Sid Meier, Civilization Creator, Cautious About Kickstarter and Crowd Funding Games

While many different individuals and developers are turning to Kickstarter and crowd funding to finance video games, some people within the industry are not keen to join the fad. One such person is Sid Meier, the influential designer of the Civilization series and who currently works for 2K subsidiary Firaxis Games. Meier recently spoke out against crowd sourcing in an interview with GamesIndustry International,  revealing his reluctance to use the platform because it can lock in developers to ideas before development even begins.

"You've got to convince people to support it and create trailers or whatever it takes to get the support. I think you kind of lock yourself into a lot of ideas early...I really enjoy the luxury of changing my design and evolving over time. I'd be a little concerned with Kickstarter if I committed to X, Y, and Z and I found out down the road that Z didn't work very well, I kind of promised to do this...I think it's great for people who want that indie environment, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each situation."

Kickstarter revealed in their end of 2012 review that video games were the most funded category out of any on the website, with $83 million dollars raised to fund various projects. Developers who have used the crowdfunding website include Tim Schafer, American McGee, and Chris Avellone.

Sid Meier brings up an interesting point in his interview, pointing out the potential embarrassment and disappointment that a crowd funded video game could bring by failing to bring about promised features or delivering a broken project. While some games have failed to reach their fundraising goal, so far there has yet to be a Kickstarter game that has failed to deliver on the goals stated in their campaign, though it may be because so few crowd funded games have been released to the public yet.