Unofficial Tex Murphy

There's been some talk on the forums already about using kickstarter as a method of acquiring the funds to make a new Tex game. That's not new. What is new is Tim Schafer over at Double Fine using kickstarter to get funds to make a new adventure game, along with a documentary of the game being made.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/667 ... -adventure

Wow, it's almost at 300,000 , and it's just been a few hours!

Can't wait for this game!

Aaaaaaand over a million dollars pledged, within hours.

How ridiculously amazing is this!

getting me the 250$ deal tomorrow (cause its payday then ). What would happen if the Big finish did the same hmm..

1.1 mill now and rising by the minut.. HAHA in your faceses thos fools who said adventure games were dead

Exactly - so I say this is how the new Tex game should be funded. I'd get behind it.

be interesting to see if the name aaron connors & chris jones could stir up a few bucks in a funding post also.

I was just coming here to say something about this...

While I don't think Aaron Conners and Chris Jones have the same buzz as Tim Schafer, they might be able to get pretty good support from a longer-term Kickstarter fundraiser, or possibly from setting the plan in motion further in advance.

What I mean by that is, I know way more people who played Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island (or any of Schafer's more recent projects, each cult hits in their own right) than played Tex Murphy. Heck, pretty much all the Tex fans I know, I introduced them to the games. So while Double Fine can just up-and-go on brand recognition, Big Finish will need a bit more time to let gaming journalism oil the gears.

No doubt that, for a lot of people, reading their favorite blog or gaming news site and seeing a column about this, it would be their first exposure to Tex. That's fine. The bloggers can point them towards their favorite titles on GOG. Heck, maybe even time it with a sale on GOG to further increase exposure. And once people have familiarized themselves with Tex (and hopefully become fans), they'll be much more willing to pony up for a resolution to that cliffhanger!

The beautiful thing about this arrangement is that it doesn't even have to be "successful" by the traditional definition, because the only return the investors expect is a good game. Even if you don't sell a single copy after release, all your costs are covered, and as long as people are still enjoying your games -- as long as you don't betray that trust they have in you -- you can keep breaking even making the games you want to make. And self-sustaining while doing what you love...that is real success. Don't let any venture capitalist tell you otherwise.

But hey, I'm sure I don't need to tell this to AC and CJ. If they know the news, no doubt the gears are turning already.

[EDIT] Woah, this is my first post, 4 years after joining? What an introduction!

If Tim Schafer can do it, so can CJ and AC.

Maybe they could have an arrangement with someone as high profile as Tim, who could promote it, or they could piggy back of his kickstart.

Put a link in his or something.

This is definitely promising for the future.

I agree that Chris and Aaron could do something like this. I don't know for how many years FOT's have said they'd cheerfully fund the project (as much as their wallets could afford) . Adventure Gamers. com and the forum users there seem to look on Tex fondly. They've already got most of the talent there in SLC, and FMV technology has reached the point where it isn't as cost prohibited.

Big Finish was started to drum up money for Tex, but they didn't get enough traction to plow ahead. Why not ride on some coat tails? (and yes, have a German translation) heh heh.

I've backed DFA's and would back any Tex project as well. Whether it be novel, stand alone game, or serial adventures.

Tim is taking a huge gamble on this though that's the only problem I see here. What we don't want to see is the video games industry resorting to e-begging in order to fund its ambitions. Reminder that many developers in the past including Chris Jones who was pretty much a pioneer to FMV technologies, got on fine with very low funds anyway (I mean its not like Mean Streets or Martian Memorandum had massive budgets right?)

The problem with a game like Tex Murphy is that its not really the type of game that would work as a community funded title because of the nature of how FMV games work. Effectively what they would resort to is for lack of a better word E-Begging and frankly I can't support anyone that has to resort to asking people for money, in order to produce a for profit title with no intention of return. I've seen it done many times with games over kickstarter and many times its caused a huge dispute between the doners and the ones taking the money- one that can get messy legal wise. I believe that neither Chris nor Aaron would lower themselves to do this, since I believe they're honorable people and will continue to do things by the book.

In the end, Kickstarter is NO place for a for-profit product to be crowd funded.

