Starlight: Inception 100% Funded!

After a crazy evening and a lot of last minute support, Starlight: Inception was funded at 11:47PM EST on May 8, 2012 via Kickstarter.  

It was pretty tense up until the last 12 minutes when they reached their target goal of $150,000. I was constantly refreshing the page every other minute to see if the project would be funded. I compare it to being in a heated eBay auction, hoping that with that last refresh, you scored the win.

Congrats to Escape Hatch for reaching their goal! Now they just have to make a game that their backers will enjoy.

Here is a video Q&A from Escape Hatch that discusses the details for their upcoming product:

The Banner Saga

Today, I decided to support a game on Kickstarter called The Banner Saga. If you haven't heard of it, I suggest you check out the video below:

The art style initially piqued my interest. Concepts like this would rarely get funded by a publisher, so it is great to see the gaming community support a title like this via this program.I look forward to following the team's development over the next few months.

It’s The End Of Video Games As We Know It – I Don’t Think So.

So this morning I read and watched the following news articles/videos in gaming news:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24208

http://media.digitaltrends.com/players-only/video-games-are-dead-part-1/

After doing so I had a few points I wanted to shout out to the readers.

First off, the game industry isn’t dead, nor will it be any time soon. Are there layoffs? Yes. Are developers closing and shutting their doors? Yes. Has the game industry lost sales over the last few months? Yes. Does that mean that the apocalypse is upon us and that the industry will shatter into the ground? No. To say or imply that it might be is a bit absurd.

What we have here is a recession (in case anyone has been living under a rock for the last year). To think that the game industry is immune to the economic downturn is foolish. What is worth pointing out is that our industry was hit later than most other industries and I expect it to have a shorter nosedive too. Our industry is resilient like the movie industry. If there is anything people want to do right now, it is to be entertained. They want to escape a reality that is disappointing and enter a place that brings them happiness. And there is nothing wrong with that.

This holiday season, the game industry will make a lot of money. Yes, there will be fewer games on the market, but the ones that are released will be strong and profitable. And it is probably a good thing that there will be less competition on the shelves this season, because the games that are coming out cost tons of money to make. Game development costs have risen to all-time highs and this cost will continue to be pushed onto the consumer. You would think in a recession that there would be some give and that we would see more affordable games. Instead we are seeing tons of product shipping with their own unique peripherals and many games will have to fork out the price of a gaming console for one game. Yes, these games have added value. Yes, they will have a plethora of DLC available. And yes, they are selling very well. But is that really good for the average gamer? Most players probably won’t be able to afford these games. And if they go out and spend their hard earned cash on one game, then it will be a long time before they buy another.

Development costs need to be reduced. The industry doesn’t need to spend $20-50 million on one game. In many cases $3-8 million is more than enough. It is very hard to recoup the costs that go into building a game, packaging it and marketing it. If development costs continue to rise, then the buck will be passed on to consumer. If costs come down, then the price of games would fall and the average gamer would be able to play more games a year. Personally, I think that would be better for the gaming industry.

My 2 cents.