So they reached the Mac goal, wonder when they'll update with everything.

Hopefully be good (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Ok, so i am getting a german localization if this keeps up.
and then we may be getting a better level editor . .

And Riggers, and possibly the 2007-Xbox game guy as a generic mook we can kill over and over again!

*orgasm*

<3 that game

I wonder how much money will be needed for Riggers? They should put some milestones on this. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Anyway, let's see. Some more math, this time, not spurious. I've refreshed the Kickstarter page at 3:32 PM, EST.

It's currently at $440,912. I'll break it down.
$15 x4,607 = $69,105
$30 x 2,418 = $72,540
$60 x 1,262 = $75,520
$100 x 1,228 = $122,800
$250 x 125 = $32,250
$500 x 20 = $10,000
$1,000 x 15 = $15,000
$2,500 x 5 = $12,500
$5,000 x 0 = $0
$7,500 x 0 = $0
$10,000 x 2 = $20,000

Well now! This has revealed some interesting facts.

Firstly, my tally of the sums involved is $404,715, assuming that everyone pledged the bare minimum. The total was $440,912, so there's $36,197 anomalously unaccounted for; people who decided to pledge above a reward bracket, but below the next one... Although at this point, we might as well stop saying 'reward' and start saying 'pre-order,' because with 27 days left and already overbudget, this thing is going to stampede so hard you may have to make another game to come up with a way to spend all your money. Or else turn it into a gorgeous, slickly polished piece of artwork.

(I, for one, would not mind if excess from this project went into getting Mechwarrior 3015 off the ground. Hey, there's an idea - the big publishers turned MW3015 down? Take it to Kickstarter! Two things this world needs more of is Shadowrun and BattleTech, in video game forms.)

Anyway, some interesting facts. The folks who pledged between $100 and $250 were by far the most productive. in terms of cash they raked in. That also seems to be the cut-off point, because it's less diminishing returns and more returns taking a swan-dive off the space needle. Everything after that point combined amounts to $89,750. Certainly not insignificant, in that you'd be underbudget without them, but by far the $15-249.99 crowd have been carrying this project.

So what does that mean, practically speaking? Well, for one thing, you guys are going to be making a lot of T-shirts and DocWagon cards.

i would like another shadowrun game based on the fallout tactics engine better . .
aside from the matrix, everything else even some SR4 stuff is in there already . .

International people (such as myself) have to kick in more in order to ensure they get their feelies.

Ah, that... Okay, yeah. I'd been thikning that would be tallied as a shipping and handling fee somehow, not lumped in with the main slug of dough.

uaehuaehuhueha great suggestion!

I put in 15. I was on the fence, because all the bonuses till $100 seems chincy, but paying 85 dollars for a book and a docwagon card seemed to be a bit much.

yay paypal is up, so if you couldn't support via kickstart, then now is your chance ^^

edit: donated 30$ not mindblowing, but hey, they gonna need there coffee X3

You forgot a bout the t-shirt. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And there does come a point in time where you are actually voting with your wallet to say to the suits running the big game development companies: You've missed the boat. THIS is what we want...

I wish we could do this with Farscape and Firefly and all the great SciFi that has dropped by the wayside in lieu of wrastling and Ghost Hunters and dren like that.

Don't forget, people don't HAVE to select a reward. On the the project I'm involved with we've got 10 backers, $120, that have selected no reward (one of those is a $50 pledge from Keith of AI War: Fleet Command fame).

...And another $58 is from someone who "changed their reward selection from the $58.00 reward to no reward." o..O

Wish they'd tried this with the MW3015 game . .

This whole thing is still wierd to me. You're investing in a company or idea, yet have no say in its progress or outcome. Some KSers are cool. Pay 15 bucks now and get a game that you'd pay 20-40 for on release. That's mutually beneficial. Pay 5 bucks for an episode of TV that you may or may not like, that you'd otherwise get for free? I'll pass, and so will the masses.

I would say that, rather than having "no say", we are contributing toward a shared vision. In any shared vision, it will not come out exactly the way you expect. It may totally flop, but I'd say given the track record involved here, it will at least be better than some things I'd paid more and fell victim to slick marketing. Any new paradigm is going to feel weird, because it's new. And I expect you're right, it will not appeal to the average person. The fact that over 10,000 people have pledged over $468,000 in under 48 hours tells me that it not only has the potential to be an incredibly successful method of vetting an idea... but it has already proven itself as a valid paradigm.

