Monkey Island Creator Ron Gilbert Is Making A New Point-And-Click Adventure Game

Anyone know why he left DF? Quite curious and wasn't aware that he had.

The game looks super cool, but I'm kind of dubious as to why they need $375,000 when I'm seeing other adventure games with modern graphics and nice animation being made for less than half that...

I hope he hasn't carried through DF's culture of greed and riding the croudfunding gravy train. The guy is responsible for some great games, but with today's technology an old-school adventure like this shouldn't cost anywhere near that. Wish "big names" like Ron Gilbert would start risking a bit of their own money instead of other people's...

Oooooo this looks soooo sweet. I'll need to wait till iIget paid, but iI am definitely going to back this. I mis-spent a lot of my youth on the LucasArts adventures and forthem to ddescribe it as the equivalent of finding an old LucasArts adventurethat yyou didn't know existed and still using the Scumm interface has sold this to me. Not to mention that Monkey Islands 1&2 were among the finest games I ever played.

"how appropriate you fight like a cow" LOL

Wish "big names" like Ron Gilbert would start risking a bit of their own money instead of other people's...

Are you under the impression that LucasArts gave Ron Gilbert millions of dollars in royalties for the Monkey Island games, so that he's got enough money to make a decent game lying around in his bank account?

That's not what I heard about how LucasArts operated, which might have something to do with Ron Gilbert giving up on publishers and going with crowdfunding to become independent...

BTW running a kickstarter is not mutually exclusive with putting your own money on the line; often both are required to accomplish a project. A couple of Ron's contemporaries from Sierra, Lori & Corey Cole, have had to sink a bunch of their own money into Hero U plus the $400k from backers -- they could not have done it without both funding sources, and the funds are still rather tight.

Anyone know why he left DF? Quite curious and wasn't aware that he had.

According to Wikipedia:

"I was telling him [Tim Schafer] about The Cave and he really liked it, so he said 'come to Double Fine and make it. It was really all about making that game."

I'm kind of dubious as to why they need $375,000

Yeah, dunno. I'd like to see that "Design + Art + Coding" bit on the finance pie chart separated more, explained a bit more. Still, they're projecting to develop the game until June 2016, and living wages for over 1.5 years is not nothing.

And with the current backing rate, I have no doubt they'll hit the $370k.

I'm seeing other adventure games with modern graphics and nice animation being made for less than half that

Right, and the devs are probably living quite poorly.
I have read the Unrest Kickstarter Postmortem and read other similar stories of devs working day jobs while developing the kickstarted game in their free time, living with their parents, working from internet caffees, etc.

DF's culture of greed and riding the croudfunding gravy train

*eyeroll*

Is it going to be DRM-free? KS page doesn't mention it. I'd confirm that before backing the project.

Are you under the impression that LucasArts gave Ron Gilbert millions of dollars in royalties for the Monkey Island games, so that he's got enough money to make a decent game lying around in his bank account?

Nope, I'm saying that for someone like him it's much easier to go and find a private investment given his past experience and reputation in the industry and not further saturate Kickstarter and make it even harder for lesser known people to get funding which they - unlike Ron Gilbert - would find it almost impossible to get any other way.

The more I look at this, it kind of pisses me off.

Just like they were on Maniac Mansion, Ron and Gary will be the core of the team building this new point & click adventure, co-designing and writing with Ron doing the bulk of the programming and Gary doing the art. Good times.

An additional programmer and artist will be added 6 months into production, along with a part-time musician. Dedicated testers will join as the game nears completion.

OK, so kind of looking at the pie chart and making deductions, the costs being mainly their wages - around $75,000 would be what Ron and Garry get as a wage EACH. Surely that's A LOT more than you need to get by comfortably and their "payoff" would come mostly upon the release of the game if they're the primary shareholders (shareholders of something created with minimal risk on their behalf seemingly).

People can have a look at the numbers, and if they want to use their money to pay some well-known developers a comfortable wage to make a game that's their choice. However, most people would assume that the money is being used differently.

