One of the things we (fans and programmers) would like, is a tool (not to say Engine) to develop our own adventure games.
A sort of “Adventure Game Studio” aka AGS, but developed by The Mighty R.G.
Ron could make profit by selling / licensing his engine, rather than new games developed with it.
The engine could be sold at different levels and at different prices, if includes, for instance:
a puzzle dependency chart editor
an automated tester that simulates walking in walkable areas (TesterTron3000™)
On the one hand, a hard project without enough money back can be fine if you can afford it and your return is (at least) “creative fun” and satisfaction, but continuing to work in this way is bad for the economy (obviously) and the fiber moral.
On the other hand, IMHO about Kickstarter, a successful KS campaign is not a guarantee. A successful game from a KS campaign is not a guarantee. And a failed KS campaign maybe a big risk to the game’s reputation. Also $ 1M, $ 1.5M in KS is a very, very tough milestone. You can think about the DF or TWP campaign, but they should be seen as “exception” cases. Actually KS is working (and not in all cases) to fund the jump to start the dev or to fund improvements for the game, and in some cases, the KS campaign is actually used not to fund but for marketing purpouses.
Also, surely Mr. Gilbert has reached the creative / dev goals on TWP and it is logical that he wants to explore new paths through a smaller project, less time and less budget supplying it with a novel design, gameplay and / or visual impact.
Perhaps we will see in a not so close future a small project of Mr. Gilbert that evolves again the adventure games (without pressure).
We discussed it a bit in this thread and almost nobody, including Ron, liked the idea. The main issue is that the concept of in-app purchase is now so much related to “making your players addicted to something” that nobody can conceive the idea that in-app purchases means just “letting players to buy something (anything) while playing the game”.
Wow - I go to sleep and the thread explodes. Ok, let’s go:
Yes, but I think it is worth a try. We are talking about Ron Gilbert. He has already a name in the game industry (similar to Revolution Software).
Yes, but you can take that into account when setting up the Kickstarter. For example you can raise the needed money.
Revolution did that: They began production with the money from the sales from the mobile versions and then they set up the Kickstarter.
I keep my word. Mostly.
And why should this be bad? Bad would be, if you put an unplayable game in Early Access on Steam and don’t finish it.
Can you explain that a little bit more? What exactly you have to give up? The goal is to make a game with a budget, where you can live from. You take the profits from the last game to begin the development of the next game. If the money runs out, you calculate the money needed and ask for it on Kickstarter. The first part of the game is a demo and the proof that you are able to do this. In the end that’s the same situation as if you would do one Kickstarter at the beginning of the game.
Have you thought about doing contract work to finance a new game? There were serveral indie developers who are working for the advertising industrie or other organisations. For example Deck 13 developed educational (adventure) games for the german police. The money from such projects could be used to develop own games.
Or try to sell your engine. Support and consulting contracts could be very lucrative.
Ah, @ZakPhoenixMcKracken had the same idea.
You are right. But why not trying it? You only have to lose the preparation work for the Kickstarter. Ron is a big name. If I would create a Kickstarter campain with the goal of 1,5 M, I would fail. But we are talking about Ron who has a relatively huge fan base.
Why do you think so?
Of course! If he would like to do something else, he should do that.
But he could use the work on the engine for his own adventure games. For example if he removes bugs for a customer, these bugs won’t be in his own games too.
To me it sounded that he would leave the gaming industry…?
Marketing risks to count with them, I think. People usually forget very fast the good things, but no the bad ones. If people hear about a failed KS campaign, they can think that was something wrong with the game, without care about what was the real reason of the fail… And not only for a KS campaign, each bad news about a game development is a hard obstacle to deal with it. Each success is a little step forward, but each fail is a big step backwards. For this reason, I think that you must to evaluate a lot each possibility and calculate the real risks. Of course, you must enter in risks to get a project finished, there are not whole safe paths, but you must avoid that you think that is a very high risk if you can imagine other alternatives.
