Kickstarter for video games so far has been very personality driven, with the best known personalities receiving the highest amount of funding. Chris Avellone has been involved in a few such Kickstarters, though he’s hesitant to say that gaming needs to be more personality driven.
“I think I’d probably take a step back from the answer and just see how AAA titles treat that, because I even feel like even when you’re dealing with games like Ultima or if you’re dealing with Gears Of War,” said Avellone. “I don’t necessarily feel that common public knows who Richard Garriott is, nor would they know who Cliffy B is. People in the industry obviously will but I don’t know if that cult of personality status ever goes beyond the people who actually are more inside the gaming arena. My feeling is that is doesn’t.”
“So therefore my question with Kickstarter is, I don’t think most people outside the gaming arena actually get as involved with Kickstarter as a result, it’s more like a subset of really dedicated gamers that already know who those personalities are or know what that type of game is or know why that game concept is interesting or they know why those people left that studio or what their personal story is. And I think that all factors in.”
“But in terms of whether figures like that can alienate or sort of upset the rest of the team…I suppose that’s always a danger,” he continued. “I think that the thing to do is, I think personalities like that have a responsibility to call out specific people who have done great work on those titles. Just because obviously those personalities certainly have not come up with all of the systems, or even a good percentage of the systems for those games even though they might be the mouthpiece for the game. So I think that’s a real danger and I think that in their role they have a responsibility of making sure that the people that contributed the work that is making everybody successful is being called out specifically and I guess that’s my thought.”
Source: GamesIndustry International