What pisses me off is that if I ever want to make a Kickstarter and try and get $75,000 (which you could make a damn good game with) it's almost impossible however good the project is because some guys in California asked for far more than they needed and didn't deliver on their promises, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of otherwise generous gamers whose trust is being gradually eroded.

At the risk of coming across like one of those people on the internet who I despise. I'll leave it there. I'll just quietly seethe.

Wow, best of luck to Ron and Gary! I feel like Ron may have thrown a few hints of this out when we caught up at PAX Aus, but I completely missed them.

The more I look at this, it kind of pisses me off.

There's a bunch of stuff you've been throwing around that I think is pretty uncool, but I'm only going to address the numbers related stuff for now.

Crowdfunding campaigns aren't for everybody. If there are people who want to support this, then let those people do so and be happy. They're willing to take on whatever risk is associated with the project at hand, and should be free to accept that risk. There's no reason to be an internet angrymans every time somebody mentions a developer that you don't like who uses an open platform.

Contrary to what you've been asserting, large crowdfunding campaigns don't make it harder for smaller ones to get through. Crowdfunding is all about community engagement, and whilst Ron and Gary have a head start here, that doesn't prevent other campaign runners from working well with their own communities.

According to Kickstarter's statistics page, nearly three quarters of successful game related projects are under $20k, and according to the recent blog post celebrating 5,000,000 backers, the majority of funded projects have targets below $7k. Statistically, the $75k threshold that you mentioned is inherently risky, and has always been. That's got nothing to do with people "eroding trust" (if anything, it'd work i your favour if more backers were inherently distrustful because as a presumably trustworthy person, it would be easier for you to stand out).

Developers like Double Fine, Uber Entertainment, and inXile Entertainment had contributed astoundingly to the growth of Kickstarter for games. Prior to 2012, 3.6% of Kickstarter pledges were for games, for 2012, that jumped to 23%. There's been plenty of lengthy analysis which highlights that this impact wasn't just a few successful high goal titles, the real impact was in these people going on to fund more crowdfunding projects than the existing Kickstarter community had. It's a fact that these larger projects brought attention and support to smaller projects, and that's even before you take into account the current popularity of highlighting other projects in backer updates that everybody (large and small) seems to be doing.

Is it going to be DRM-free? KS page doesn't mention it. I'd confirm that before backing the project.

I've shot an email off to Ron. I'll get you an answer on that :D

Are you under the impression that LucasArts gave Ron Gilbert millions of dollars in royalties for the Monkey Island games, so that he's got enough money to make a decent game lying around in his bank account?

Nope, I'm saying that for someone like him it's much easier to go and find a private investment given his past experience and reputation in the industry and not further saturate Kickstarter and make it even harder for lesser known people to get funding which they - unlike Ron Gilbert - would find it almost impossible to get any other way.

From what I've seen, having "big names" really helps give crowdfunding more visibility and more credibility among the general public. "What I've seen" includes both the stats that Cheeseness mentioned and personal experiences of myself and other staunch game backers I've gotten to know.

If developers like Tim Schafer and Jane Jensen had never come to kickstarter, I doubt I would have had sufficient motivation to even create a kickstarter account, and would never have realized what a wonderful opportunity crowdfunding is for giving Indie game developers motivation to do Linux ports. You know the recent articles about how Linux market is often too small to pay for the time spent on the port? Well I've discovered a different way to make developers happy they committed to a Linux port, and that's by being an enthusiastic backer who invests both time and money into supporting them during the critical period of getting sufficient funding for the game to be made in the first place. That same enthusiasm that led us to have a higher Humble Bundle average makes us even more valuable as backers!

Yup, you can thank Tim Schafer for getting me hooked on crowdfunding Linux games, which means I'll be ready to back when you're ready to try your first campaign!!

I'm so happy about this project and backed it instantly!

However, I rather want to see the "real" Monkey Island 3 being made by Gilbert.

On a side note:

Yeah, art is a matter of personal taste but what I see on http://www.garyart.net doesn't impress me.
Holy moly, most stuff there (not all) looks awful!

