Torment: Tides of Numenera funding crosses $2 million
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
InXile Entertainment's isometric PC role-playing game reaches new Kickstarer funding milestone 48 hours after launch.
The Kickstarter campaign for Torment: Tides of Numenera has crossed $2 million just two days after going live. The game sailed past its $900,000 target in just six hours, with total funding standing at more than $2.1 million from over 38,000 backers at press time.
The game reached $1 million in funding in seven hours and two minutes, eclipsing the previous record for fastest campaign to earn $1 million by 80 minutes, according to InXile. In addition, of 37,000 Kickstarter campaigns that have reached their funding targets, just 21 have reached the $1 million mark.
InXile has now achieved this milestone twice, as the developer's Kickstarter debut with Wasteland 2 secured $2.9 million in funding last spring. That game is due for release during October 2013.
"We knew there were some negative sentiments regarding crowdsourcing fatigue, and the fact that we are still finishing Wasteland 2, but the massive community acceptance to our latest Kickstarter effort was overwhelming, unexpected, and a great honor," InXile CEO Brian Fargo said in a statement.
Torment: Tides of Numenera--due out December 2014--is set in Monte Cook's tabletop role-playing world of Numenera, which itself was successfully funded through Kickstarter. It will have an isometric perspective and runs on the Unity game engine.
InXile was clear that Tides of Numenera is not a sequel to Planescape: Torment, but rather a "completely new game" that has been designed to provide the same experience and feeling as the original. The game asks players: What does one life matter?
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
118 comments
Is this how their funding games now? I just saw a new Ultima game doing this too. So just like the U.S. economy we're going to socialize the expense and privatize the profit?
@dangermouse2k Better than begging for the scraps the big publishers deign to crap out.
Where's the next Suikoden game? Breath of Fire?
Getting devs to make what we want is the best system possible. Now we get Infinity Engine games again. How glorious.
9 Like If you can convince EA/2K/Activision/Ubisoft etc.... to fund an isometric cRPG or a space simulator while keeping the original developer's vision, then by all means do. Until then, we shouldn't so easily scoff at this solution.
1 Like @MAD_AI @dangermouse2k Or they can do what every indie developer for the last thirty years did...fund it themselves and assume actual risk.
2 Like @MAD_AI @dangermouse2k I completely agree. And it's completely up to the person donating. Donations as a way for fans to push something they want can be a double-edged sword. I can see many companies taking full advantage of this, holding IP's hostage in an attempt to garner more profit, since they'd be using your money, not theirs, to make a game. In fact, in a capitalist economy it'd be crazy not to take advantage of this.
6 Like @dangermouse2k Companies are basically holding IPs hostage all over the place already; publishers are constantly refusing to make games in franchises that people want, and they are constantly turning franchises into things that people don't want.
It seems pretty clear to me that we have two groups here. A group who see video games as an art form and are willing to help the arts in any way - such as donating money to the cause. The second group seem to be a bunch of "developers" who know how passionate gamers are about their medium and want to exploit this by convincing them that it's "indie" to left them fish around in their pants for cash at the beginning and at the end of production.
Has their been ANYTHING on Kickstarter that has received funding, been developed, and been released successfully to the masses? Almost every day I see another new article on this site about someone e-begging to make a new piece of software or new gadget. Where's one finished product? Ouiya, Oculus Rift, smart watches, and every kind of game imaginable have all been funded by millions of dollars from hard working people and nobody has come through with anything other than vaporware promises.
@faithxvoid666 keep in mind kickstarter has only taken off in the last year or two for games. I'd expect to see a few of the bigger backed titles like Double Fine Adventure, Shadow Run, project eternity out later this year.
@faithxvoid666 FTL, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, and both Pinball arcade licensed tables (Twilight Zone and Star Trek TNG) are the only ones that I know that have made it to mass market release. There have also been the odd indie title (eg. Paranormal) that have been released, but not on a mass market platform like Steam.
3 Like @faithxvoid666 No, we have a group of developers who used to make incredible games years ago who are frustrated that the publishers they now work for refuse to let them make those incredible games for retarded reasons.
So they are getting funding from sources that are not publishers in order to make the games that people want to play.
