The 10 Biggest Video Game Wins And Fails On Kickstarter This Year

It's been a crazy year in game publishing. As more big publishers are getting close to going belly-up, developers have been turning to consumers to fund their passion projects. Kickstarter has been a great boon to the video game industry this year, but it's also attracted a lot of failures.

For all the success we've seen, unscrupulous practices, embarassingly low levels of funding, and outright ineptitude have shown the crowd-funding revolution its worst sides this year. At the end of the day, this business model is still a gamble and like most chances taken on passion projects; some inevitably don't make it.

Still, it's not all doom and gloom, there have been some fantastic projects that are well on their way to becoming fully realized products that backers will enjoy in the new year. As the platform's biggest year comes to a close, it's important to take a step back and look at the greatest triumphs and desperate lows that crowd-funding has brought us.

Creator: Tim Schafer (Double Fine)

Date Ended: March 13, 2012

Initial Goal: $400,000

Final Amount: $3,334,203

Kickstarter Link

It's only fitting that we kick off this list with the project that kicked off all of this year's madness. Tim Schafer and the folks at Double Fine have done a fantastic job of building a community of fans that will (as they've proven here) jump when told to. That power though is well deserved thanks to years of catering to their customers and delivering games that explore new and unique things.

What made Double Fine Adventure such a unique project - apart from the ungodly amounts of money it made - was the fact that it offered backers a chance to contribute directly to the game. Unlike most game projects on Kickstarter, this wasn't a predetermined game just waiting to be released; it would adapt and react to the whims of its supporters. It showed respect paid back from the creator to its fans for all of their support.

Double Fine Adventure is still a ways off from being released, but the gaming community spoke loud and clear; great talent deserves to have its dreams fulfilled and they're willing to pay in order to see that happen. Of course, not every developer is as affable as Tim and that plays a large role in why they were successful, but this effort proved that you don't need a big name publisher to support your project if you've got a fun idea and a worthy team behind it.

Creator: Paul Fullard

Date Ended: March 9, 2012 (Cancelled by Creator)

Initial Goal: $1,500

Final Amount: $13.37

Kickstarter Link

When you're creating your Kickstarter project that's intended to fund development of a game, it kind of helps if you actually let your supporters know what the game is. Beyond that, if you're planning on releasing said mystery game for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, iOS, and Android, you may want to consider asking for more than $1,500 - that won't even pay your way through the ESRB.

What's most peculiar about this bland, generic campaign is that for some reason Paul Fullard decided that having people guess what the game entailed would be a huge selling feature. I'm sorry Paul, people like to know what they're paying for, especially in a volatile environment like Kickstarter. As if this project wasn't weird enough already, the backer rewards include a remote capoeira lesson from Fuller himself or help with your computer network security all for $300 apiece.

At least Paul came to his senses eventually and shut the project down after recieving 2 rather elite donations that bumped his funding up to $13.37. He says he's going to continue working on his game and try and find funding for it later, but at least he published a very heartfelt apology letter to the two people who supported him.

Creator: Jordan Weisman (Harebrained Schemes)

Date Ended: April 29, 2012

Initial Goal: $400,000

Final Amount: $1,836,447

Kickstarter Link

The recipe for success on Kickstarter seems to be mixing a beloved property with notable industry talent and packing in a few worthwhile rewards for the backers. Jordan Weisman may not be a name that's overly well known in the video game industry, but those who are aware of his previous work - Mage Knight, Heroclix, I Love Bees, and Crimson Skies - know that his name is synonymous with quality tabletop experiences and engrossing fantasy worlds.

After the 2007 travesty of a game that was published by Microsoft and his own FASA studios, Weisman sought to reclaim the purity of his Shadowrun franchise by developing a new RPG set in the cyberpunk world of high-tech and magic. His turn to Kickstarter was part of a growing concern that no publisher would fund the project or treat it with the sincerity it deserved; a legitimate fear after his last efforts were shoehorned into a Windows Vista marketing tool.