It’s hard to obtain the full project budget from a KS campaign and then is better obtain a reachable quantity of money from it and the rest from others sources, because you have more possibilities of a successful KS campaign, that can give you visibility on media and good reputation for the project. On the other hand, if your campaign fails you will have two scenarios: 1. Nobody cares (bad thing, nobody care about your project ), 2. People notice your fail and think that something is bad with your game (bad thing, you have to overcome this bad publicity). And, of course, if you’re Ron Gilbert it’s hard for you to stay on the first stage because the press will talk about it.
So if you think you have a good chance that your campaign will fail, it is better to look for other ways.
Of course, all this is only my opinion. I’m not a marketing expert .
I don’t agree with you: It’s just a sign that a) nobody heard about your KS campaign or b) only a few people are interested in your game - but in that case, only a few people would buy it.
I don’t think that this is true. Ron Gilbert is a well-known person with a good reputation. I can’t remember where a Kickstarter ruined the reputation of the developers. Take for example Bolt Riley: The first Kickstarter failed, the second was successful.
I would try (the 1.5+ million Kickstarter campaign) assuming that there is a good idea for a new game, appealing to a wider audience.
I’ve always thought that Yoda was an idiot when he said “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”. In real life there is a lot of trying and it can be a carefully calculated decision. The biggest obstacle is if you underestimate your potential or your reputation, because that could lead you to not even trying and to reject good opportunities.
I know people who have made this mistake multiple times and when they finally tried to do something they realized that doing and achieving it was easier than they expected. More importantly, they realized that their worst enemy was their distorted perception of their potential.
I don’t agree with failed KS campaigns being particular negative (talking about unsuccessfully funded ones of course).
But running KS campaigns are a time/money sink and you don’t want to waste any of those so it better be successful…
Ron has firsthand experience since he already did a Kickstarter (and is still working on fulfilling it…).
I think for the next game he’d prefer making it with a little more privacy.
Maintaining such engine for paying customers is a full time job.
But certainly not because he doesn’t want to make games anymore (also didn’t he say sometime he isn’t good in doing anything else anyway )
I still think that it’s wrong to tell people not to try. Between the two options “doing it” and “not doing it”, people who underestimate themselves will probably choose the “not doing it” path while people who try something could discover that achieving a result was actually possible or even easy.
But that’s how I understood it: It’s either do it or don’t do it because you either really try it properly (do it) or you just try something with the mindset “Hm, I try it but I will probably fail anyway…”, and you will likely fail (don’t do it).
Of course you can still fail when “doing it”. But my understanding of this phrase was always that thinking about “being it a try” is the problem. He isn’t not telling us to literally not trying to do something.
It’s the same what Shia LaBeouf is telling us (trying to tell us? ).
I think that is not about “doing it” or “not doing it”, It’s about “doing it” but looking for the best way to doing it. Of course, if the only way is the high risk path you haven’t more option that this path, but if there are other ways you must consider the others before. It’s a question about think and calculate pros and cons of each option.
I understand that Mr. Gilbert is talking about that he sees very remote the possibility of getting that amount the money from KS and and about the subject that making a game of this type with the budget that he would like is a business not economically profitable.
No problem either: He has just to write in the Kickstarter description that this time there is no blog and podcast.
Yes and no. You can make it a full time job, yes. But you can control the amount of time in many different ways. For example you can say: “From now on I only sell the engine and don’t give support anymore.” Or you can raise the costs for the support contracts so that only a few customers are willing to pay it. Or …
So if you have enough money for a new game, you would be able to free time for the development.
But he wrote, that he will never work for a games company/publisher. So there is only the “normal” business left. But maybe I understood it wrong. (I hope that! :))
Another question is: Does Ron want to do a new adventure? He worked four(?) years on TWP. I can imagine that he would like to do something else (for example a 3D action game with roleplaying elements in a world war setting where you have to jump and run over attacking hamsters from the outer space).
Ok, let’s go:
Support and consulting contracts could be very lucrative. 
), 2. People notice your fail and think that something is bad with your game (bad thing, you have to overcome this bad publicity). And, of course, if you’re Ron Gilbert it’s hard for you to stay on the first stage because the press will talk about it.
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