Gamers, in turn, can fund the games they want to play, as opposed to the mainstream generic shit of late that has gotten crapped out of the big publisher's rectums.
4 Like FTL Faster Then Light is a kickstarted game that has achieved a huge succes,
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams i a kickstarted game. It is done and ready, and it is a very solid game people have (pre)paid for.
There was also some aventure game i no longer remember.
Also don't forget that the laud kickstarted games such as Wastland 2 and Project Eternity were started merely a year ago, so they can't be ready yet.
Kickstarter have not resulted in a AAA game yet, and i doubt if it ever will. But that's not the point. It answers the demend for niche games that big dev/publishers don't answer to - the demend for point and click adventures, isometric RPGs with lots of dialogue, good but discontinued old frenchises, a game like PL:T etc.
@faithxvoid666 Don't the donors get refunded if the specified product isn't delivered? I know it works that way for when the fund requisition isn't met. Genuinely curious.
@iHarlequin @faithxvoid666 No, they don't. Kickstarter has specifically said that any refunds are to be handled between the developers and donors. Developers have already flaked on donors too. There's no contracts and not a single Kickstarter has shown donors a working demo before they invest.
Basically, people are trying to justify dropping money on vaporware by rallying around the fact that they dropped $200k on what appears to be a Java or XNA game that would have cost peanuts to develop without relying on marks to pay their mortgages.
For example, look at all the dough that suckers have given to the game Greedmonger. The "demo" shown is nothing more than the free Unity fantasy assets stuck on a tiny map...Which is pretty much par for the course for these fly-by-night "developers".
Developers have been making their own games at home and selling them since the advent of the home PC, yet suddenly they expect us to pay for their idle noodlings? No thanks.
Expect to see people defending these thieves because nobody wants to look like an easy mark. However, give it a year and they'll all be singing the same song...only with much lighter wallets.
4 Like @iHarlequin @faithxvoid666 No, the money of course goes to whomever kickstarted the project so they can use it on the project, KS gets a little of it for hosting the project but offers no refunds. This is something all backers are aware of and it's a calculated risk - people don't just throw their money blindly at anything; a Kickstarter is typically a one month project and the backers generally expect gameplay footage, people's real names or an actual company's, and will usually ask for updates to prove a project is legitimate until they are satisfied or just ignore it.
Everyone knows some smaller projects by first timers will crash and burn, and like with every other game in development nothing is ever 100 percent certain, but many more games will come to fruition and for the first timers they can go on from there to more advanced projects.
7 Like @Hayasmez @faithxvoid666 And FTL is awesome. I've played it more that some $60 AAA releases. It's BETTER than many of them.
Also the people making Numenera and other major KSed products are great names who've been making great games FOR YEARS.
Sure there are some indie guys/gals who get small potatoes but are asking for small potatoes... Shaefer, Roberts and Fargo are not unknowns. They've been making games longer than most X-box dudebros have been on the planet.
1 Like So people really will argue over anything to make themselves out as "better than everyone else"... Interesting.
3 Like Nostalgia isn´t what´s driving these projects for the most part,its the need of proper RPG´s that so many people want but we barely get anymore sadly,and with KS and PC gaming those days are coming back again.
It´s a brave new world,such a shame you try to be a smart aleck with your comment,no surpris though,it probably means you never fully experienced a proper RPG,otherwise you´d be very excited as so many thousands upon thousands are.
I think you are misinterpreting what I said. I loved planescape, baldur's age, and icewind dale. BG's 2 is my favotie game. Of course, I am excited and I actually have contributed to the kickstarter for this game. Doesn't mean I'm not a little worried about how the modern translation of old classics can go. Not sure why you guys are throwing a temper tantrum over an innocent comment.
@MrYaotubo @sonicare I never do nostalgia so that's irrelevant to me, this is all about good RPG's.
17 Like We have Project Eternity and now this. Finally, after years of retarded publishers like EA saying no, no it'll never sell, no people don't want games like this, no people only want shooters and action games, finally PCRPGs are being made again.
A huge middle finger to any publisher who has stood in the way over the years, and can I get a Hell Yeah for the old Black Isle and Bioware people stepping up to make these games a reality.
