Legendary developer Sid Meier has expressed caution about developing a game through a Kickstarter fund, which he says leads to developers being unable to make drastic design changes later down the line.
In an interview with Game Industry International, Meier spoke about the problems he had with Kickstarter:
“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,” Meier said. “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,” he added. “I think it’s great for people who want that indie environment, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each situation.”
After hearing what he had to say, I can completely see his points. You have to sell the audience on your game really early and you can’t risk changing too much otherwise the backers will be upset and angry that you have not delivered on your promised, original design. This could lead to lesser games being made that could have been improved if design decisions had been altered during development.
Let me know in the comments below if you agree with what Sid Meier had to say as I’ll be interested to hear all your opinions on the matter.
