The Wasteland 2 Kickstarter has blown past its goal of $900,000 which did not prompt an immediate response from inXile because they thought they had another week until they had their goal. However, as soon as Brian Fargo had a response worked up that talked about the implications of reaching this ambitious mark.
“YOU DID IT! We are funded and Wasteland 2 is a reality,” wrote Fargo. “A dream that began more than 20 years ago has actually come true. After years of attempting to get Wasteland 2 kicked off and countless pitch meetings to every major publisher out there, we had almost given up. Even six months ago we didn’t see any way that Wasteland 2 was ever going to happen. Then the world suddenly changed.”
“This is a paradigm shift that is way bigger than Wasteland 2,” he added. “This is the beginning of a new era in gaming where the developer gets to work directly with the fans to build the type of product that the fans want. No focus groups, no pitches to the marketing team, no trying to get an executive committee to group-think their way to a project green-light. Now we just have a developer with a creative idea that resonates and a group of dedicated fans who are willing to lay down their money to buy it.”
He noted the risk of asking for more than any Kickstarter in history, but he noted, “we did it because every time we have interacted with the gaming community for the last decade they have asked about getting this sequel done. Even while we have been on press tours for other products, doing press interviews and presentations all over the planet, it always comes up. When are we getting Wasteland Well, I finally have an answer for everyone. You all get a Wasteland Sequel in October of next year! Not only did we meet the highest funding goal ever on Kickstarter, we did it in 2 days! I know… we can’t believe it either.”
“So thank you all for making this happen, and please don’t stop spreading the word,” Fargo continued. “If the entire community continues to help spread this through social media, there is no telling how much money we can raise. Every time you get someone else to participate, you are working to make the game bigger and better. We will be making some announcements very soon about what we will be adding to the development if we hit even higher levels.”
Fargo confirmed that the game will be getting localization into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Polish. He also said that at the $1.5 Million level they will be adding a Linux version along with the Mac OS X version.
Helping the funding cause, they changed out the $2,500 prize from being a blood sausage to giving the donor a chance to create a unique item in the world. Also, the number of people that can receive the max prize by donating $10,000 increased from eight to 16.
Fargo later added, “What an incredible week this has been. The outpouring of support and faith is nothing like I have ever had before (except maybe from my Mom), and for the first time in years it feels good to be in the games business. I have always loved both making and playing games, but the business side of it has been painful at times. In fact, there were a couple times the frustration with publishers was so high I considered stopping. It just seemed like the era of purity was over. Even when Interplay was a large company there was such a positive vibe with everyone pulling in the same direction with a real passion for their job. I frequently run into the folks I worked with in those days, and this same memory of those times remains with them.”
“One friend of mine who worked with me there said recently he felt that in the beginning of the industry all the nerds were in charge, but then as the industry grew it changed, and now the guys that picked on the nerds got back on top. I think there was some great truth to that,” he said. “We all hope this movement is bigger than just Tim Schafer or Brian Fargo as we want to get power back into the developers hands again. And the unbelievable Indie scene shows that there is momentum in that direction. The development community continues to pull itself together to ensure their success. They share tools, they share statistics, they share ideas, and the biggest donators in Kickstarter are always developers. All of this reminds me of the freshness the industry had in the late 80′s through mid 90′s in which creativity was being directed only by the gamers. The gamers will always rule at the end of the day.”
