That's true. And many people didn't back Wasteland 2 because of that.

But there are still significant differences, like InXile actually having many of the people who made Fallout, including Brian Fargo.
And most importantly, you were actually paying for the chance to have an actual game, not just the right to be on forums for something that's barely more than an idea.
I mean the fact that Interplay can't even do this thing on Kickstarter should show just how empty their project is.

I'll tell ya how it goes, gave em my $20 the other day.

I don't care about the who's and what's of days long past, I like the guys who work there NOW, and I'm sure if they can get their feet under them they will be able to make some really good games.

P.S. registering trademarks costs money, using one you already own costs nothing. I fail to see what is so wrong with them re-using Black Isle Studio as the name for the internal development studio they are trying to put together ... besides, if they did use some new name you all would just be bitching about how they were making a new studio instead of dusting off Black Isle.

No such thing happened:

http://www.shacknews.com/article/61747/3dr-teases-numerous-duke-nukem

http://www.3drealms.com/history.html

http://gamasutra.com/view/pressreleases/181619/New_deal_launches_GOGcom_to_3D_Realms_of_gaming.php

http://gambitious.com/ideas

http://gambitious.com/pages/advisory_board

http://www.3drealms.com/news/2012/12/classic_shooter_by_3d_realms_shadow_warrior_now_av.html

I am really happy to see that not everyone is hating those guys. They really deserve another shot. Everyone does.

I mostly agree with you, but I think people wouldn't be as pissed off as they are now if they dropped the name, as everyone is associating it with guys who used to work there, and mostly think they are trying to scam everyone. What they fail to realise is Interplay is broke, and all those recent sales were most likely to raise money for this project. They are company of 5 people, I doubt they desperately needed money for salaries.

What people pledging seem to fail to realise is, InXile as well as Obsidian actually had something to show for their project. Heck they went for having a product at the end! Black Isle so far? Zero. All they put up, is a few marketing sentences.

Now it's probably safe to assume their current project PV13 is a spring-off or at least somewhat related to their Fallout Online MMO. Since Masthead studios actually developed / coded that, they can't use that material. But previous concept arts / design documents? Anything?
Nope. You get promises. And a forum badge. If, and that's a big if, a game would come out in the end, you'd have to pay for it.

That's not even a gamble with your money, it's throwing it out.

and I have no problem if my money is never returned to me, it was a choice to give them money and I did it because I wanted to, not because I expect some compounded interest return.

V13 .... this NEW V13 ... is not a MMO, they had to throw all of the work they had done away and start over. it's going to be squad based / turn based (so I'm guessing something real close to Tactics) with some empire building elements in the form of upgrading your settlement.

it's still going to be Post Apocalyptic, but it wont be another mad max type game set in the desert: they are talking about having it be set in entirely urban environments.

there is absolutely nothing in this that will be related to Fallout (at this point I think they are so sick of all the drama relating to Fallout that they had fun bleeping it out) and Masthead nearly closed down and has backed out of the MMO market.

They would get much more if launched a kickstarter and actually promising a game...

Received an email from them yesterday. It´s just pathetic.

So, are they more specific with backers, or is it all bells and whistles?

About two years ago, when PV13 was showed by Interplay/Black Isle I did a subscription or something similar, so they have my email.

Okay, Somehow I understood you were a backer.

they have tried Kickstarter before, with battlechess, didn't end too well.

if I remember right it was something to do with people trolling them by making bullshit pledges then pulling out at the last moment. (which is why they are going with a payment up front / all sales final program this time .... better to have lower guaranteed numbers than deal with 7 $10,000.00 pledges turn out to be bullshit.)

You mean this one: Battle Chess and no, there wasn't 4 digit bullshit pledges...

There's 2 comments about pulling pledges, claiming not enough participation from the team behind it - after nearly 2 weeks without updates. Around the same time first comments appearing about (I quote) "considered possibly ending this Kickstarter early and doing a "re-boot?" Sometimes that helps a sluggish KS campaign." - no comment.

543 backers for 16k were they wanted, for a "nearly finished game", 100k just for adding multiplayer.....
That's about 30 bucks per backer and far from shoddy. They just didn't gotten enough to actually pledge.

I'm not sure we should care about kickstarter (or the like) projects by OLD teams...
Ok, maybe they did make some good/great games. But that was ages ago, and most of the time it's the younger teams that make the best games. Not the most succesful (you just have to be called call of duty or warcraft to be a huge success) but certainly the ones that appeal to gamers the most.
I'm more interested to see good kickstarter projects by newer motivated teams that actually understand the current generation hardware and libraries.
Games like this one: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1857884659/distance-a-next-generation-arcade-racer
looks much more promising than PV13(aka a game that probably will never be released). They made a good prototype as students, they have good and fresh ideas, they have talent. Let the old dinosaurs die and back up new ideas.

The only exceptions i can see to that is when it comes to writers / game designers. But programmers ? Hell, if they were that good, they'd be working on good games by now.