A periodic topic that has come up on HN in the past few weeks is how people can make money in a non-copyright world. A common example brought up is the commission model, where payment is made in advance, but I think people subconsciously discard it as a real possibility because they can't imagine how it could actually happen.<p>Here it is.<p>Yes, Double Fine (and Brian Fargo with the Wasteland 2) come in with a pre-existing reputation worth millions, but while you're there, poke around on Kickstarter's other projects. I never had before, and I am astonished what is on there and has been successfully funded with no apparent name-brand power that I'm aware of. Just look at this stuff: <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/games/most-funded#p1" rel="nofollow">http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/games/most-fu...</a><p>There are things that targeted $10,000 and handily blew past them.<p>Relevant to HN's interests as I browse through: <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meetpoint/startup-fever-the-board-game-0?ref=category" rel="nofollow">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meetpoint/startup-fever-...</a><p>Anyway, back to my point. I think it's time to stop theorizing about how maybe the commission model might work someday in the future maybe sorta, because it's happening <i>now</i>. (The fact that I never even considered browsing around on Kickstarter is itself a testament to my own subconscious bias against the idea.)
Seems to be the start of something big, Wasteland 2 launched today on kickstarted and is about to hit $400,000. <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2" rel="nofollow">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2</a>
This was an amazing success especially given no equity traded hands. Game publishers shouldn't be the only ones worried.<p>While I don't see it being easy to do initial angel funding on Kickstarter, it clearly is possible to raise significant amounts of money if you either have a good product and/or a name.
I loved Tim's (approximate) celebration quote: "I don't want to say this is the end of the game publishing as we know it...... I'm sure a few games will still need publishers." Classic.
<a href="https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/178928061285277699" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/#!/TimOfLegend/status/178928061285277699</a><p>"$2.7MM!?! And it looks like our hourly rate is going up! Um, people... three million dollars... that was the budget of Grim Fandango!"<p>This has been such fun to watch happen.
After watching the success of Double Fine Adventure and the Lois CK video. Do you guys think it's reasonable to assume that in the future, big hollywood blockbusters would be funded this way?<p>A common argument from copyright supporters is that it wouldn't be possible to fund such movies without heavy copyright enforcement. But after watching the recent success of Kickstarter and Lois CK. I feel it's getting easier to convince artists that a better world is possible.
Happy to see they put some of the extra money to adding Mac support. I wish I saw that news before the window closed, since I ignored the project on first hearing about it because they were going windows-only.<p>Now I see that the Wasteland 2 project also says it is Windows only, but "Maybe" they will add mac compatibility if they get 1.5mil.<p>This suggests that Kickstarter needs a new feature: Pledges that are conditional not just on the project succeeding, but pledges that are conditional on the project exceeding successive tiers of ambition.
They don't just have 87,000 backers. They have a tribe of 87 000!!!. This is absolutely impressive!!!<p>I am sure some shameless lobbyists or companies are thinking of how to put Kickstarter out of business.
I'm a backer, and I'm super-excited. I'm probably a weird one, though, because I don't think I've ever played a Tim Shafer game before.<p>One of the projects that got me really excited was Nataly Dawn's:<p><a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/555488012/nataly-dawns-first-solo-album" rel="nofollow">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/555488012/nataly-dawns-f...</a><p>She wanted to raise $20,000 to record her first solo album. Nope, she got $104,788. This is the kind of thing that can change someone's life, and it's exciting to see it happen to independent artists.<p>Plus, people aren't "voted off the island" each week...<p>I'd love to see stats about Kickstarter - for each category, what are the percentages for funded or not. For each category, a graph plotting how much people asked for, and how much they received. Stuff like that.