Instead if we're doing it right, we go through a publisher or distribution system like Desura or GamersGate who offer the ability to sell Alpha builds on games as community funded- or even more so allow for "Pre-ordering" of games that are in early development. This is perfectly fine as it counts as a transaction NOT a donation.

Game developers are not charities, and just realize that you usually go into projects with the intention of continuing income past release.

A trick I've seen some Crowd Sourcing successes use however is utilizing mercendise to generate revenues for their larger projects.. I am not against doing this, and in my opinion this is far more preferential.. so long as it counts as a transaction, NOT a donation, I'm cool with it. There is no donation, what we're talking about here is a Purchase.

Kickstarter never terms it properly, you're buying a product end of story, if you're not.. then you're giving people money to make money.. which isn't like an investment because investors usually get returns.. and as for donations.. No one is meant to make money from donations.

To summaries.. I hate kickstarter for what companies have done to it and exploited it. It was supposed to help non-profits accomplish something amazing.. Not give e-begging pricks an outlet to ask for next weeks rent money (see the AmazingAtheist).

I trust Aaron and Chris, they're veterans of our industry and would never do anything to betray the fans, but if we have to do it, we have to do it legitimately so that both parties are protected and both parties are happy.. Kickstarter does not protect anyone.. its a greedy middleman. You have as much protection setting up your own site with a paypal button as you do with Kickstarter. I would rather not see Amazon.com get a cent.

Tim however has done the right thing at the base level, it clearly states that you're buying the game for your $15. I've never really approved of the "Give more to get more" approach because most of the higher up things are more "promises" than actual things.

I'm mostly saying this due to bad experiences with the system, its fair warning, the industry has only recently caught on and as expected some developers aren't treating it with respect.

I think the worse case of E-Begging has to be Yahtzee's PAX Scam- whilst they didn't use Kickstarter it just shows the extent some people go to try and take people's money for no good reason, point is that Escapist had money and at the same time screwed over a lot of fellow members of the company. If we do anything, it has to be done as flawless and as trustworthy as humanly possible.

To call Kickstarter a terrible thing because people have exploited it would be rash. No matter what, if something exists, people will try to exploit it. Especially if it's on the internet.

Also, the entire video game industry is hardly going to resort to "e-begging" as you say (which is not true, as beggars give nothing in return). Activision isn't going to fund the next Call of Duty on Kickstarter donations.

Also, the entire video game industry is hardly going to resort to "e-begging" as you say (which is not true, as beggars give nothing in return).

Valve has been a massive supporter of Community Funding, something I support as well.. the concern I greatly have is that somewhere along the line people are going to completely miss the point, as have a LOT of projects on Kickstarter that are video game orientated, treating people's money as donations with little to no return. As I said, we're a for profit industry, one of the largest in the world and one of the fastest growing, we are not a charity. Allowing people to pre-order your game early on as a means of capital injection is perfect.. any more than that and you're exploiting the system, the only thing that should be expected is the publics commitment to purchase.

And as I said, its far far more valuable for them to having on-going support, not just one lump capital injection.

The way Gabe Newell (valve) wanted to treat Community Funding, the idea was to offer people actual cash returns eventually, allowing people to effectively become legitimate investors with a share in the project, this in turn entitles them to profit via a return. We haven't gotten to that stage there for reasons I outlined (because in the end both parties have to really trust each other and have to be protected).

The other thing that is always a concern is what ends up happening to funds should there be a dispute in the company or the company collapses. Nearly every time I've seen this occur, its always resulted in something dodgy happening and no refunds given.

I'm just trying to show that there are risks behind this. Too often I see people praising Kickstarter when Kickstarter is just an un-necessary middleman, the alternatives are much better and offer better protection in the end, Paradox Interactive offers such a service via their Gamers Gate site- should it prove popular, it'll only be a matter of time before Valve adopts it as well. Once Valve adopts it, there should hopefully be enough in place to protect everyone.

I want to make it very clear, I am not against community funding. I'm just outlining its potential failings. We need to look at both sides of the situation. They should only agree to something like this if they know they can 100% assure it can be done and delivered within the budget they've set.

