Ironically, they directly answer that question in the video.
Their explanation for that seemed ok to me. It’s in the first couple of minutes in the video.
Backed without a second thought. Now that they cashed in their two most famous properties though, Wasteland 2 needs to be awesome for them to continue this crowd funding model forward.
Just backed (physical Collector’s Edition just like Wasteland 2).
We are nearing 800k right now so I assume the project might be backed today or early tomorrow unless there is a massive drop-off.
While I was considering which tier to back another 20 Collector’s Edition were gone.
According to kicktraq it’s trending towards 21 million dollars. That seems a tad optimistic.
Yeah, and in the Wasteland 2 update as well. It all makes sense, and I do know how dev houses generally have multiple projects going at once.
Anyway, what I also meant to say is that I backed it without even watching the video. Now that only question is if I increase my pledge or not.
800K already–they’ll probably fund this one within the next hour.
Would imagine that snagging Baldur’s Gate license (or even not getting license, but simply creating similar “successor”) would keep them on easy street for a while longer.
Happy to have done my part.
Project Update #1
You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!! We just funded in six hours!?!?!
Right on.
If not for “Kickstarter Fatigue” they would have funded in half that time. :P
For those wondering (and apparently nobody really cares) inXile did address the issue of doing this now in their latest Wasteland 2 update. Here it is for those who aren’t getting those updates:
If your reaction to the news about Torment was more like, “inXile, you greedy bastards, why would you launch a Kickstarter before Wasteland 2 is even done!”, then keep reading; we are addressing that point in this update…
To those outside the industry, it might seem odd to launch another Kickstarter before Wasteland 2 is done. We understand that it raises some questions, and we want our Wasteland 2 backers to understand the decision and to have access to all the information that has led us down this path. The goal of this update is not to convince you to back Torment; the goal of this update is to answer one simple question. Why now?
One of the keys to success for a small game company is being able to create continuity within the development team. It takes a long time to get a team put together, and it takes an even longer time for a team to settle in to new working relationships, a new engine, new systems, and a new asset creation pipeline. A team’s knowledge and experience grows a lot during a development cycle, and all of that knowledge gained is lost if we let the team break up when a project ships. To address that issue we have developed a very simple strategy that has already worked for us on dozens of titles in the last 25 years. Here is a quick explanation of our development team-structure philosophy:
inXile, with all of our internal employees and outside contractors, consists of enough people to be considered about the size of a team and a half. This is by design. We always want a small and efficient team (the “half team”) to design both our product and our product development plan. This is called pre-production. It is the most important time in a project’s life cycle. This is the time when we want to make sure we slow down and get it right. During this phase we don’t need all the engineers and 3D Artists on the project, it is mostly concept art, design and dialog writing. When this process is completed and we are ready to roll into full production we want to have a large team of people ready to make the game. If the planning was done well during the pre-production phase we can be very efficient during production and leave ourselves with plenty of time to iterate and make amazing games. If there is no pre-production done, and the full team is trying to create the design and development plan as they go, months, if not years, are wasted. Having a full team try to start a project when the pre-production has not been completed is like stacking up a giant pile of money and lighting it on fire. This same philosophy served us quite well at Interplay in creating some of the best RPGs of all time.
The “half team” in our team and a half model consists of writers and artists as well as designers and a producer. They are the ones that define the game design, write the dialog, define the combat, the UI, the missions, and even parts of the level design. We spent about 6 months working on this pre-production for Wasteland 2 and we would like to spend even longer doing it on Torment. For inXile, this “half team” that did the pre-production for Wasteland is done, their work on Wasteland 2 is completely finished. We want to get this group into pre-production on Torment to keep them working together on a project we are all passionate about.
Currently, Wasteland 2 is in full production with a team of 15+ people cranking away on it. This is the full team that consists of engineers, scripters, character modelers, environment artists, and animators. This team is implementing the plan created during the Wasteland 2 pre-production cycle. When this full team rolls off of Wasteland 2 at the end of the year, they will need something else to do. Having a complete pre-production plan at that time allows us to roll the entire team onto a finely honed game design. Team continuity is maintained, and efficient production can begin. In a traditional publisher model, now is the time in the project life cycle where we would start to try and sign the next big contract. The best tool we have to get that done is to go back to our new publisher, you, and explain that now is the best time to start the next project.
Our “half team” is ready to start the pre-production for Torment now. They need about 8 months to get this pre-production work done. In an amazing coincidence, in about 8 months I will have a full team that is ready to take that pre-production plan and create a game. The alternative, starting pre-production on Torment after Wasteland 2 is done, increases the cost of Torment production greatly and requires us to reduce our headcount during the process.
Staggering projects like we are doing with Wasteland 2 and Torment is the best tool a single-team company like inXile has to be successful. It has the triple value of making us more efficient, giving us a better game design and making sure we keep our design and art talent working with us.
To make everything as clear as we can regarding the Torment Kickstarter and what it means for Wasteland 2, I will attempt to answer some other questions you might have:
• We do want to be abundantly clear that no Wasteland money is to be spent developing Torment. No Torment money is being spent on Wasteland 2. That said, lots of tools, plug-ins and pipeline processes that have taken man months to create will be shared between the projects if we can keep team continuity.
• The pre-production of Torment is not going to hinder the development of Wasteland in any way. As explained above, they are different teams during the pre-production.
We hope this update helps to explain the logic of why we are launching this Kickstarter now. Based on our experience we know that now is the time to get Torment rolling. We also hope that we can count on your support for Torment, and if not your support, at least your understanding. This system has always served us well so we think it makes sense to try and re-create it with you.
I kicked it for $20, not that it mattered. Maybe I’ll go watch the video now. ;-)
You should, the kid with the red cowboy boots is pretty sweet.
Having missed the Wasteland 2 KS, I went in here for $45 for both. Now I need to go finish PS:T.
Oh god, you’ve reminded me of my terrible shame. I have to finish it too. One of these days…
$965K now. Funded and then some. WOW.
I’ve never replayed Torment (despite having replayed many lesser games), partly because I remember it so well. Now I’m getting the itch though. Anyone here tried running it in GemRB on an android phone? I actually had BG2 running on my note 2, but combat was too much of a chore on a small screen. It might work better for Torment since combat is so much simpler.
So what happens if they make stupid money on this? I know Fargo’s into the Kicking It Forward thing, so no doubt a chunk will go there, but they’ve “promised” quite an aggressive delivery date already. I know it’s not fixed as such, but even with a bit of the expected slippage, it’s not much time to spend so much money well.
I am going to have to replay the original now. So many memories.
Awesome to see the support for this one.
I would be surprised if they don’t turn around and release F2P grinder at some point in the near future…
The kick it forward thing is a percentage of profits from eventual sales, not the backers money.
Also, reading between the lines on the the Kickstarter page, it seems the cost of this game is going to be at least $2m. But your’e right, if they get a lot more funding than that the game may miss it’s stated deadline. I guess this is a risk of Kickstarted video games.