Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure quietly changed their pledge tiers. Most are more tropical or cheaper personalized in game stuff.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1787675232/sam-suedetm-in-undercover-exposure

Most notable is at $500:

STEVE INCE SKYPE EDITION: A limited chance to talk to Steve via Skype for an hour. You’ll have honor to meet Steve and talk about the game or life in general. Note: This is ONLY available at this tier, not at any of the higher tiers. Includes all rewards at the $300 level and lower. (Please add an additional $20 for international shipping to your pledge)

So if you've gotta chat with Steve Ince on more Broken Sword...

Hmmm it doesn't state you have to be clothed for that call...

Just a heads up for any Myst/Cyan fans out there, you might want to start saving up a bit:

Interview with Rand Miller (from May 19th, 2012)

With the recent success of the Double-Fine Kickstarter (among others), has Cyan thought about trying their hand a crowd-funding a project?
We have. We've gotten so much feedback from fans and friends encouraging us to do it. We've really got only two issues…
• First - what product to propose (it's between two - one Myst related and one completely new ...
• Second - we need to get enough money from RealMyst to fund a good Kickstarter proposal with some great artwork and a convincing video.
I keep thinking about the Kickstarter XKCD recently. If you haven't seen it you should check it out.

Just as I was thinking ... you know, the only "big guys" that seem to be missing from the list of Kickstarters recently are Cyan. W00t.

Seriously though, now that the Tex Murphy kickstarter has ended, do you think that's it? Was this classic gaming's big resurgence, because the years of neglect had brewed up the conditions for this kind of "perfect storm" where everything seems to get funded - even the SpaceVenture guys got funded with $100k to go only a few days from the deadline.

Do you think this kind of thing could ever work through a medium like Kickstarter again, or are we starting to see the end of the brief but intense Kickstarter era of video gaming now?

I'd also like to remind everyone of the Pinball Arcade: The Twilight Zone project. It ends in two hours, now's your chance to get an amazing pinball table for $10.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1067367405/pinball-arcade-the-twilight-zone

I hope crowd-sourcing eventually shifts away from being associated with Kickstarter, to become a conventional marketing tool at the full disposal of individual developers i.e., hosted on their own sites. This will, however, require both supply and demand-side agents to change and adapt. My main worry is that Kickstarter will monopolize crowd-sourcing, so that it continues to remain a fad rather than an alternative to traditional pre-ordering.

Not that I think Kickstarter is bad, but a developer who sets up a crowd-funding system on his own website rather than through KS will have more gains per dollar donated since he gets 100% of the money. Seriously, crowd-funding only became a buzzword in the gaming community after Double Fine's adventure game. Before that, who'd expect any game developer to get $3m in donations from non-investors in the span of a month?

*groans* Thanks for the warning....having said that, most PC game KS projects do give you the option of a cheap digital download, an option not available to boardgame lovers.
There are 2 counter-arguments to that - first the overheads for a developer in doing their own kickstart are unlikely to be less than the current 10% (5% Amazon, 5% Kickstarter) once you consider the work involved. Credit card processing costs at least 3% for most businesses - add to that other KS-related tasks like processing orders (screening out online fraud), running forums, hosting videos and customer support and the savings for a small developer are unlikely to come to much. Bigger projects (e.g. Wasteland 2) might do better but even then, the developers probably want to spend their time developing, not with all the admin stuff that KS can shoulder for them.

The second counter-argument is visibility/web-traffic. Even a specialised thread like this isn't going to pick up on more than a fraction of the projects out there, and that is with them being centred on 2-3 sites. How much harder would it be to keep track of dozens of sites, all requiring separate logins and with different formats? How would an individual, starting from scratch, be able to put the machinery in motion (website setup, project videos, payment processing) without the likes of KS to give them a leg-up - let alone gain enough visibility to attract significant funding?

On the other hand, I'd agree with your concern at KS becoming a monopoly. The situation seems comparable to eBay which had a virtuous circle going (lots of sellers attracting lots of buyers, in turn attracting more sellers) before they got greedy and upped fees to the point where many turned away (I used to check eBay regularly myself, now I rarely bother even using them for a price check). In that context, KS could certainly harm innovators (and themselves) by getting greedy too, but there will be other sites ready to step in if that happens.

As far as KS being a "fad", the months/years delay between pledging and receiving is, I think, the biggest obstacle. Most people will be accustomed to getting items within a few days of payment and the idea of waiting for as long as most projects require is probably going to put off anyone but the dedicated.

Now for a couple of new projects:
OuterEdge - Voxel Based, FPS Sandbox Survival (Jul 18) a survival RPG that doesn't involve zombies!
Rappan Athuk (Jul 2) overlooked this for a while, but it's a top-funded RPG project

AstralWanderer, you're an angel. Seriously, thanks for all these links! I'll add these two later.

Glad to see those links are useful Lowyhong! However that halo would probably fit better on your head for starting (and maintaining) this thread.

As well as the blame for us all having lighter pockets of course... :)

You should say recurrent empty pockets ... Yep, blame you lowyhong :D

Talking about less money in our pockets, <span class="bold">Fallout : Nuka Break Season 2</span> has ended at $130K yesterday... Incognito.

Wish I had enough to chip into that (blast I hate being broke till payday)

I was waiting for 14 years for a real sequel to my 1st game, Carmageddon.
And it has to come exactly in the time I can't afford even a chewing gum. I'd give 'em 10k if I had them.
Well, at least its coming.

I'm currently a little bit short of cash, so I'm trying to avoid backing games that will be released anyway, and probably even on GOG (so no Mobius, Carmageddon. Tex Murphy and SpaceVenture pledges).

I'll be backing HeXit probably, but lately I've noticed very interesting project

Paper Sorcerer

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2088045881/paper-sorcerer

RPG - I guess it's dungeon crawler - but what's very interesting, it's the graphics. Just look at the screenshots.

And you can get a copy just for 3$.


I'm also interested in:
The Hostage Trials - A Real Time Mobile Adventure

But it's only for Android and iOs mobile. I like the idea.


Also Haunts: The Manse Macabre looks interesting, but it's already on the list.

Or you can start with an Ace Ventura ass talking skit if clothes are mandatory.

Why do I look at this thread? My wallet, my suffering wallet, how I pity you.

I have a deal with my wife that I can put about $25 per month towards Kickstarter. Monthly average so far is $45. Hmmm....

I worry this one might not make it,; its Kicktraq trend's been balancing on the both sides of 100% for the past couple of weeks if not longer, and slowly it's been declining even further away from the goal. The current trend seems to be 93% of goal, while they've reached 69% of the goal so far. Granted, there's still 16 days left, but there's not even a thousand backers yet, and lately they've only gotten about $100-250 worth of pledges per day, and an average of maybe ten new backers per day. Let's hope it peaks though as it's nearing the end date, it would be a shame to see this one fail! Come on GOGers, show some support if you at all can, a petty $5 already gets you a copy! I personally am very eager to become a defender of this haunted mansion and make sure the intruders leave empty-handed, or don't ever leave at all.