Jim Walls's Precinct Kickstarter cancelled

I suspect Jim is shaking his head about the Kickstarter too...

Yesterday, Robert Lindsley, Executive Producer for Jim Walls’s spiritual successor to Police Quest known as Precinct, announced that the Kickstarter campaign was officially cancelled.

This doesn’t mean the end for the project though as Robert and Jim have relaunched the project on their own website and are seeking funds for a new "staged funding" model. The staged funding model is below:

1. Playable Proof of Concept (PC and Mac) = $25,000
2. Vertical Slice (PC and Mac) = $90,000
3. Game Demo (PC and Mac) = $250,000
4. Full Game Development Budget (PC and Mac) = $400,000

Apparently you can donate as much as you want – even $1 will get you a copy of the game.

Robert said that the reason they didn’t continue to use Kickstarter was for several reasons, however the short version is that not all money necessarily goes to development costs with Kickstarters thanks to special rewards for higher tiers and the funding campaign only goes for a finite time, meaning anyone wanting to back the project later, can’t.

Reaction from Kickstarter backers have been mixed with concerns about what happens if funding goals aren’t reached (e.g.. early backers are charged for nothing more than a demo) and how long the game would take to complete with a trickle of funding coming in. The more optimistic backers reiterate that you have to think of the new method as a means of donating money to a developer you respect, with the very real chance you won’t get a finished game – if you don’t have the disposable income though, don’t back it.

Robert has indicated that PayPal will become a payment method soon. Once that occurs I’ll probably chip in some money towards the project. Personally I’m still excited for this project and I’m probably one of those people that would prefer to just get the game instead of all the other Kickstarter rewards. What I did like about Kickstarter is that it could encourage those who wanted their 15 minutes of fame by being included in the game or credits to pledge more money. That option is going to be absent now so it’ll be interesting to see if they can still succeed without the perks that come with a Kickstarter.