More importantly, as this thrill-a-minute campaign draws to a close, will Bubbles have more time to edit Sawyer interviews?
A Bold New Frontier
POSTED: 11/04/2016
Hello Exiles,
The Reagan-worshiping Gippers were one of my favorite factions in WL2, but they didn't make the final cut. They will be in WL3!
The final hours are ticking down on our campaign and we once again are honored by your support. I assure you that these crowdfunding campaigns are critical to our ability to make the kind of RPG that we like to play and create. This was true in 2012 with our Wasteland 2 campaign and it's true again with Wasteland 3.
The biggest difference between now and 2012 is that we have assembled far greater talent to make this next game. The depth of writing, visual effects, balancing and polish will be on a new level for inXile. I could not be more confident in the team. We will make you proud again.
And finally, I leave you with a message from a new character from Wasteland 3... until next time.
Brian Fargo,
Leader in Exile
Feel da hype
Fargo: “If you don't reach 20% of your goal in two days, you'll almost certainly fail”
The Wasteland developer reflects changes to the crowdfunding space, and offers tips on how to attract those higher-tier backers
It's hard to escape the feeling that there is less enthusiasm for crowdfunding in the world of video games these days. The capacity for projects to grab headlines has become limited to those that are either trying something truly unique and ambitious, have veteran and proven talent behind them, or have garnered a remarkable number of pledges within a remarkably short space of time - all of which are now few and far between.
Even leading platform Kickstarter saw a dramatic year-on-year decline in the amount pledged towards video games campaigns over the first six months of 2016: just $8.2m compared to the $20m seen in 2015. It's a decline noted among developers, too, with inXile Entertainment CEO Brian Fargo observing that it's tougher than ever to excite potential backers.
While his fourth crowdfunding campaign now draws to a successful close, with Wasteland 3 reaching its goal after just three days, Fargo believes there is a myriad of factors behind the declining interest in such fundraising ventures.
"In 2012 and 2013, there so much sheer excitement around it," he tells GamesIndustry.biz. "The press gave it lots of coverage, but now it's fingernails on a chalkboard to some of them. There were also categories and genres that people desperately wanted and had been denied to them, whether it was a point-and-click adventure or a role-playing game.
"On top of that, a lot of people backed projects, the creator developed them but the backers never had the chance to play - just as you've probably bought something on Steam and never got a chance to play it. So as more time goes on and you have all those elements, it's more difficult to rally people together behind a purely rewards-based campaign. They're still out there, some backers still love it, and we love offering those rewards, but it gets harder to get them excited each time."
This dwindling interest in video games crowdfunding means that the window for success is narrowing. It has always been the case that developers need to concentrate on the launch of their campaign, driving for as much early interest in possible, but Fargo is able to quantify this in a way that draws the line between hope and failure.
"If you can't do 20% of your target in the first 48 hours, you generally have a 90% fail rate," he says. "When a movie comes out on a Friday and I'm excited to see it, if the weekend rolls around and I didn't get the chance, for some reason I don't care about it by the next weekend. There's a peak interest you have, and you have to be part of that wave and that focal point.
"The trick is finding an audience who will come to you, one that already exists. Look at Exploding Kittens; it appeared to come out of nowhere, but the creator was part of [digital comic strip] The Oatmeal, which had 3m followers on Facebook. He brought that audience over, along with his sensibilities and humour, and they had a hugely successful campaign.
"There are people who loved Wasteland 2, people who loved Fallout 1 and 2 and wished 3 was different, and an audience of isometric RPG players that grew up with and loved those types of games. I'm able to identify the audiences and bring them over to something they really want."
MORE THAN MONEY
Given the success of Wasteland 2 and the other games Fargo has attracted backers for, plus his reputation and the numerous classics to his name, it is perhaps hard to understand why a veteran developer even needs crowdfunding at all. Surely he could just as easily raise the money needed by reaching out to publishers or investors?
To this, Fargo stresses that Kickstarter and now Fig only account for a portion of the capital required for his projects. inXile works with partners such as Deep Silver and Techland over details such as console or foreign territorial rights. And, of course, the profits from previous titles are put into the next ones. Wasteland 2 in particular was "very profitable", the developer says, and those profits were redirected into its upcoming sequel.
"I get the most creative freedom when I'm financing a large part of the project myself," says Fargo. "It also helps negotiations with partners if I'm bringing half or more of the money to the table. The deal feels different, both economically and creatively."
There are other benefits to crowdfunding beyond the obvious financial boost. The audience and interest generated by the campaign sets up a funded game for success, thanks in part to the enthusiasm of backers-turned-evangelists.