This doesn't look like my cup of tea. I'll stick to my AAA shooters and action games, thanks. I'd prefer my online servers free of your decrepit generation of elitist, self-entitled gamers any way. So glad you finally found a special system for feeding into only things that fit your specific tastes so that the rest of us mainstream gamers don't have to listen to your constant whining and you never have to try anything that doesn't fit into your special little standard of what constitutes a "good" game. Good riddance, I say!
3 Like @wavelength121 Let me guess, happily waiting in a queue to play your preordered copy of Sim Shitty, eh?
I bet you never even played Planescape Torment, widely considered the best RPG of all time.
2 Like @wavelength121 LOL I disagree with you completely but I commend you for your jolly good rant.
12 Like @wavelength121 LOL wow you seriously need to get the sand out of your vagina, princess.
BTW, this game IS happening. Mad?
7 Like @The_Gump Dude. It's a troll. A pointless pointless troll.
It says things just to piss you off.
Let it rot.
8 Like I'm a really big fan of PS:T so I can't wait for this beautiful game to come out. It's nice to see how kickstarter can bring us something like an old school isometric RPG.
7 Like @TheThoughtless1 Psshh. Anyone that takes inspiration from Planescape Torment is bound for greatness.
@TheThoughtless1 @Poodlejumper @2bitSmOkEy Not really. Let's say in the tiny chance that the game ends up being low quality (which won't happen), I'm still happy just to support the very idea of resurrecting ambitious and deep games like Planescape Torment.
@Poodlejumper @TheThoughtless1 @2bitSmOkEy No, but look at inXile's record and tell me that doesn't bother you.
@TheThoughtless1 @2bitSmOkEy And does/did Brian Fargo work for Timegate?
Seriously, the few big KSed projects are funded by big names. Famous names. People who have huge success in the past. They're not know-nothings. Fargo, Roberts, Schaefer,..
1 Like @TheThoughtless1 @2bitSmOkEy Dunno anything about them actually . What are they known for?
10 Like Proud to be one of the supporters. BTW, wasteland 2 seems to be advancing great.
I'm on the fence about the new "lord British" game....
@rhymebomb @M-S-M-S @Azghouls, Well, yes and no. He has a new project, but it's not in the Ultima world, although it seems to have things in common.
If I understood correctly, it's a mix between SP and a MMO... I'm not convinced, and the play style isn't exactly what I like. But it may turn to be a good game...
@slayerSS-3 @M-S-M-S @rhymebomb I didn't know that. But it's his right to do whatever he wants with his money. The question is if the community accepts this.
Brian Fargo said that if Torment reaches 1 million US$, he'll add another 100k from his pocket. And he did... Small differences.
@M-S-M-S @rhymebomb and dont forget that he is asking for money when he does space turism...25-30 mil dollars!
With all the support, I'm inclined to believe I missed out by not having played the old instalment of this series.. :O It's hard to believe an isometric game is good (yes I tend to hate them)
>edit< it occurred to me that my inclination to dislike isometric games may stem from the fact that I've had little exposure to them early in my life... *ponders some more * *grabs beer*
1 Like @Lei_11 If you don't like a game because it uses an isometric perspective, then maybe you don't actually like video games; you just like current technology. You like being alerted to the fact that recently manufactured RAM exists or something.
There are games that came out years before I was even born that I like. No offense but it always sounds like the dumbest thing in the world to me when someone says they can't get into a game because it's top down or old or something. You don't need exposure early in life to appreciate something; you just need to have thoughts.
@advancedcaveman Reckon so. I guess I usually don't like them because I find it harder to get immersed in them. The ones I did play weren't very good either. I figured this was due to mechanics, but perhaps Planscape would've proved me wrong.
I think some assumptions were made by responders based on my comment too, like me being young, or that I never play or have played (and liked) old games. Also, I think that not being able to get into a game because of a used mechanic isn't dumb at all. If you don't like the mechanic, it'll bother you. I think nostalgia does play a large role in preference (bloating it a bit too), but agree that it isn't needed to appreciate something.
@Lei_11 It's not a nostalgic thing, big guy. That's selling this kind of game pretty short. There were plenty of adults that played it and loved when it first came out. The key is that you need to put down your controller and start accepting the use of your brain and imagination in video games. Hard for today's kids, I know. Maybe even impossible.
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