Wow. These guys started yesterday and already have over $1 million pledged for their game idea. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity
I have mixed feelings about Kickstarter. It's kind of a mix between a good idea and exploitation, since the potential for monetary rewards from the product is totally one-sided. The "investors" don't really get a return on their money other than the product itself. I've contributed to a couple of smaller game oriented projects though.
And there is also the risk that a product will never be released. Obviously the idea has to be very good. No one is going to invest in Doom 6. This game idea is totally my thing so I might give the $20 now in hopes that it releases at $50. I like how the $10k donors get a pen and paper role-playing session with the developers.
I think the thing that made this one this successful is that it's actually Obsidian doing this. If it was just some no name startup company, then yea, it'd be going no where. Obsidian is legit.
Would you fund an idea by EA or Activision or even Blizzard?? No they have their own money they'd already extorted from us already! I don't think Obsidian is any better or worse.
I wouldn't even compare Obsidian to those companies. Obsidian is like a speck of dust compared to them. Obsidian is just a developer. They've always had publishers fund their projects. As a matter of fact, I think their only original IP was Alpha Protocol which was a horrible game. If you recall the history of Obsidian, they used to be Black Isle Studios which did the Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale series. The only reason I even know these guys is because Bioware used to hand off follow up projects to them and they'd actually do a decent job on it.
And pdraggy's concerns were exposed with this kickstarter project http://www.destructoid.com/publishers-accused-of-trying-to-exploit-kickstarter-235292.phtml
Kickstarter ended and they almost hit $4 million. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity
There's definitely something a bit wonky about the bridges when you take a closer look at them. The surface of the top bridge seems to be tilted at a different angle than the bottom one, and the bottom bridge doesn't look very symmetrical...left side seems much straighter than the right, and the centerline of the paving seems to veer off towards the right a bit too much.