Lowe has said, that LSL2 is the one he want's to remake the most, as it has tons of dead ends and what not. That was among the reasons I pledged actually, to see what Lowe could do with LL2.

I have instantly pledged for LSL, but I think it might be going slower because:

a\ There were a lot of "big" kickstarters recently, so many people are out of free money ;)
b\ The new graphics aren't really that great for my taste. They are too "curvy", "uncrealistic" and cartoony. I'd much prefer pixelart, though I know it is much more expensive to produce.

I hope they succeed though. More Sierra classics!

I don't know, I like what I'm seeing, I don't think that LSL ought to be too realistic. I do get the Toontown vibe though and I think to an extent you're right about them needing to tone that down a bit. But, I think if they go too far with removing it you'll have a product that just reinforces the stereotypes people had about the series without playing any of them.

Well the game finally broke the $500K mark, next goal is to see if it reaches $750K

That's most worrying, because of a few factors.

First there's the chance that some people won't pull through with their pledges... especially some of the bigger ones. Then there's the Kickstarter and Amazon Payment fees (for a total of around 10% of the final sum). Then of course they have to spend some of the money on all the swag they promised - and in an inexplicable move, the shipping costs, especially international ones, are included in the final sum... meaning they are effectively taken out from the game budget. And then there's always the risk of the development going over budget, which happens quite often.

If a game expected $400.000 and got 3 millions, that's not a problem at all, but if they don't get far from their goal, it might be more complicated.

I do hope they pull through, but I'm not too convinced here.

I agree. The way other kickstarters have gone, it looks like they would be lucky to actually get $400k cash from $500k worth of donations.

The rate things are going now, they should get more than $600k, which should hopefully get them around $500k cash for the project. Hopefully that will be enough.

They have to pay tax on it. So the best they could hope for is $400k on $500k donations. And that's before they pay for any of the swag. Which is also why the swag isn't generally as impressive as it is for some of the other projects.

I know the swag I'm getting for Serpent's Tongue is going to be really impressive. But, with a game like LSL, Wasteland or Shadowrun, you get a game of unknowable quality in the deal.

Yes, and then there's the assumption that the developer will remain within budget, which is probably not the case. Small developers usually end up stumbling on all kinds of unexpected complications.

But maybe I'm just being paranoid here. Maybe (I hope) they had already considered that the final sum would be lower, and thus asked for $500.000 even if they actually needed less.

These are industry insiders that have worked for decades on games like this. I'm guessing that people like Al Lowe will be working for essentially free on this particular release to get the ball rolling if need be.

But yes, in general if I saw a game like this being pitched on that budget, I'd be wary too. Worst case scenario they can just reuse most of the original writing with updates for the 21st century.

Really? What kind of tax do they have to pay?

In Australia, they would only have to pay income tax on the proceeds if there was a profit - for example, if the company received $500k, and used all that money to pay salaries, third party providers and food, they wouldn't pay any tax because there was no profit. If the production of the game cost, for example, $400k, they would pay tax on the $100k profit, only.

for me it's because it's just a remake - if they did a regular 8th part I'd fund them immediately ;) but I understand that they thought it would be much more attractive to bring the old classic with new graphics and interface... maybe if they succeed, then we'll have part VIII :D

I'm just really hoping that they will change the art and definitely change the voice that they showed in the video.

I really just backed this project out of hope. Hope that the adventure games of old will have some kind of resurgence.

It was in an article I saw about the risk of Kickstarters, the tax comes out to about a quarter of the total. http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/the-ugly-side-of-kickstarter-why-the-risks-in-backing-gaming-campaigns-are-

I'm not a particular expert in this, but I think it has to do with the way it's structured and that you're giving the money to people rather than a corporation in most cases. Any income like this that you receive is considered income in the US and taxed accordingly.
But, they don't have a license to make an 8th, it's either fund this or we don't get any. At this point it's been funded and the question is how well is it going to be funded, but I think this attitude of "if it's not a new LSL then I'm not paying" has been really hurting them.

I know it can sound like a stupid reason to a true LSL fan but if you think that anyone who doesn't pay them hurts them then you should think again :) this is still a democracy, right?