus starting to build a reputation;
1) Offer to go to gigs , for money , proportional to your reputation;
2) Get funded by the crowd that showed up;
3) Deliver a good end result , and with it improve your reputation;
4) Loop back to 1 as much as you need or want;
5) Retire;

Music artists hurt by pirated albums you say ? Tell that to anybody that enjoyes going to concerts.
I've paid for once concert more than I've paid for all my CD's , and a concert is a one-time event,
Good musicians earn their living through concers , shit ones through radio ad revenue.

Re:Crowd-funding

[am 2k]

To keep other people from making something better using your building blocks and leaving you out of it.

Unlike yourself, who hasn't used a single concept (like the idea of an adventure game or using a mouse as an input device) from somebody else at all.

Re:Crowd-funding

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Copyright isn't the demon here, it's the middle-men that have taken over the administration of creative works at the EXPENSE of the creator.

Copyright isn't inherently evil, but the corporations and interests that are far removed from the average creator's interests are twisting copyright to make it something negative to the consumer.

Re:Crowd-funding

[alexgieg]

To keep other people from making something better using your building blocks and leaving you out of it.

The (alleged) purpose of copyright is to promote the progress of arts. The moment it starts keeping other people from making something better, i.e., starts PREVENTING the progress of arts, its whole purpose becomes null and void. So, again: copyright? What for?

Re:Crowd-funding

[artor3]

Doesn't work. You really think that this kickstarter project is endlessly reproducible? There are so many great movies and TV shows and books and songs and video games that would never have seen the light of day if they had to be funded in advance.

By your own admission, you have to do some good, free works first, before you get jack. And one good game ain't gonna cut it. You really think people would dump millions of dollars onto some developer who's only claim to fame was a single, albeit fun, flash game? Of course not. You'd have to make hit after hit, and only then, after years of unpaid hard work, would you even have a chance of getting paid.

Kickstarter, the Humble Bundles, they're all nice supplements. But for the vast majority of content, copyright is necessary. It needs reform, but it is necessary.

There's also a Tactical Shooter!

[airfoobar]

A few of days ago I submitted a story about another high-profile game creator following Schafer's lead by using Kickstarter, but /. mods chose to post ads about Apple TV instead (because obviously Apple needs the help more than an indie team).

"..an independent team led by Chistian Allen (lead designer/creative director for games like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Halo: Reach) has launched a Kickstarter for a new hardcore tactical shooter."

Their PR is nowhere as good as Schafer's, but tactical shooters deserve some love too!

Again Kickstarter is used to rob the commons

[Anonymous Coward]

2.5 Million? And we'll never own the game.

For 2.5 Million we could fund the same effort or more and enrich the commons with a high quality opensource game that would allow a wide array of derivative. Instead the commons is robbed and is given a proprietary game.

Slashdot should not be posting kickstarters for software and other things that aren't free/libre open source licensed or creative commons licensed.

Use kickstarter to compensate creative people for their effort, but pay them to contribute to the commons as well.

Re:Again Kickstarter is used to rob the commons

[Anrego]

Or we could use the money to cure cancer!

Seriously though, people spend the money on whatever they want. There's always something better they could have spent the money on, but things don't work that way. If they did we'd all be giving all our money to whatever society deemed the absolute most important cause.

As for turning slashdot into a church of RMS .. bleh.

Re:Again Kickstarter is used to rob the commons

[Garth Smith]

We donated millions to Tim Schafer because he has a rightly earned reputation for making great games. Tim is being rewarded for all the hard work he put in. Are you saying that good work and effort should go unrewarded? Is it a problem that we want to help people out who have already proven they can enrich our lives? Kickstarter has helped us get a new old-school adventure game where previously where was none.

Re:Again Kickstarter is used to rob the commons

[Paul Fernhout]

AC had a good point. Creativity is generally not improved by rewards, and there are other ways to support people than linking the right to consume with an increasingly precarious income-through-jobs link. We could have had $2.5 million of free stuff, and now we are getting yet more proprietary stuff.

See my essay on that theme (though it is directed more at tax-exempt non-profits):
http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html
Longer version: http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-works.html

See also on why creativity diminished if done for material gain:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

From 1964 on the strained income-through-jobs link.
http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm

Alternatives:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_dictionary_of_alternatives.html?id=IKZVKMPEQCEC

Re:Again Kickstarter is used to rob the commons

[Paul Fernhout]

"Tell some high-quality F/OSS dev to make a kickstarter project then and stop whining about it here."

The problem is that the social dynamics of Kickstarter don't work very well for F/OSS, given that pledges are generally tightly tied to specific rewards (and pledges are amplified by the project creating "artificial scarcity").

The big issue is that people need to wake up to the notion that they are supporting and even creating "artificial scarcity" with how they spend their time and money. Related by me: http://www.artificialscarcity.com/