In a new interview with Ars Technica, Ron has shared a few thoughts on his professional journey, his latest game and his struggles to find funding.
Regarding Thimbleweed Park 2, he said that:
he would love revisiting the Thimbleweed Park 2 world but “I just don’t know where I’d ever get the money. It’s tougher than ever in some ways… Kickstarter is basically dead these days as a way of funding games.”
he would only pursue a sequel if it significantly reinvented the formula and was not just a classic point-and-click game.
It’s a very detailed interview about his opinions on the industry, and I suggest reading it.
Yeah, earlier this year “Cronela’s Mansion” got £154,055 (over $200K) from their Kickstarter (the game is a classic-style Maniac Mansion type of adventure), so I’m sure Ron could get way more.
Though maybe the issue is that TWP got $600K Kickstarter, but also needed another $600K from private investors, so he’s spending over a million dollars on making this kind of game.
The Drifter (which I haven’t played) cost $220,000 to make, so maybe he could stick to more that kind of budget… though that game did take 6 years to make.
I’ve always been skeptical about Kickstarters. I’ve contributed to several, but only if the game or product enticed me. I didn’t contribute just because I trusted the authors.
After following Ron’s journey for several years, I’ve become convinced that he wants money to experiment with whatever artistic expression he feels like expressing at the moment.
I support that sentiment, but I feel like it sometimes may conflict with creating a game that people will like so much that the project will be a social and financial success. It’s just the duality of games. They are both art and products, and in order to attract funding you also need to create a marketable product.
So, when Ron says that it wouldn’t be a classic point-and-click adventure, my skeptic mode turns on, because he is departing from a genre in which he has a lot of experience and venturing into something that I want to check before deciding whether to support the project.
Hopefully, I’m in the minority. I have no idea what percentage of fans would give Ron money no matter what.
When TWP was released, Ron sounded to me as if he was not open-minded for another kickstarter project in the future. He mentioned the additional duties - especially the pressure that inevitably results from the different expectations of the backers (it’s impossible to fulfill all of them) - also the efforts for the dev blog (design decisions, podcast and so on).
I also reasoned on that and I think that, with enough budget, it would be possible to avoid part of that pressure by delegating some activities that involve curating the community.
I think that what Ron loves the most is to code engines and having creative fun turning ideas into games. I have a feeling that the social/communication/marketing aspect is important for him, but not his favorite part.
With enough funds, he could hire a community manager who helps him finding ways to reward the community that won’t take up much of his time. Someone else could handle that pressure.
I also think he did a tremendous job for the community during the development of TWP, with a lot of posts and podcasts. He could also reduce the quantity of those reports, so that it doesn’t take much time away from the development.
I would probably back another Kickstarter from Ron just for the dev blogs and podcasts, as long as it was for some kind of adventure game. I got a lot of enjoyment out of the TWP ones.
Or even some kind of Patreon where you subscribe for the duration of the game’s development to get that kind of stuff.
For me, and for several people I presume, the boom era of Kickstarter is over. Its no longer an exciting new thing, but a normal part of our media landscape. A lot of unconventional games got a lot of hype, only to come out mediocre and/or niche. TWP certainly falls into the niche category.
Kickstarter being the home of Undertale, widely considered one of the best games of the 10s if not of all time, somehow did little to shift the needle to positive attention towards Kickstarter. Meanwhile, several famous flops like Mighty Number 9, Yooka Laylee, and Spaceventures got the Kickstarter model a lot of negative attention. I guess negativity bias is real. I’ve heard other commentators on different sites say the Double Fine Documentary is better than the Broken Age game, and they’re right.
But it would be mean to say these games are “flops”, they’re usually just OK budget titles. I know of people who like MN9 and Spaceventures, I like the recent Yooka-Replayee remaster and so do a lot of people. But a Just OK title isn’t satisfying to a Kickstarter audience who want the narrative of a brilliant unique creative project david and goliathing the AAA landscape.
There’s two kinds of projects left on Kickstarter and its indie projects with pre-existing audiences, or tech scams. And I mean real scams - I don’t think a failed Kickstarter is a scam, although it is unfortunate. Maybe it was always that way - but the scams seem to have become a lot more common and I wouldn’t donate to a kickstarter who’s creators I wasn’t familiar with any more. I don’t think you could do a Double Fine Adventure to such widespread success nowadays. Maybe projects are making less money overall, as the novelty of the idea of Kickstarter is gone. I think Ron Gilbert definitely falls into “indie projects with pre-existing audiences”.
I’d be around for a TWP 2, especially if it radically reinvented itself. A reimagining of the adventure game jump to 3D has lots of room for things common in Ron Gilbert games like commentary, parody, and meta elements. But he wasn’t talking about a 3D TWP2, he was talking about a 3D MI. I don’t think I really want another Monkey Island game, I’m really happy with Return as a finale. I’d play another MI game, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t crave it.
I would be pleased by another MI game by Ron Gilbert - the budget would be provided by Disney, I guess, but nonetheless it might be more unlikely than another crowd-funded game by him.
there goes my last hope for a banger oldschool verb-based 2D adventure game… sad really cause it’s my favorite genre.
TWP is my all-time No. 1 adventure game (best ending ever) together with MI2 (coolest Guybrush and best MI ending), The Drifter (best story, atmosphere and voices) and MM (the OG). Have been playing adventure games since KQ1 and tons in the last years. Very very few that I can even remember because they were so forgettable. Only TWP and The Drifter can hang with the best ones from the glory days of the (edit: early) 90s. Honourable mention: Strangeland and RtMI (no intention to play that a 2nd time either though). Rest of the genre are unfortunately fillers in my eyes. Baffling how many are so bad/boring we wouldn’t have played them back in the days!
Since I read Ron’s interview the first time I have been getting Blue Prince and The Seance of Blake Manor though (no use in waiting for a good 2D title anymore, I reckoned…). Played the Blake Manor demo for 5 min and I gotta say I can see how 1st person 3D could work. Not that they haven’t tried since… Jesus - Myst? Maybe earlier. More freedom of movement = good luck with the controls. Higher resolution = good luck finding/distinguishing those interactive objects (used to be true at least, seems that nowadays they’re finding artstyles that are simplistic enough to maybe make it work).
Anyone here having played Blue Prince or The Seance of Blake Manor?
Hey Ron, I’d instantly pay 100 bucks for TWP2. Hell, maybe even 200 and I’m broke as f…
there goes my last hope for a banger oldschool verb-based 2D adventure game… sad really cause it’s my favorite genre.