This is actually a far more efficient method of voting with your wallet than not buying games too . .

Yep, exactly. And apart from a bit of spite, I also consider this kind of an insurance: Should this project crash an burn (who knows, maybe some extraplanar body snatchers set up shop in the HBS headquarters...), it has shown the appeal of this IP combined with these people


Oh, and this game totally needs the equivalent of the Cermak hive (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Oh god please no insect spirits. I remember reading 2XS, and it was nice, but House of the Sun was one of the most horribly depressing books I have ever read. Plus the author was sick and died a few months after it got published if I remember correctly. Everything about insect spirits sucks badly.

I look at Kickstarter as a way to pre-order something before development has even begun in earnest. Most of the 'reward' tiers do grant you something, with the very minimum, in this case, being "A free digital copy of the game."

That's not nothing. This game might well retail at $30, $45, or even $60 on Steam when it first comes out, and that gets you a digital copy of the game. So if you know, for a stone-cold fact, that this is a product you're going to pay money for, and you only want the game and nothing but, you can cheap out and pitch in the $15. You get a hell of a pre-order discount (anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 off,) and the developers get your $15, unfiltered, up-front, to use to make the game, rather than getting a huge stack of cash from an evil investment publisher house who will start to swagger on in, start pulling all kinds of Executive Meddling - "Are those lesbians and gays?! In the product I financed with my money?! I don't think so!" - and putting on ridiculous deadlines - "I don't care if it doesn't run right on 60% of the hardware configurations out there and there's crippling showstopping bugs every ten minutes on the 40% it does run on, I want to cash in on the Christmas marketing rush, so you'd better have something to put in a box and I can put on store shelves by November, or you can try and finish this game from the unemployment line! Once their money's in my hand, they can't do anything about it, so why should I care about the reputation of your studio or how much hatred it generates?!"




And about TV Episodes or something, just imagine how much money would be thrown at Joss Whedon if he put up a Kickstarter saying "Firefly Season 2 - my way, my story, my air schedule. Yes, it's before the movie so Shepard Book and Wash are still going to be alive." He'd be buried under an avalanche of cash so deep you'd need an excavator to dig him out before shooting could commence, probably blow the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter out of the water.

Hell, even a one-off to gauge interest would probably get a stampede of nerds flinging cash at him - maybe the story of how Jayne pulled a second-story job on Boss Higgins and wound up becoming an accidental folk hero, or something.


That, however, would be a lot harder than producing a video game. If you can get a game made these days, it's pretty easy to go to Gabe Newell and say "I want to sell my game with you," and Gabe will say "Hop on the gravy train!" For one thing, he'd have to license his own setting to use it again, and FOX would probably try to stretch his ass over a barrel for it. For another, he'd need somewhere to air it, and even SyFy would probably want some kind of input on it if they gave him air time, even if they didn't have to spend any of their money on it.

He could always pull a Dr. Horrible and release it on the internet and by DVD, and sure, we'd buy it, but that wouldn't really capture everyone's attention as much, would it? We want to see Firefly back on TV! And even then, there's the problem that Firefly was a character-driven show, with an enormous main cast. I imagine that putting the band back together again would be a huge challenge, and we wouldn't brook anything less than the entire band (possibly the entire band less Wash and Book if it's set after the movie, but still...) No space busses or Other Darrens would be tolerated.

Even so... If only. If only...


(As an aside, why in the world is SyFy airing wrestling? What in the world convinced them that the people who want to watch Firefly and Sanctuary and Warehouse 13 and Stargate want to see enormous, physically fit dudes pound on each other in a wrestling ring? Was there some kind of incestuous corporate shuffling going on that resulted in SyFy having the rights and obligations to air it dumped in their laps?))

I gladly put in my pledge. Yes, the pledge was more than I would normally spend on any video game, but this is Shadowrun. I trust the property in Jordan Weisman's hands and I'm excited about the game returning to its roots. And I love that Kickstarter has really provided an alternate avenue for game development funding, giving an opportunity to ideas that outside the common industry mold.

Maybe they should kickstart a revised 3rd edition.








i kid i kid.


mostly

a new rigger 3 revised would be a good start . .

Shadowrun 2050 is underway. Not the 2060s, but it's a good era to play in, is it not?

I wanted to play then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)