"We get this army of people that supports us and believes in us," Fargo explains. "If we've done right by them, they're our voice when it comes to launch. We're not a triple-A company, we don't have tens of millions of dollars to spend on marketing, so word of mouth is everything for us. To have them shouting from the rooftops that they believed in us, they backed us and we gave them a great game is invaluable to us.
"Also, when people put money into your project, they're far more engaged and provide feedback. When you're only getting feedback from internal people, egos get into place or feelings get hurt. If you watch a guy kill himself for a month to work on something, it's hard to say 'hey, that looks bad'. Whereas our audience doesn't have any problem with that.
"I need that feedback all the time. I really do place value in what they're saying and what they're reacting to."
Of course, herein lies another delicate issue when it comes to crowdfunding. When people pledge money towards a project, many may feel that gives them a right to be heard. Developers then face the challenge of creating the product they envisaged, while also trying to appease those who are part-funding it. If feedback urges the project to go in a different direction, are developers obliged to abandon their original designs? How can Fargo or any of his peers be sure what to listen to, and what to tune out?
"That's really my job as producer, to sift out the good ideas from the bad ones," he says. "You've got to treat the community well and with respect, you have to listen to what they're saying. But if they have a poll about putting vampires into Wasteland, it's not going to happen. I'm not going to be bullied into something I think is bad for the product."
"If a publisher wants me to change something, they can just hold the money back and then I risk missing payroll. So I would have to capitulate for things I didn't think were good for the product, or flat out knew were bad for it. This is a much healthier dialogue."
GROWING FIG
Wasteland 3's crowdfunding campaign is notable as it marks Fargo's switch from Kickstarter to Fig, the games-specific platform for which he has served on the advisory board since its launch last year.
Part of the reason, he told us, is that Fig better protects backers from the scandals that have plagued other crowdfunding sites, instances where funds have been raised but no product has been released and the creator has disappeared. With Fig, pledges made by non-accredited investors - i.e. those without the capital and regular history of major investments - will be paid out over the life of the project rather than up front.
Fargo also pointed to Fig's policy of curating all campaigns that appear on the site. These are selected after extensive discussions with the developer over how viable the product is and how likely full funding will be. While this so far has almost exclusively benefitted members of the site's advisory board, including Double Fine and Harmonix, Fig has since begun approving campaigns for independent developers and it is hoped that the site will become more open in future - although Fargo stressed it will always be curated.
Another key motivation for Fargo's switch is Fig's goal of helping those all-important higher-tier backers profit from successful campaigns. This concept, a major unique selling point for the site, has now become a reality: Last month, the US Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC) approved Fig's proposal to reward non-accredited investors with game shares, starting with Psychonauts 2. It's an incredible incentive for cash-rich consumers who want to get something back from the games they help fund, and an accomplishment that Fargo insists cannot be understated.
"It took Fig a very long time to get approval from the SEC to allow this kind of single investment," he says. "It's very novel, a bigger deal than most people realise.
"Obviously it took a lot longer than they thought. We were fortunate that the timing happened right when we launched our campaign. I know others were frustrated, because they were waiting for it. For Double Fine, I think it came nine or ten months after their campaign ended. So it was quite a process, and a big feather in their cap that they were able to get this approved finally."
There's also the suggestion that Fig's SEC approval could set a precedent for other crowdfunding platforms servicing different industries, potentially enabling them to financially reward higher-tier backers. However, there is still a lot of new ground to cover as developers learn how to accurately convey how much those supporters can expect to reap from a game's success.
"The way we did it on our particular campaign is we ran a model out that basically said if this one does as well as the last one, this is what we think might happen," says Fargo. "That was our way of picking a benchmark.
"When you're running a public company, or doing anything in the public eye, you can't make forward projections. All we can do is rely on the past, and that's very much how we handled it."
HEY BIG SPENDERS
Of course, offering game shares and a slice of the profits is not the only way to attract high-end backers to your crowdfunding campaign. A purely rewards-based push for pledges can still garner plenty of funds if developers offer something of value. Fargo says this doesn't necessarily have to be pricey physical rewards - instead, personalisation can go a long way to appealing to potential customers.
"We get the attention of the higher backers when they can put something personal of themselves into the game, whether it's their name, their wife's name, getting engaged, developing a quest - something they can point to," he says.
"Imagine if the next Mad Max movie could have a character named Faran Brigo. I'd probably pay a lot of money for that, I'd think that was the coolest thing ever - it's the same thing for the games business. I think the personalisation is the thing they get most interested in."
