As in much of business (and human civilization in general), there once was a Single Way to make computer games: you came up with an idea, you pitched it to The People With Teh Moneys, and – if they liked it – your game got a shot at being produced.

It wasn't a bad system – plenty of Games of a Certain Age exist today as testament to its effectiveness – but it had one glaring flaw: whether or not your game got the go-ahead depended solely on the opinions and tastes of a small group of individuals. You never got to gauge reaction to the idea from its intended audience – merely from a handful of people who figured they knew what said audience would like.

Within the wee constellation of big-name, big-budget studios and publishers, that system yet prevails – with devs pitching ideas to Teh Suits with the hope their project will have that singular something they figure will sell...

But not everybody could make that system work for them. Plenty of games never got the funding they needed because of an arbitrary decision made by people whose primary concern was not merit, but merely sellability. And while most devs came to accept this as The Way The World Worked, some decided to try and go a different route.

What today is TaleWorlds Entertainment was once Armağan and Ipek Yavuz: a married couple who got it in their heads to smoosh grand strategy and 3rd-person mounted combat hijinks into a single, coherent whole (which would eventually go by the moniker Mount & Blade). And while, within the confines of their garage – with Armağan programming and Ipek handling art – they managed to turn the concept into a reality, no publisher would back their vision.

Rather than abandon the work, Armağan and Ipek engaged in what is today recognized as the first (if unofficial) instance of computer game crowdfunding: they canvassed for people who found the idea of Mount & Blade appealing and got them to invest in the game. Thanks to that effort, Mount & Blade got made and self-published on their website in 2004. Then, once interest in the game became more widespread, the big fish swooped in to make some money on it, with Paradox "deciding" to "publish" the title in 2008.

The idea of crowdfunding computer games grew from there, with Kickstarter officially forming in 2009 and several indie titles raising funds in the vicinity of 10K USD during their campaigns... Then came the game-changer: in 2012, Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions signed on to make a documentary about their next computer game project (Broken Age) and both documentary and the game were to be crowdfunded with a 400K USD goal attached to the project.

Now, who doesn't love Tim Schafer? Between The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Psychonauts or even Brütal Legend, the man's made more iconic games than a single person ought to be able to. So it seemed only natural that – with him at the helm – Broken Age would not only get funded, but do it posthaste (which it did: the game attracted 87,000 backers within a month, for a grand-total of 3.45 million USD — more than eight and a half times more than the project's crowdfunding goal). And while the success of Broken Age's crowdfunding campaign heralded great opportunity for other indie projects, it also signalled an unexpected twist to how crowdfunding would be used from that point on.

See, while the Old Way of Funding Games had it's big, glaring fault (being beholden to a narrow, business-oriented interpretation of a game's merits); it also had something working in its favor (the oversight of people who had first-hand knowledge of publishing a game and all that it entailed). Much as we might hate to admit it, every successful creative venture needs its Benevolent Tyrants: a group of people focused solely on the boring stuff — like whether a mechanic can be made in time and on budget, scope creep needs to be reined-in or a feature abandoned because it Simply Doesn't Work.

Need an example? Watch Payback and Payback Director's Cut. While the latter is closer to the "original vision" of the director and the source material, it is – frankly – the lesser of the two movies, with the edits made after the director's exit resulting in a leaner, more focused story (that, incidentally, was also a lot funnier).

Need a more specific, gaming example? Star Citizen. Need I say more...

What started out as an alternative to getting games funded has been subverted into yet another Money Making Scheme. That 3.5 million Broken Age got? It didn't result in a game that was eight and a half times better than Schafer's original pitch. And while Double Fine didn't resort to gimmicks (like backer tiers and rewards) and put the money to use porting the game to more platforms, providing more localizations and even funding a full voice-over for the whole game, not every dev that crowdfunds has been as scrupulous since.

Battletech, for instance, (c'mon: you knew it was coming) made a huge splash while it was seeking funding – the sky was the limit! Custom merc company emblems that would appear on your 'mechs! LAN co-op! Legendary mechwarriors straight out of Battletech lore! All this and more!— IF you get us another 100K...

Once the game reached – and exceeded – its funding, however, (to the tune of 2.5 million USD) the devs' enthusiasm seemed to wane perceptibly, with the promised features and rewards not so much materializing as quietly slinking into existence, following the time-honored mantra of Minimal Effort. Even if it's final form was less impressive than backers were lead to believe, however – to be fair – the game was completed in the end, which is more than can be said for other crowdfunded projects.

Project Phoenix, for instance, lured in backers to the tune of one million USD in 2013 with a promised release date two years later (2015). Eleven years down the road, the game remains unreleased, though – if you visit its Kickstarter page – it is still accepting backer donations and promising six extra tiers of content (the last one cashing in at a comical $4.85 million USD).

Unsung Story – a "spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics" directed by Tactics' own Yasumi Matsuno – was successfully backed in 2014 with 660K USD, before running out of funds in 2016 and Matsuno (the game's core attraction) parting ways with the project two years later. And while work continues on the title (an early access release was published in 2020), with the main reason people backed the game now gone it's kinda hard to see the point.

And then there's Star Citizen – the half a billion USD gorilla in the room. The "game" exceeded its funding goals in 2012 with 6.2M USD — and then, just kept going. A year later, it raised 15M USD. A year after that – in 2014 – 50M USD. 2017 saw the funding hit 150M. 2020 — 300M. 400M in 2021 and, as of last count, 500 million USD in September of 2022.

In all that time, Chris Roberts kept tacking new "features" onto the game, hiring more personnel, opening new offices and – naturally – paying out 1.28M USD in dividends to (I kid you not) shareholders. All on a game the most basic component of which (the so-called Squadron 42) has been delayed seven times over the course of ten years and has yet to see a beta release...

While Star Citizen is an excessive, one-of-a-kind example, it does illustrate the downside to crowdfunding games without any kind of oversight. The people pitching the games are, ultimately, not the ones who make 'em and (as I can attest from experience) making anything is infinitely more difficult than coming up with the brightest of ideas. It is only when you bridge the gap between concept and a functioning reality that you gain the insight necessary to be able to promise something that will actually, eventually, be made. And that is an aspect of production that crowdfunding – divorced as it is from its Tyrants – largely ignores.

At the end of the day, all a backer has to go on to gauge whether a project is being handled by an honest, well-meaning dev down on their luck or a charlatan out to make some cash is their word. And on paper, as it were, and prior to tangible proof, the two can be quite tricky to tell apart.

It's good that crowdfunding became a thing. It has allowed many solid games to be made that, otherwise, maybe wouldn't have been. But, at the same time, it has given the people who were so inclined a new way to exploit the process of making games. And, worst of all, it has done so in a way that is difficult to investigate or evaluate.

The next time you feel tempted to give generously on Kickstarter or back a small indie on their website, make sure to do your due diligence first. Becaue – just like the difference between concept and reality – giving money is much easier than getting its worth...

Pig Contradicts:

• -what better way to finish an article about not spending money on things you're not sure of than by conceding that, while doing "research" for it, I stumbled onto Venus Patrol (the odd lil' game by Neil Thapen – not the website); and promptly bought it for eight bucks (what can I say: he had me at "De Havilland Vampire"); no idea if I'll have time to play it, but – surely – '50s aircraft dodging dirigibles and dogfighting Communists in Venus' troposphere is a worthy cause to back... well, I found the idea charming, at any rate; take a gander at https://thapen.itch.io/venuspatrol to see if you feel the same;