You know you can pledge the 20 bucks and then back out before the deadline expires, right? So you have until Oct 16 to pull your pledge out if you don't like what you see.

Somebody tell Forbes that their default text size and page layout are atrocious.

Top bar, left side bar, left side pictures, bottom bar, right side links, right side pictures. LOL virtually unreadable. Barely any actual story text on screen.

Who designs this crap? Forbes website looks optimized for a 90 year old.

Page doesn't seem that bad to me. But I have AdblockPlus and NoScript installed, so maybe that's the difference?

I also have AdBlock. Here's a screenshot of the default zoom. Horrid. And my 1366x768 resolution isn't the culprit. Just an awful, cluttered site design.

But that's just a side note. Good article (the text, anyway).

Exactly. The kickstarter page might say $1.1 million, but the real goal is probably somewhere around $2.5-3 million. Just entice people with "added content" that would otherwise be essential to the core game. And I realize that people are making games without publisher support, so financially they do have to assess what's absolutely necessary and what's optional, but we all know that many of the stretch goals are pretty much essential to making a complete game.

The idea of owning a house was interesting though, content wise. The rest seemed like filler.

The problem with all these fundraisers is that there is no clear picture of the final product, even games like Grim Dawn that are in alpha don't have them.

They should have a list of features from the start, like:
50+ sidequests
6 playable races
100 prerendered maps
20 classes and so on...

Without these there's no clear picture what we are getting in the first place and how much they are adding. Only features that have any meaning are features like DRM free, Linux or Mac.

Broken Sword has a very clear picture of what their product is. ;)

www.kickstarter.com/projects/165500047/broken-sword-the-serpents-curse-adventure

The stretch goals aren't that much better, but that doesn't matter that much in adventure games that have a set storyline (script) with not too much room for expanding.

RPG games are all about the quantity (quality of course also ) of quests, NPCs, playable races, classes. So having some concrete numbers would really help make some sense of those stretch goals.

Yeah, I was thinking they are saying this to each other: "Guess what guys? We get some major Christmas bonuses this year!" ;-P

But you can see 6 months of progress on Broken Sword realized with gameplay video, animations, etc. They've shown quite a bit of work and have been more or less transparent.

I don't know how much work Obsidian has done so far, but it seems like they might not even be in a position to specify or quantify stretch goals like you mentioned.

I like projects that show up front what the plan is, what work has been done, etc. I could invite some backlash with this comment, but Obsidian seems to be saying, "Look at us, we made some awesome RPGs. Give us money, then we'll make another one." Now, most kickstarters are asking for money in the same manner, but different projects show a lot more work, planning, details, designs, etc. up front.

I think Obsidian is playing their cards close to their chest. The main three guys have a great track record and they can bank on that. Question is, how much have they actually done?

They made a map and they replayed Baldur's Gate together, and said sweeeet together at the same time. This I think is obvious. :D Oh and did I mention the notes on the toilet paper roll? Bathroom brainstorming is my personal strong point as well.

As you say, Steamwoks adds a lot of benefits to developers. It's a big deal to agree to release everything outside of Steam as well.

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