But even with the offer of being immortalised in a video game, it can be difficult to encourage consumers to part with hundreds of dollars without more tangible rewards. It's still possible, Fargo reiterates, but has become a much more challenging process.
"Depending on the campaign, we used to do some pretty significant revenues from rewards that were $500 and up," he says. "But that part of Kickstarter or rewards-based financing has almost gone away.
"If I'm in a crowdfunding atmosphere where people are profiting from the games, that's a very sustainable model. That will never fatigue. If we stay with crowdfunding, that's something I could repeat ad infinitum."
After the Blast
POSTED: 11/04/2016
Hey Rangers,
The campaign for Wasteland 3 is over, but that doesn't mean that our work is done! After the storm there's always a lot of pieces to pick up and chairs to put right. Today we have some odds and ends to go over with you. But first, one final thank you!
Post-Campaign Housekeeping
To start, we're already getting questions about those of you who might have missed pledging during the Fig Campaign. The good news is that post-campaign pledging is still available via CrowdOx. If you missed pledging during the Fig campaign, you can still do so by clicking below:
Our continued funding is always a core part of our efforts, and who knows, if it goes well we could even look at knocking down an extra stretch goal...
Of course, many of you are waiting for free game keys or extras from our campaign. Like our past crowdfunding campaigns, it takes a bit of time to finalize and process pledges and give people a chance to resolve any payment errors or other issues. After that grace period has ended, we will export the information from Fig's database and move it to our backer system. Once we're done processing everything, we'll send you all an email letting you know how to confirm your pledge details with us and claim any available digital rewards. At this point, you will also be able to further customize your pledge with add-ons and upgrades if you wish. We'll move on this as fast as we can and will let you know as soon as we have more news!
Speaking of pledge processing: Fig tries to verify payment info using Stripe when you first select your reward, so that things go smoothly at the end of the campaign once pledges are collected. However, a few of you may have received an email from Fig saying they couldn't collect your pledge. In this case, you should have been given instructions via email on how to resolve that. For further assistance on any pledge processing issues, please reach out to Fig at their help page, or email help@fig.co directly.
The Road Ahead
So what comes next? Now that the dust is settling, we have a game to make! Launching a crowdfunding campaign is a bit like launching a game, with huge sprints of planning and effort from all parts of the team right to the very end. As a result, Wasteland 3 is already in a great early state, and now we will be doubling down on pre-production, getting as much design, writing, world-building, lore, and concepting on the road as humanly possible. As those pre-production efforts start coming to a close, developers from the Torment team will roll onto Wasteland 3, taking that groundwork forward into full development... and that's where the fun really begins.
We will be keeping you advised of our progress in the coming weeks and months. For now, thank you again!
Thomas Beekers
War Pup
He was a designer in the previous post. He's cycling those positions like a true zyklon. What's next, Designer in Exile?
Already getting questions from those who missed the chance to pledge...
The "cinematic" dialogue looks incredible. That character looks more real animation-wise than anything I've ever seen in a videogame.
It begs the question, though: what will be sacrificed for this?
It will be for nothing if the portraits again look like this:
And the in-game model is a character with a blonde afro.
Not to mention the obvious: the more effort you have to put in how the character is animated, the less dialogue choices you will get as a consequence since you would have to animate ALL the different responses.
In short: this system makes sense if it is for carefully selected NPCs and not thrown left and right. The way Fallout did it.
Exploring Wasteland 3 with the original creators
Legendary developer Brian Fargo on the future of the crowdfunded Fallout alternative.
Wasteland 3 © inXile Entertainment
You may not know this, but if you’ve ever loved a Fallout game, you probably owe a debt of gratitude to the role playing Wasteland series. Founder of inXile, Brian Fargo, directed Wasteland way back in 1988 (released for PC and Commodore 64), but it wasn’t until 1997 his influence appeared again via the original Fallout, where he played his part as a producer, and again for Fallout 2 in 1998.
Fast forward quite a bit to 2002 when inXile was founded by Fargo, where the long awaited Wasteland 2 was developed (along with other games) and released in 2014, more than 20 years on from the original, to a great reception from critics around the world . Now on crowdfunding platform Fig, it has already exceeded the $2.75 million goal, so we caught up with both Fargo and vice-president of development, Chris Keenan, to talk about what we can expect from the game, starting with why you begin this third entry in the series all alone, as opposed to with a gang of friends.
The visuals look vibrant and colourful © inXile Entertainment
“I like the concept of you starting off alone and trying to survive with all the elements against you, so you don’t get the luxury of having your squad around helping to save your ass,” starts Fargo. “The thing with role-playing games is that at the start, we’re already asking you to spec out a guy before you really understand what’s best. And it compounds the problem when we’re asking you to spec out four people before you know what’s best. So, for all those reasons, we really liked that, from both a psychological perspective and also from a gameplay perspective.”