Gamers don't forget the good times they have with particular franchises and as seen by the success of this campaign, sometimes they're willing to forgive shortcomings if it means getting better products in the future. Shadowrun Returns couldn't exist without the fans (no publisher in their right mind would pay for it), and that's kind of what this platform is all about. We're still waiting to get the game, but plenty of updates detailing elements of the game have been provided which have kept fans in the loop while they wait.

Creator: Ellwood "Bunky" Barlett

Date Ended: May 3, 2012

Initial Goal: $1,100,000

Final Amount: $21,345

Kickstarter Link

MMO games require two things to succeed; a massive pool of talent that can create and support a living world, and an ungodly amount of money. Most big-name publishers can't even get it right these days, slipping into the bowels of free-to-play, but that didn't matter to Ellwood Barlett who promised to deliver an MMO game that incorporated the best elements of World of Warcraft, Rift, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Second Life, and more.

Even if he had received the $1.1 million he asked for, judging by the quality of his website, it's incredibly unlikely Barlett had the skill to pull off such a massive undertaking; the thing uses a prefabricated design provided by GoDaddy and features layout work that would be out of place even in 1998. Still, you can't blame a guy for trying.

The most baffling thing about this campaign is not why Barlett thought this project would be successful, but why 109 random backers did. With such obvious shortcomings, the fact that Your World wound up raising over $21,000 makes no sense whatsoever; proof that the Kickstarter community sometimes just likes throwing money at stuff for no reason whatsoever.

Creator: Julie Uhrman (Ouya)

Date Ended: August 9, 2012

Initial Goal: $950,000

Final Amount: $8,587,035

Kickstarter Link

It's not hard to imagine why gamers and developers might be fed up with the big console manufacturers that control the industry; their policies and royalties put severe limitations on what developers get to publish and what consumers get to buy. With that in mind, the success of the Ouya console, which promised to disestablish the status quo by offering an open source platform that capitalized on all of the industry's hottest buzzwords, is not hard to understand.

Having more in common with a phone than an Xbox 360, the Ouya promised a robust digital experience full of free-to-play games, independent creations, and ports of some iOS favourites. There were a lot of lofty promises made in their well-polished introduction video that seem to be more hyperbole than genuine ("Minecraft is gonna be on it!" despite no confirmation from Mojang), but that didn't stop fans from throwing over $8.5 million at it, making it one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns to date and the highest grossing one on this list.

Despite all the hope, $8.5 million isn't a lot of money when you consider that most new platforms require billions of dollars to complete, but that hasn't dissuaded the team or the fans. The update posted at the end of November showed the latest prototype and it's looking rather remarkable. How the whole thing will play out and whether the device will work as advertised, we'll have to wait until next year to see; Ouya pre-orders are scheduled to ship in March 2013.

Creator: Kostas (Kinesthetic Games)

Date Ended: December 4, 2012

Initial Goal: £200,000

Final Amount: £94,010

Kickstarter Link

Kung Fu Superstar had it all; a talented developer, a quality demo that showed the game's best elements, support from an industry icon, and a reasonable goal to meet. Yet, despite all this Kinesthetic Games' project barely reached half its funding, proving that no matter how promising a campaign may seem, sometimes it's just not in the cards if it doesn't deliver exactly what consumers want.

Anti-motion control sentiments have been rather pervasive since the technology has failed to deliver a truly great game. Perhaps Kostas and his team hoped to change all that with Kung Fu Superstar by delivering a martial arts experience specifically catered to the controller-free environment of the Kinect. Still, gamers just wouldn't have it and despite his best efforts, it didn't get supported.

This isn't entirely a sob story, the team still has some hope for the project as alluded to in their final Kickstarter update, but it just goes to show that not everything can work out all the time. When you turn your project over to the whims of the people, you have to accept the harsh reality that sometimes your game - no matter how good it seems - just isn't wanted.

