Kickstarter

Any of you familiar with Kickstarter? For those who aren’t, Kickstarter is this great site that hosts all sorts of projects that anyone can donate to. It happens to be exceedingly popular for games. There are several games that have been funded through Kickstarter and, because of this, are available to play right now. 

One such example is Shovel Knight. It started off as this idea for a Metroid-vania platformer with a pixelated artstyle and a protagonist who wields a shovel as a weapon. The developer Yacht Club Games just needed $75,000 to make this possible. Over 14,000 people backed the game with donations and the Kickstarter netted over $300,000! 

The developers also made offers to encourage people to donate more. To anyone who pledged $10, they would receive a free Steam Key for the game. Those who pledged $15 receieved a digital copy of the game for Wii U or 3DS. And the rewards just kept getting better. Yacht Club even threw in some additional content based on how much they went past the minimum amount of money they needed. Because they earned $300,000, they have included a Battle Mode which lets you face all the bosses one at a time. Basically, a boss rush that you can play whenever you feel like it.

Unfortunately, the Kickstarter campaign can be exploited. Normally when a project doesn’t meet its funding period (usually thirty days), that money goes back to the people who pledged. In the event that a project does get funded, sometimes the project host will run off with the cash and not follow up on their promises. Worst of all, some terrible things have been created via Kickstarter. I’m talking games that sounded amazing, but turned out horrible. Maybe the devs were in over their heads or they got lazy. There’s also some controversies such as when Broken Age was funded. Double Fine asked for $400,000 dollars and met their goal in just eight hours. However, that was not enough to make the full game and that is why, at this time of writing, Broken Age has only the first act. Double Fine miscalculated their budget and fans were outraged at being given only half a game. Fortunately Double Fine has the money to finish the game and the second act will be out later this year. 

By all means, if you see anything you like on Kickstarter and want to support it, pledge some money. Doesn’t even have to be above a single dollar. Any support is great. Just be absolutely sure this is something you want to happen and do some research on the project host so you don’t end up being disappointed.