MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Publishers may be investing millions in rebooting franchises such as Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry, but UK developers have found a more cost-effective route to market.
More and more studios are using crowd-funding platform Kickstarter to bring back classic gaming brands. Earlier this week, Silverball Studios called for funding for a remastered edition of popular series Pro Pinball for PC, Mac and iOS.
Despite having some success, we simply don’t have sufficient capital to self fund a project such as this,” said Silverball CEO Adrian Barritt.
That coupled with the fact we wouldn’t be forced to find a publisher,meaning creative decisions are solely ours, made Kickstarter very appealing.
It was the most likely way of us raising sufficient funds to both remaster the classic Pro Pinball games and create a brand new game because of the huge fanbase we have. We knew those people, along with gaming fans, would be excited about this campaign and hopefully help us fund it.”
Plans for a new Pro Pinball follow recent announcements of Carmageddon and Broken Sword revivals, which willalso be crowdfundedvia Kickstarter.
As well as the funding, the Kickstarter appeal provided a fantastic platform around which to formally announce the game and, in doing so, galvanised fans and created energy and goodwill,” said Charles Cecil, MD of Broken Sword developerRevolution Software, whose new Broken Sword project hit its Kickstarter funding goals yesterday.
This simply wouldn’t have been possible without social media allowing us to communicate directly with our audience.”
Neil Barnden, co-founder of Carmageddon developer Stainless Games, adds: The crowdfunding model works particularly well for ‘classic’ brands that are owned by their original developers.
There are still many, many thousands of old school gamers out there – a mix of older gamers hankering after the chance to play their favourites from yesteryear again, and a new generation of gamers who want more than the increasingly watered down homogenised output aimed at the casual market.”
MCV Magazine will provide a deeper look at Kickstarter and crowdfunding in nextweek’s issue.