Creator: Brian Fargo (inXile Entertainment)

Date Ended: April 17, 2012

Initial Goal: $900,000

Final Amount: $2,933,197

Kickstarter Link

Brian Fargo helped see some great games when he founded Interplay. Games like Planescape: Torment, MDK, Bauldur's Gate, and Fallout all flourished under his banner. Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic RPG originally published in 1988 caught much attention, but after Interplay went bankrupt, its legacy was cast into the abyss of games forgotten.

Kickstarter represented an opportunity to revitalize the game for Fargo, it offered a chance for the community - who had been asking for a sequel for years - to put their money where their mouth was and fund the project themselves. Going up against the new breed of publishers, Fargo had no success, but in the hands of fans who never forgot how great the original was, his campaign achieved tremendous success.

The project has been frequently updated since funding concluded and the team at inXile has done a good job of posting the details of the mechanics and some rather glorious artwork to stave off the hungry anticipation surrounding the game. The quality of the final product is unknown - there's no telling how good a retro-revival like this will turn out - but there's a good deal of hope now that the project's been given more money than they needed and have the freedom to make it as good as it possibly can be.

Creator: Alex Peake

Date Ended: February 24, 2012

Initial Goal: $100,000

Final Amount: $170,954

Kickstarter Link

When it comes to failure stories, Code Hero represents the worst nightmare of any Kickstarter backer. After nearly doubling the initial goal, backers of Code Hero were excited to see a game made that would teach them how to make their own games through a unique set of gameplay mechanics that would incorporate the players' creation. Nearly a year later it looked like creator Alex Peake has spent all the money and walked away from the project.

With nearly $200,00 of their money gone up in smoke with no sign of their rewards or word from the developers, Code Hero was either the result of a horribly managed project (part of the natural risk of crowd-funding) or an intentional deception by a crafty mastermind (unlikely). However, recent interviews have indicated that Peake is being held accountable for his progress and he intends to keep development on track with the first alpha releasing this week.

Whether this turns into a whole lot of unwarranted worry over a few missed deadlines, or one of the greatest examples of crowd-funding mismanagement still has yet to be seen. For those who've backed the project, the answer can't come soon enough, but time will quickly tell just which side of the spectrum Peake lays on.

Creator: Anita Sarkeesian

Date Ended: June 16, 2012

Initial Goal: $6,000

Final Amount: $158,917

Kickstarter Link

Love her for her progressive feminist views or hate her for abusing the gender divide for profit, there's no denying that Anita Sarkeesian walked away from her campaign with more than she ever could have hoped for. The Feminist Frequency series had already seen some success on YouTube, but this project that promises to examine the roles of women in video games propelled her personal profile to new heights while securing over 25 times what it set out to achieve.

While the series still hasn't seen the release of its first episode (which was promised to be in front of backers during the "late fall or early winter"), there is still an great level of anticipation for its arrival. Since recieving the funds from her campaign, Sarkeesian has "purchased well over 300 games" for the research phase and has done a TEDxWomen talk about how her campaign attracted an array of misogynistic cyber bullies.

Still, none of this has dissuaded her supporters from feeling faithful about the outcome of the product which goes to show that sometimes selling an ideology can be more successful than a product.

Creator: David Stonecipher

Date Ended: July 22, 2012

Initial Goal: $500

Final Amount: $0

Kickstarter Link

Perhaps David Stonecipher saw Anita Sarkeesian's overwhelmingly successful campaign and made the connection that gender + games = money. It would certainly explain why he thought the bizarre idea to crowd-fund a series of illustrations depicting popular video game characters if they were born with a different set of chromosomes.

The drawings aren't particularly bad, but the question why anybody would fund this - especially when he announced that all of the art would be uploaded to his website for free - still begs to be asked. I'd like to give the gaming community the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not because they're uncomfortable with transgender depictions of their iconic heroes, but rather that there's really no tangible value provided to them here.

When the best possible reward is a $100 black and white sketch, you're not really offering all that much from a consumer angle. Considering that most professional comic book artists don't even charge that at conventions, it's probably time to re-evaluate your imagined self-importance.