Despite Infinitron Dragon’s periodic prompting, I’ve been keeping mum concerning rumours of inXile Entertainment’s intent to create a formal sequel to Wasteland, the post-apocalyptic RPG that is arguably the grandfather of modern exmplars of that particular sub-genre, such as the Fallout games. I didn’t make mention of Brian Fargo’s hope to start a Kickstarter for a Wasteland sequel. I didn’t make mention of the composer of Fallout and Fallout 2′s soundtrack, Mark Morgan, and his announced intent to join on with the project. I didn’t mention it when Brian Fargo confirmed that the title of the project would be Wasteland 2, or that Ken St. Andre had joined up with the project. And interviews like this also passed without comment.

However:

With the formal Kickstarter project now live as of…this morning, or perhaps late last night, I for one am happy to report that Wasteland 2 is being made. Or will be made, if inXile Entertainment can raise at least $900,000 in funding over the course of the next 34 days.

…we need to raise $1 million, but you’ll notice our funding request is $900,000 and that is because Brian Fargo has offered to fund the last $100,000 if need be. That’s a lot of money needed, but not when compared with the budgets of most full scale RPGs made today. The original game sold over 100,000 copies — on the Apple ][ and Commodore 64 platforms back in the day. If everyone who played it then backs the project at the most basic level, the game is on.

But we’re looking ahead to what we can do if you all back this project in force. At $1.25 million, the money will go primarily into making the world bigger, adding more maps, more divergent stories and even more music.

At $1.5 million, the world gets even bigger. You’ll have more adventures to play, more challenges to deal with, and a greater level of complexity to the entire storyline. We’ll add more environments, story elements, and characters to make the rich world come alive even more. We will even be able to bring Wasteland 2 to OS X for Mac lovers. And after $1.5 million the sky is the limit.

As I began writing this post, the project had already garnered $75,958 in support; having reached this point in the text, I’m happy to report that it has risen to $83,194 (a gain of over $7,000 in a matter of minutes!). If post-apocalyptic RPGs are your bag, Dragons and Dragonettes, click on over and toss inXile a few dollars in support of their goal. Putting just $15 in the kitty nets you a DRM-free copy of the game when it comes out, donating more gets you even more cool stuff. For donations of $5,000 or more, they’ll build a (presumably miniature) statue of you and include you in the annals of Wasteland history in that and other ways. ($86,481)

Now…just for reference, the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter page is still live (though with just a couple hours to go, amusingly enough). That crowdsourcing effort has netted over $3 million for Double Fine’s proposed old-school adventure game.

So, to pose a question that Infinitron Dragon put to me earlier this morning: which genre has the more generous (and the most) “old school” fans: adventure, or RPG? Which of these two projects will raise more funding overall, and which will have more donors? We’ll know in 34 days! ($88,436, by the way.)

Dungeon Siege 3

There isn’t a collection of updates concerning Obsidian this week, so much as there is a bit of a story to tell. It relates, as well, to the recent crowdfunding success enjoyed by Double Fine.

RPGWatch tells the first part of the tale, detailing how Obsidian’s Chris Avellone and J.E. Sawyer responded to fan inquiries regarding the possibility of Obsidian crowdfunding…say…a low-budget, old-school isometric RPG.

Avellone’s response was probably the more tantalizing…

Hmmmm. I admit, I’ve got Kickstarter fever now. I feel like a bunch of doors suddenly appeared in game development.

…but Sawyer let slip that Obsidian have, evidently, talked about the possibility of doing something along those lines in the past. Interesting.

Chris Avellone decided to double down on his earlier comments, however, and posted this tantalizing little feeler post on the Obsidian blog:

Out of curiosity, if Obsidian did Kickstart a project, what would you want to see funded? (You can respond in comments or to @ChrisAvellone on Twitter, whichever you prefer.)

GameBanshee goes on to report that, as a follow-up to all this, Avellone subsequently posted another blog update in which he stressed that Obsidian weren’t actively pursuing a Kickstarter initiative at this time, though he did say that he is discussing the possibility with Obsidian’s owners.

Oh, and he let slip the results of his impromptu survey. Not surprisingly, the Internet wants a Planescape Torment sequel:

If interested in the results, the most responses concerned in order of preference (note that there’s likely bias here considering the author of the Twitter and the blog post below):

- Planescape 2/Planescape Spiritual Successor.

- An Isometric turn-based/pause RPGs in general.

- The “other” category – this fell into game suggestions and mechanics and genres that were only suggested by 1 or 2 folks. I read all of these.

- Make whatever you want, we’ll support you.

Again, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. And even if my Excel-burned-eyes are dry from tabulating responses, it’s good that there was such a strong amount of feedback in the first place.

Honestly, I’m not sure what commentary can be made here, at present. On one hand, the success of Double Fine in their initiative with Kickstarter proves that for at least some highly-regarded independent gaming development companies, crowdfunding can be the way to go both as a means of gauging fan interest in a project, and as a means of actually securing funds to complete that project. On the other hand, one wonders whether there wouldn’t be a saturation point, a time past which even the most ardent fans of games “as they once were” would say “you know…I’ve donated to a lot of these projects already…” and think twice before opening his digital wallet.

Double Fine, the independent development studio behind such titles as Psychonauts and Stacking, decided to try something a little different in an effort to fund an upcoming, old-school-style adventure game that they want to make. They started a Kickstarter page, in an effort to crowdsource their efforts to raise funding for it:

Big games cost big money. Even something as “simple” as an Xbox LIVE Arcade title can cost upwards of two or three million dollars. For disc-based games, it can be over ten times that amount. To finance the production, promotion, and distribution of these massive undertakings, companies like Double Fine have to rely on external sources like publishers, investment firms, or loans. And while they fulfill an important role in the process, their involvement also comes with significant strings attached that can pull the game in the wrong directions or even cancel its production altogether. Thankfully, viable alternatives have emerged and gained momentum in recent years.

Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community. They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision. It’s the kind of creative luxury that most major, established studios simply can’t afford. At least, not until now.

They set their goal at a modest level: $400,000 raised by March 13th, 2012 (far less than the $2 million mentioned above!). They hit and exceeded that goal in just eight hours, and are currently sitting at $705,510 (as of the time this article was drafted; they may well be north of a million dollars at the time of its publication).

RPS, among other, notes that this raises some pretty interesting questions about the future of indie game development, and game development in general. After all, Tim Schafer — the head of Double Fine and an adventure game development legend — couldn’t get publishers to sign off on investing in the project; adventure gaming is (supposedly) dead. And yet, when he asked the audience, they couldn’t give him money fast enough! ($710,123 now, by the way.)

So how “in touch” with what the gaming audience wants are the major publishers, exactly?

Heh…did I just ask that question on an Ultima website? ($714,105)

Exit question: Could any of the projects I cover on Aiera perhaps be supported this way? Sanctimonia, maybe?

The First Age of Update: Double Fine has announced the platforms the game will be released on, and as you might expect, it’s the usual list of suspects: PC, Mac, iOS, and some versions of Android. Oh, and one more: Linux. Because Double Fine are cool like that.