Also, the entire video game industry is hardly going to resort to "e-begging" as you say (which is not true, as beggars give nothing in return)

What do you think has been happening. They come along and say "Hey I got this cool idea" and people give them money, fully fund it.. then later on they turn around and say "whoops can't do it" and run off with the money. This project for example:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/590 ... on-prelude

Did exactly this, they got their donations, and used it only to go to GDC so that they could sell the game. Then at GDC the entire team had a huge fight over pay, this resulted in their entire team leaving. No one has been issued refunds, no one has been updated on the status of the project other than "it'll be out in 2012". If you look at their rewards page even, its a scam, You have to pay $100 to even GET the game (Not the "Exclusive Beta" they're running) the game is going to retail for $15.. so that's a massive markup (I even pointed this out to them when they started). But to make matters worse, they've already announced that the game was going to be split into 4 parts and you'd have to buy each part separately. So already we have a flawed and pretty idiotic business model. I should point out that this game has full industry backing as well, Nvidia and Microsoft invested into it.

But of course their game engine and graphics were very impressive and so to the optimistic, this game looked like something really worth investing in. Truth was however, they were trusting their money to a team that from the get go were already having problems.

This is where I've had concern with Kickstarter, I bugged ModDB/Desura about this for years and they finally did something about it, Paradox Interactive followed in turn, they now offer a similar service as well. Because its treated as a transaction not a donation, it is subjected to all the usual commerce agreements, what I've seen with Kickstarter, they don't enforce this much (despite their "press statements" saying they do).

The other thing is apparently Orion stole art assets from other AAA developers as well (so essentially we're looking at another "Limbo of the lost" here).

Just saying the system isn't perfect and that there are better systems in place.

I'm also surprised that Aaron or Chris haven't contacted CD Projekt yet, they would be a perfect publisher for their games and I'd argue they'd jump at the chance to publish their game. Given that CD Projekt owns GOG.com I mean.

Part of me thinks, if they can get away doing it the old fashioned legit way, they'll be a lot better off. We've not seen community funding at the scale Tim Schafer is doing, so we have no idea what to expect, its very new territory, and its definitely going to test the future of community funding. I hope Tim is successful and I hope the system evolves to eventually becoming what Gabe Newell suggested. Right now however, Kickstarter isn't doing enough.



LOL!

Another thing to remember too, Notch (of minecraft fame) accomplished his project with just a pay pal button. I think Notch proved how un-necessary Kickstarter really is, they don't offer you anything other than a website. A simple paypal button would bring them into PayPals commercial terms and conditions, which by far provides more protection than Amazon's service (partially due to PayPal being directly linked to Banking, whereas Amazon is a shop).

Further evidence of this same thing, look at TaleWorlds with Mount and Blade, they too just had a paypal button, Wolfire with Overgrowth same deal. There have been far more success stories outside of Kickstarter than there have within, just because Tim Scahfer jumped on it doesn't mean we all should.

My apologies if you take offense to what I've said, I'm just trying to show a difference of opinion here and weigh up the options.

Mr. Cyberpunk, do not worry. I was not offended. I apologize if appeared offended. And if I was, I should not have been, especially since I encourage discourse.

That said, let's take a look at that post of yours.

Gabe Newell comes up with interesting ideas. Hopefully one of them turns into Half Life 2 Episode 3. Or Half Life 3.

The thing with Kickstarter is it's...a path. One of many roads diverged in a yellow wood. This thing with Double Fine...it's not over. Sure the funding is there, but whether this story ends happily or not rests on the game release. Right now Tim is promising an October 2012 release for the game, but if they expect to add in multiple consoles to the project, the date is going to be pushed back.

This Orion thing is a perfect example of a crap deal, but it's not like they were asking for even half as much as Double Fine. Also, comparing rewards between Orions deal and Double Fine's deal showcases a difference in how much the developers care for the consumer.

Would CD Projekt fund a Tex Murphy game? And let AC and Chris Jones lead their own development studio doing so, without attempting to insert their own ideas on game development into it?

To me, Minecraft is boring. Notch's success is probably just as big of a surprise as Angry Birds. I have no idea how Minecraft actually made profit, nor how I could recreate it. Having a paypal button is one step, but neither the first nor the last.

Mount and Blade looks worse than Duke Nukem Forever. I wouldn't call that a success.

