In early 2012, Double Fine launched a Kickstarter campaign for a then unnamed point and click adventure game meant to be reminiscent of studio founder Tim Schafer’s work on LucasArts classics Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. Kickstarter had been used to fund video game projects before the Double Fine Adventure campaign, but they were mostly smaller projects offered by developers with less of a reputation.
In the intervening decade the template of high profile Kickstarter campaigns from well known developers has become familiar to onlookers. Often a team or individual who built a reputation making games in a specific genre that has trouble getting funded by publishers in the current market (point and click adventure, shmup, isometric RPG) revisits that genre by turning to Kickstarter for initial funding and potentially to prove to deeper pocketed publishers that there is sufficient enthusiasm among fans to make the concept viable. The trappings of these campaigns have also become familiar to those of us who participate: stretch goals for exceeding the initial funding target that could include additional characters or areas, hiring a well-known composer for the soundtrack, or additional game modes; the temptation of physical copies, art books, soundtracks, in-person meetings or even dinners with the developers, and other perqs for higher tier pledges; and updates that arrive frequently throughout the campaign to stoke enthusiasm and inevitably slow down as the game enters the long period of development. → Lame is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.