The Last Word

DANIEL WILKS has got your back

Ihave a sickness. I can’t for the life of me stop backing projects on Kickstarter. I’m not joking – it’s getting to the state that it’s near pathological. This month (April) alone I’ve backed five new projects (one of which has since been cancelled) and in March I backed seven. It’s not getting out of control. I can quit anytime I want to. Honest.

Although I am a consummate collector at heart, the reason why I back so many projects is not simple acquisition or collecting in the same manner it is with movies for me. The reason why I back so many game and film projects is because I want everyone to have a chance to tell their stories. Take for example one of the projects that I backed and we reviewed this month, Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan. The reason I backed the game wasn’t because it was an action RPG, a genre I dearly love, but rather because it is the first project from the first Cameroonian development team. As somebody obsessed with stories, how could I resist putting my money where my mouth is to find out the type of stories that an as yet untapped territory could deliver? It turns out that the final product was a little over ambitious and patchy, but I was still glad to have had the chance to help them make it.

Although there was an element of foreign exoticism in my choice to back Aurion, that is far from the case with the vast majority of games that I’ve backed. My choices really come down to the idea and passion of the dev team. Some choices have been obvious – why wouldn’t a lover of stories and RPGs want to throw money at Obsidian and Bio Ware to creator passion projects, any why wouldn’t anyone with a fondness of old school tabletop wargames want to send money to Harebrained Schemes, a team who have shown a great track record of making excellent Kickstarted games, to make a modern version of Mechwarrior? Other games though, like Masqerada: Songs and Shadows, InSomnia, Hover: Revolt of Gamers and Wildfire (the fact that I am friends with the dev wasn’t as much of an influence as you would think), are appealing more for the passion of their creators; seeing that passion I can’t help but want to back them.

I think a lot of my desire to back projects comes from my desire for inclusivity. I know it’s a dirty word in some circles and will get me labelled as an SJW or something, but what I mean by inclusivity in this case, is giving anyone with a good idea a chance to do something with it. In a perfect world (for me at least) everyone would have the ability and facility to share their stories and creations. We live in a world where this is more possible than ever before with the ubiquity of the Internet and the number of free engines available. I see crowdfunding as just another avenue towards this end.

Of course, backing so many projects isn’t what you would exactly call a wise investment. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve only been burnt once by a project that has achieved its funding goal then shut down development and cut off contact. I still have 30 odd projects in my successfully funded list that are yet to appear, some of them four years after the project was funded. It’s a risk, but one I’m happy to make for the most part, as I’d rather be out a few bucks than miss the opportunity to get in on the lowest of ground floors for someone’s dream.

Strangely enough, for someone who collects films with an unholy passion, I am hugely reticent to back film projects. I’ve backed a few – Veronica Mars, Kung Fury and Samurai Cop 2 (and boy do I wish I could take that back) – but for the most part I’ve steered clear for many of the same reasons that I back games. Whereas the passion of game developers seems to allow them to expand their audience, many of the film projects seem to have such a specific passion or vision that there is no entry point. Documentaries about niche localised events abound, as do arty black and white or sepia toned short gothic ghost stories. The trials of dating seem to be omnipresent as are short films about the evils of GMOs. The are some gems to be found (and inevitably backed by yours truly), but for the most part the sameness and narrowness of vision combined with the all too meagre asking budgets that aren’t anywhere near large enough to fund production leave me cold.

Luckily I’ve managed to confine my pathology to Kickstarter. If I looked at IndiegGoGo, Go Fund Me or any of the others I probably wouldn’t be able to pay my rent. As much as I want everyone to be able to make good on their creative ideas, living on the streets might be too high a price to pay.

I’ve been lucky in that I’ve only been burnt once by a project that has achieved its funding goal then shut down development