[NAG] June "On The Forums"

[GeometriX]

Q: Is crowd-funding (Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, etc.) the future of indie games, or even the industry as a whole? Why?

[echo]

Jip, I think it is. With constant bickering about publishers and their draconian DRM systems people will get fed up and start doing it their way. This is it.

[Shaderow]

Depends on whether the first few games made with this succeed or not. If so then yes, we are going to take this industry into our own greasy paws.

[Sir-Ominous]

Definitely, talented people are lost and cool projects are scrapped because of the lack of funding. With sufficient funds and talented people, miracles can happen to the Gaming Industry.

[FatalGlory]

I think that crowd-funding is the way that many media platforms are headed, particularly music and documentaries. I don't see why it wouldn't affect games as well, particularly indie titles who would and are adapting to the platform much quicker. Although in a way the game industry has adopted that approach to a certain extent for quite a while. Fans pre-order a title and they get something extra in the form of DLC or whatever. But, in terms of large scale crowd-funding for major titles I don't see it happening for a while, although that seems to be the direction of the indie scene.

[Spindleshanks]

No. Evil will always win. It won't last.

[Wesley]

Its a good idea, but there are some titles that should never be revived by Kickstarter that could waste gamer-investor's money, like LSL. Nothing will replace it or be better than it. Let it rest in peace.

[Morrigan]

I think it is great, especially if you look at how major studio's have dropped the ball lately. By all means put the money where it can make a difference. I think it is about time people vote with their wallets.

[CaViE]

It just needs one failed project that started with a Kickstarter campaign and users will turn on the idea.

[Grimnebulin]

Kickstarter is a phenomenal concept that will absolutely endure the failures sure to result from select campaigns. It's driven by the constant flow of communication between developer and fan and sets a level of expectation grounded by tangible elements. The diversity of the projects seeking funding should ensure that interest never wanes.

[CyniKill]

Yes. It'll help publishers realise they aren't the only choice for developers and consumers and will have to actually become competitive, rather than screw both parties over.

[rigor621]

I think it possibly will. Consumers go for it since its a game that they want to see come out, and publishers get to finance a game without tapping into their own resources (or at least, partially avoiding doing so) to start with, with the added benefit of having a reasonable knowledge of how well the game will sell.
The drawback though is that they have an idea of how it will sell beforehand, and so if its not a good outlook, they might resort to devloping the game according to expected players and decreasing quality to achieve a better cost/benfit ratio.
My 2cents:)

[FreddyAintDead]

I don't think it's the future of gaming, but I think the idea in itself has an awesome future.

[nukehead]

By logic, it succeeds. In order to convince thousands of people to relinquish money to 'back' a project you need to have something tangible in the first place. Instead of having a select few to speculate on whether a project will succeed or not you have your customers. How can it fail?

Unless you are Al Lowe of course...

[cc4Spawn]

Absolutely! Gamers invest in what they want to play and awesome ideas become a reality.