More Shadowrun is always a good thing, although $500.000 for something that uses the same engine and probably partly the same assets seems a bit steep.

Actually, in vast majority of preorders, you do pay for a finished product, or for at least mostly finished one.

Correct.

Nope. If that's what you want out of kicstarter - to 'Play the game' straight away, then yes, kickstarter is not designed for you. Kicstarter exists for people to throw money at a dream. Every time I back something up on Kickstarter, I officially consider that money lost and thrown down the drain, and I think that's the correct way to approach it. Why would you do that then, you ask?

There's a key distinction between kicstarter and preorder: A game up for preorder is going to come out regardless of whether or not you preorder it. A game on kickstarter might never get made. That's the whole point of the service - no, on kicstarter, you're not getting anything straight away and you might not ever get anything in the long run. It exists so projects which would never even see light of the day would get a shot.

In simple words: Without kickstarter, we would possibly never get FTL, we would never get Shadowrun: Returns, Wasteland 2 and tons of other great games. If people didn't throw their money down the drainage for those games, they would never even get made, and gaming world would be much poorer for it. It would be a massive shame. With kicstarter, you get a chance of voting with your wallet towards what you want to be made, towards the future development of some small parts of the industry. With a preorder, you don't get to do anything. Of course, if you approach kickstarter as a mere preorder, you should stay far away from it.

I suppose the real question is: Does Shadowrun: Hong Kong actually need a kickstarter after two successful games released?

Uh... Okay? Stop using ad-hominems in a calm discussion?

How is this still such a difficult thing for people to comprehend?

Whenever I see a Kickstarter for a certain game, I think to myself "this is a game I would really like to be made" if it looks interesting. Whenever I see a pre-order for a certain game, I think to myself "this is a game I really want to play the day it comes out" if it looks interesting. In a sense, they are the same thing. The biggest difference however, is that only the latter has a guarantee it will come out.

I pledge to Kickstarters because there's often stuff in there that would have a hard time finding funding elsewhere. Btw, real mature calling people "sheep" for their opinions.

The answer is that it doesn't. The funding isn't for the game itself but for some "stretch goals." The game will come out regardless of the outcome of the kickstarter. So it is essentially a preorder disguised as a kickstarter.

It really isn't, because you don't see developers improve the game from the pre-order money.

It seems people really don't understand the difference. With kickstarter, you are a stakeholder (or a donor, more accuratey...). With pre-orders, you're usually supporting some AAA studios who fuck the regular customers at every step (I'm exaggerating here, but you get the idea).

The support for the Shadowrun games was quite good (especially compared with some AAA games released recently). Also, free upgrade to the Dragonfall Director's Cut?! Square did not offer that for any of their Eidos developed games, nor EA or any other major company. So, i'd say that the company won enough trust and goodwill to be further supported via kickstarter.

The GTA series is a multi-billion dollar franchise. Scrooge McDuck could be invited to paddle in Rockstar’s ten mile wide money pool and even he would say ‘this is somewhat excessive.’ Kickstarter is investing, not preordering. Without these investments, most of these games have no chance of being made because the go big or go home attitude of the dominant publishers has all but eradicated games with middle tier budgets, and subsequently entire genres. If you want a game nobody else is willing to make, want it so badly that you’re willing to pay for the mere possibility of its making, you go to Kickstarter.

Nah I'll think I pass this for now. At least until I get around to actually playing the original game and Dragonfall thing, which I got as backer. Just don't have anytime nowadays it seems.

$600k broken, which means the only stretch goal left is Revamped Matrix at $700k. I'm especially happy that they (already) raised enough pledges to make the extra side missions. Given the speed they've had pledges thus far, I'm positive they'll break $700k as well.

Already so excited about this game. I've even wondered what kind of character I should make: probably an adept, because I haven't really paid any attention to Chi magic in the previous games :>

700k goal is almost reached. Revamped matrix is what I wanted since Shadowrun Returns.

And now they decided to make another stretch goal for 1 mio to add 4-5 hours campaign.
Oh, come on! That's preposterous! Maybe it's not, though I find it not quite right.

Ah, fudge it. It's actually GREAT! I want it right now... Additional campaign after you finished the main one? I could only dream to import my elf decker character with all etiquettes and had him know how to shoot pistol properly, so happy... :)))

Why can't kickstarter have any other payment option apart from entering my full credit card information? That turned me off many games that I would have supported otherwise...

Huh? Don't you normally pay through amazon?

Ah well, will be backing this today.

You can pay via Amazon??

Beyond the actual money offered by a Kickstarter, it also makes the situation clear to a developer. They can look at the amount of money accumulated at the end of the donation period and say "We can do X, and spread out the money like so".

With the typical publisher-developer relationship, money is given to the developer after each milestone has been reached, so the developer is at the whim and mercy of the publisher. Should things take a bad turn, the publisher could potentially close the purse strings without warning. That is likely to be a fatal blow for a developer.

The predictability of Kickstarter funding keeps the carpet from being pulled out from under developers, which makes it easier for independents to survive.