Mount and Blade looks worse than Duke Nukem Forever. I wouldn't call that a success.

That's a very arrogant claim, have you played it? (just saying because given how short the comment was, I get the feeling this was more a passing "looks like DX8.. fork that") Nothing can be as bad as the rail wave shooter that is Duke Forever.

With mount and blade It is in exact line with Sid Meire's Pirates and in many cases a big improvement on Sid's initial design, hence why I'm a fan, I feel at least at the start it really proved where community funding can really work and pull a project out of the mud. With that said, there is a lot more that Tale Worlds could have done- that I'm not disagreeing with there, I am very disapointed that Tale Worlds hasn't tried to push for a much better more polished and more entertaining product. They basically became a success and then stopped.. I'm sick of seeing it. If you're good at it keep doing it.

To me, Minecraft is boring. Notch's success is probably just as big of a surprise as Angry Birds.

For this I can accept, and I agree fully, Notch got massively wealthy from this, and as a result he got lazy, he stopped improving the product and just put it out there, now he expects modders to finish it off.. in all fairness what he released isn't even a complete game, its half a game with a sandbox of survival- the game needs focus, I thought it was to become a dungeon crawler but seems not to be the case, its a shame, it had huge potential and he wasted it. He's latest games frankly look shithouse and too casual for me to care, so I agree with you there.

I'd argue this isn't to do with community funding, but rather people getting involved in game development for the wrong reasons (ie. to get filthy stinking rich). In the case with Orion, they just blatantly came out and said "we're trying to get rich". But in all fairness, you're running similar gambles even with AAA releases from trusted developers, who also extort and charge way way way more and produce in my eyes much worse titles.

Sure the funding is there, but whether this story ends happily or not rests on the game release. Right now Tim is promising an October 2012 release for the game, but if they expect to add in multiple consoles to the project, the date is going to be pushed back.

Thats the thing really, we have no idea how this is going to go or for that matter if it can be replicated. But its definately brought much needed discussion on the subject of the community funded model.. unfortunately Kickstarter is an under-development premature implementation of the model and thus has a LOT of flaws- hence my criticism, we've got a long way to go before you'll see it being used the way it was intended.

Gabe Newell comes up with interesting ideas

I'm in the thinking that if anyone is going to take the idea of kickstarter ect, it'll be Valve and Steam, as I said, Gamers Gate and Desura already jumped on board with their "alpha" sale system- its primitive and has some issues, but overall its pretty decent protection (moreso than Kickstarter offers since its actually monitored and subjected to trade law, whereas Kickstarter ain't (or rather wasn't.. I'm not sure what they have in place now).)

It definately has potential, but as I said with regards to the Gamespot article.. Keep those AAA bastards away from it! the second they get involved, all the indies get overshadowed and will have to look for another means of funding. And as was also said, this is not a system to be used for repeat business.. once you are successful, that's it.. now you've got the capital to do it legit.

Would CD Projekt fund a Tex Murphy game? And let AC and Chris Jones lead their own development studio doing so, without attempting to insert their own ideas on game development into it?

I would say yes, CD Projekt fought Censors before, they aren't cool with altering work to suit someone else's vision unless they absolutely HAVE to... and even then they try to give people options (like offering the uncensored version digitally without requiring any authentication). I'm pretty sure they respect how important artistic freedom is.

Would they fund it.. well GOG would have to numbers as to how "successful" tex murphy is in the modern day- those numbers are solid and concrete, if its high enough to justify the type of budget they're asking for, I wouldn't be surprised. Witcher 2 had a very large budget for an Indie title.. so they're "good" for the money. it comes down to how well Tex has been selling on Gog.com as to if they'd "Bite". Given that Tex Murphy is one of the highest selling products on GOG.com right now, I think its safe to assume there is a LOT of sales there to justify another game.

They've generated over $1,000,000 dollars so Big Finish needs to go for it. I say what they should do is give people a small FMV sliver video of Chance for people to watch of footage that would actually be used in actual the game if they made it. And also maybe a demo of one interactive conversation. That way the whole game isn't being made yet people could understand what they're missing.

It's one thing to talk about a new Tex game, but to actually see and hear what we're talking about is another. Nothing like dangling meat in front of the dogs. My two cents.