Crowdfunding campaigns aren't for everybody. If there are people who want to support this, then let those people do so and be happy. They're willing to take on whatever risk is associated with the project at hand, and should be free to accept that risk. There's no reason to be an internet angrymans every time somebody mentions a developer that you don't like who uses an open platform.

Cheeseness, you seem to have me confused with the interpassive internet masses. I don't personally dislike these developers or the games they've produced (in fact, I like [older] the games a lot), what I dislike is their business practices. What I have attempted to do is raise some questions about Kickstarter as a platform and whether its been abused by certain people.

There is no denying that the number of successful video game Kickstarter projects has fallen by 20% compared to last year and the total amount of funding has dropped by 50%. The two best explanations for this would be lack of confidence and the second is lack of exposure - both of which the "bad apples" in the Kickstarter barrel hold a great deal of responsibility for.

The lack of confidence I have covered, but then there's media coverage. The media coverage is possibly the most ironic of the two because originally crowdfunding had eroded the traditional establishment of gaming, allowing smaller studios a fair shot, with games like FTL receiving as much coverage as a AAA title. Now these titles get no coverage whatsoever, most big sites have dropped their Kickstarter sections and only mention the occasional project with a big name behind it.

What has now happened is that the establishment have found a great PR opportunity in terms of "look, we're just like you, we're indie developers and we need your money or we can't make this game. We want to be independent and free from those big mean publishing companies" - being said or insinuated by people like Peter Molyneux, Tim Schafer and now Ron Gilbert apparently.

What they have achieved in doing is making media coverage be about personality rather than content. If Ron's name wasn't on this, it would never get funded (and would never ask for that much money) simply because none of the "kingmakers" (big youtubers, big media sites) have no interest anymore - which is exactly what happens to smaller devs. Similarly, I've seen projects desperately try and get an endorsement from people like Molyneux or Schafer because, again, their names are what gets games funded and not the content of said games.

We now have a situation where the very platform which brought greater egalitarianism has been hijacked and turned into something where established players can get much lower-risk investments at no cost in ownership and where those same established players are essentially the "gatekeepers" to the small ones which could really benefit. It's moved from being a great way to bring small developers on the scene, to just pre-ordering games so that people with decades of experience don't have to talk to men in suits about investment because they don't want to "sell out", or more likely because they don't want to give up a share of their company.

There is no denying that the number of successful video game Kickstarter projects has fallen by 20% compared to last year and the total amount of funding has dropped by 50%. The two best explanations for this would be lack of confidence and the second is lack of exposure - both of which the "bad apples" in the Kickstarter barrel hold a great deal of responsibility for.

That drop that you talk about still represents a huge increase beyond the pre-2012 funding amounts for games. I don't think it's fair to expect that there's not going to be a drop off after such an enormous spike.

It might now be harder to attract people than it was during/immediately after that initial surge, but so far as I can tell, the success/failure ratio seems to be more or less the same across all of this, so the impact of any exposure/confidence related issues can't be that large.

We now have a situation where the very platform which brought greater egalitarianism has been hijacked and turned into something where established players can get much lower-risk investments at no cost in ownership and where those same established players are essentially the "gatekeepers" to the small ones which could really benefit. It's moved from being a great way to bring small developers on the scene, to just pre-ordering games so that people with decades of experience don't have to talk to men in suits about investment because they don't want to "sell out", or more likely because they don't want to give up a share of their company.

The dynamics don't work like that though. Kickstarter's internal statistics analysis points and these larger figures bringing in people who will then go on to fund other projects, having an overall positive effect on funding levels for games (and other categories of projects) across the board.

Yes, it's hard to run a campaign, and yes it's hard to get noticed. It always has been. I know a number of developers who ran unsuccessful campaigns prior to the 2012 "boom", asking for very modest figures, who weren't able to get anywhere. There was a period immediately afterward where every man and his dog thought that they could get something funded easily, but that window was super small and short lived.

