Wasteland 2 Interview

Screen Robot has a new article-style interview with Brian Fargo about Wasteland 2, which mostly seems to cover the usual ground, with Fargo once again expressing his profound love for crowdfunding. Here’s a snippet:

(We were going to release a beta version of the game into the wild regardless of early access, and we were looking forward to that moment,) says Brian describing inXile’s plans for the release of Wasteland 2. Brian’s confidence in his product flies in the face of some of the negativity surrounding crowdfunded video games. Having customers pay up front for a product that could be years off being ready has its risks, especially when you’re making a sequel to a cult classic from 25 years ago rose-tinted glasses can make even the best sequel disappoint some fans. However, having played the game myself, I can see why Brian was looking forward to getting it in the hands of the players, as it really is rather good.

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(I have not had a chance to play Broken Age but I have been reading the reviews and watching YouTube videos of folks’ coverage. What matters most is that the backers of that game are happy, and that is consideration number one to me.) Clearly, the desire to keep backers happy is something that has profoundly impacted the way that Wasteland 2 is being developed and released. With more campaigns cropping up by the day after those early successes, like Wasteland 2 and Broken Age, the fear was that should those initial games disappoint when they were eventually released, it could cause a market crash in the years to follow.

However, Broken Age and Wasteland 2 look like two compelling rebuttals to this naysaying. (Naturally there have been sceptics of Kickstarter as it is such a radical new idea, and it creates a much greater transparency for people to observe us in our natural habitat,) says Brian when asked about early criticism of the crowdfunding model. (Thankfully Tim [Schafer, director of Broken Age] has delivered and our audience is quite happy with Wasteland 2 so far. That will build confidence, and hopefully make it easier for the next round of games that people will be looking to fund.) Will crowdfunding have a big impact on the way that videogames are made going forward? (Yes, I see a major long term impact, and we will have to be less concerned about the mainstream.)