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A while back, Tim Schafer and Double Fine started an experiment. They wanted to see if they could use the fans themselves to fund a brand new video game project. Doing this would free them from publisher obligation and would allow them to develop and distribute the game as they see fit. With that in mind, they created a Kickstarter for an unnamed adventure game, and their goal was to raise $400,000. They doubled that in less than a day. Literally overnight they raised over one million dollars for their project. Yesterday, the epic Kickstarter finally closed, and the grand total of funds raised amounted to $3,335,265. This is a larger budget than some first-party titles have access to. 
This just goes to show you that, just because a genre is considered “niche” does not mean its dead. Publishers have long since controlled the video game marketplace with their ideas of what sells and what is popular. Now fans can directly influence it as well. By Angelo M. D’Argenio |
The image featured at the top of this post is ©The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III key art.