Keenan agrees, and the team have been watching Twitch streams to see how the players actually enjoyed the game. “It seemed like there was a group of people who were used to that old-school character creation right off the bat, with lots of stats and numbers, who you could tell just immediately loved,” he says, but there were other people who were more apprehensive to that creation system, and Keenan offers a solution. “What if we give the player a little bit of a sense of the world so they can start to feel it out and then building that stuff up afterwards so they can really make it count?”
Wasteland are used to. Keenan is aware of that worry and is quick to calm fears. “You’ll still create your party,” he explains. “You’ll have your initial character, and then you will certainly come across a wide range of NPCs throughout the world. But you will be able to adjust the stats of other party members.”
After spending time in Arizona for Wasteland 2, Fargo is happy to tell us how the new setting, Colorado, fits into the lore. “The idea was that the Rangers [the dominant faction in the Wasteland] wanted to expand their territory and bring law and order not just to Arizona, but to the rest of the States. And Colorado was interesting because NORAAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) is located there, too. So it seemed like an obvious place to go.”
Switching the arid deserts of Wasteland 2 for the cold weather of Colorado means that the radiation suit you needed to stay alive is now going to be replaced by protection from the cold, but there’s still a world map in play, it’s just that inXile isn’t quite sure how it will work yet. Keenan explains: “There will be some amount of overworld travel as you move through. Whether it looks like the old world map is up for debate,” while Fargo insists that the team are currently experimenting. “But the idea of a world map goes all the way back to Wasteland 1 and the original Fallout series, and that’s not something we want to deviate from.” So the game won’t be Skyrim sized, then, but Keenan insists that “we still want you moving between locations and feeling like you’re outside a local space.”
With the current political state of the world, and Wasteland being a… well, wasteland, perhaps we can expect some real world elements seeping into Wasteland 3? “You know, people make a lot of jokes about us wanting to hit on the whole Trump phenomenon, but I think that’s a little too on-the-nose,” says Fargo.
Keenan is aware of the socio political state of the world, too: “It feels like right now in politics there’s this idea that reality can be created if you say something enough times, whether it’s true or not. You see a lot of this stuff happening, where politicians will say something that a lot of people will know is a complete lie, but if it gets blasted out enough on social media, you start to see this groundswell of people believing it.”
Looks like fun, right? © inXile Entertainment
Hitting a crowdfunding site means that you have to pitch your game, and Wasteland 3’s video suggests there are more ways to be evil than before. Fargo insists that the key is for people to be able to play however they want without forcing a morality system on them: “We don’t judge the way you play, we don’t have a morality system.”
Keenan meanwhile is aware of the fact that the black and white system isn’t always that satisfying. “What is kind of fun, though, is testing people’s morality and putting them in very grey situations, where you can kind of make an argument for both sides and you don’t really know with certainty how each choice is going to work out,” he tells us.
It seems we won’t be getting a fully voiced game any time soon, however, as Fargo is clear about the cost of such systems. “It requires a commitment to create a lot of content that you know a lot of people won’t see, and I think that’s difficult for a big AAA company to sign off on spending $10 million, or whatever the number is, to create a bunch of things we know people probably won’t get to experience. So, us smaller guys, we’re OK with that. We have a cost, too.”
Explosions always end well © inXile Entertainment
On the multiplayer side of things, it appears Wasteland 3 will let us mess with other players. It’s still (obviously) in very early development, but Keenan gave us some info on something that sounds rather cheeky: your decisions change the world, so that affects others, and vice versa. “You’ve got the world and environment and my choices, but also somebody else’s choices that you can’t really control. And maybe you’re a good leader and able to convince them to do things that you think are right, or maybe you’re not. That’s going to be part of the experience.”
One thing that’s not set in stone yet, though, is the save system. With your friends interacting with your world, does that mean we’ll need an offline and an online save system to solve any syncing issues? Keenan is tight lipped, it seems. “At the moment we have something that we think is gonna work,” he begins. “We’re really big on iterating it and playing it, because to be honest at any time in game development probably half of good ideas you have don’t work out well. We have a couple of directions we’re going to take and play around with. But we probably won’t talk about that for, I would imagine, around a year or so!”
Well then, it seems we’ll just have to wait a year or so to find out more. For now, the creators of a genre remain as interesting as ever, and it’ll be exciting to see where Wasteland 3 goes.