It feels like people are reaching out to industry figures for mentions and recommendations because they know that that is likely to help them get the numbers they need to reach the kinds of goals that are now achievable. I've got a hunch that if you hunt around, you'll find evidence of people seeking endorsement from big names pre-2012, but I imagine responses were be lacking given that crowdfunding wasn't taken seriously at that kind of level before then.

I guess the best question to ask is whether or not it's easier to get noticed by media today compared to say when Jake ran the Kentucky Route Zero campaign, or when Ryan ran the Waveform one? With sites like GOL here doing semi-regular roundups, I'm not so sure that it is.

The flipside, of course is that with Tim Schafer, Peter Molyneux, Ron Gilbert, Brian Fargo, Chris Roberts and other big names now not being as reliant on publisher funding, what is happening to those publishing budgets? Are more smaller developers getting picked up? Has the industry as a whole increased its focus on smaller scale developers? I think it has. Not as a direct result of crowdfunding growth, of course, but I have to imagine that it's had some impact.


Veering vaguely back on topic, it looks like the project has nearly reached halfway. It's interesting to see people's take on the art style. It's not the direction I would've chosen, but I can see that they specifically want to re-create the feel, style and chracter of their Maniac Mansion era games, and it seems like the right choice for that.

Well, game development is risky business, and Kickstarter is a risky business model for both the creators and supporters.

Reading up on Ron, I can't see him having lots of money to burn considering he hasn't really been involved in many games recently. He was involved in ~2 games for the entire of 2013 I think. So, fair enough he's gone to Kickstarter.

People know my views on Kickstarter by now, I simply don't fund a thing, as other developers destroyed my trust in it.

I am, however, grateful to people who do risk it for me, and if their risk pays off for me in the form of me getting a new Linux game to buy in future, then great.

I am also very sceptical like Segata, taking taxes into account that would still leave ~$315K assuming they only hit the initial goal. Split that by the amount of people working on it, and then that's more than a tidy sum to pay all of them.

Edit > Maybe all these thoughts by Cheese & Segata could be written down into two opposing editorials, would both make a mighty fun read.

There is no denying that the number of successful video game Kickstarter projects has fallen by 20% compared to last year and the total amount of funding has dropped by 50%. The two best explanations for this would be lack of confidence and the second is lack of exposure - both of which the "bad apples" in the Kickstarter barrel hold a great deal of responsibility for.

That drop that you talk about still represents a huge increase beyond the pre-2012 funding amounts for games. I don't think it's fair to expect that there's not going to be a drop off after such an enormous spike.

Yup there seemed to be a lot of people who jumped on board thinking that kickstarter was fundamentally a pre-order system with early-adopter discounts and firm deadlines, and it's just as well that bubble has burst. Others with more realistic opinions of crowdfunding risks and schedule uncertainties have stayed on for the long-run, though even those backers may have gotten over-enthusiastic in pledge amounts last year and have had to cut down somewhat until the economy in general improves.

Oh, another point & click adventure and great name! Eh, hehehe... no!
Still remember the hype of the DoubleFine & Tim Schafer Kickstarter campaign and what came out of it.

May check again when the final product gets released.

Edit > Maybe all these thoughts by Cheese & Segata could be written down into two opposing editorials, would both make a mighty fun read.

I would be up for that! A bit of healthy discussion on GOL would be a good thing and we both clearly hold different views, though it has to be said that Cheese is probably far more knowledgeable on this than me.

Is it going to be DRM-free? KS page doesn't mention it. I'd confirm that before backing the project.

And the answer there is "yes"! The most recent update also mentions that it's the #1 asked question behind "will there be a stretch goal where you tell us the Secret of Monkey Island?"

Edit > Maybe all these thoughts by Cheese & Segata could be written down into two opposing editorials, would both make a mighty fun read.

I would be up for that! A bit of healthy discussion on GOL would be a good thing and we both clearly hold different views, though it has to be said that Cheese is probably far more knowledgeable on this than me.

That'd be an interesting project to try and coordinate. If I end up with enough free time, I'd be open to doing something like that.

Really, really, really .... want this to get all stretch goals voice work improves adventure games so much IMO

Hooray, it got funded! ^_^