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Life Flashes By
By Corvus | November 12, 2009
This is my birthday month–in just over a week I’ll be 42. I am young enough to eagerly anticipate the unexpected twists on the journey of my upcoming year, but old enough to wonder why the last year’s journey seems to have gone so quickly.
My partner, Rachel, and I have an agreement that we don’t buy each other obligatory presents on prescribed holidays. If we do commemorate a birthday by spending money, that money must take a back seat to the time and/or effort that the gift represents. This can be time spent together, time spent with others, the effort of creating the gift, or the effort made possible by the gift. For example, I gave Rachel an embroidery class for herself and a dear friend this year.
So as my birthday rapidly approaches, we got to talking about what she could do for me. And then Deirdra Kiai inadvertently suggested the best idea for a present.
Deirdra Kiai is a developer at Hothead Studios. But on the side, she designs the only dialog-focused video games that I actually enjoy playing. If you haven’t played any of her games, I recommend you make it a priority to do so. My particular favorites are Chivalry is Not Dead and Pigeons in the Park. Most of her recent projects have been quite small of scope and I’ve been eager to see her take on something larger again.
Fortunately for me, she’s evidently been eager to do the same.
Deirdra recently announced that she was fundraising money for her next game, Life Flashes By via Kickstarter. She’s raising a modest $1,000 and contributors can donate as little as $5 towards that goal. Rachel timed it so that our contribution tipped Deirdra over that critical 50% hurdle that many financing campaigns struggle to reach.
Now, I don’t know how much money you spend on video games in a year. This has actually been a heavy year for me, with three planned AAA purchases and a myriad of iPhone games that I’ve picked up for less than $5 apiece. I’m sure I’ll enjoy the AAA titles I’m acquiring, but I don’t enjoy the idea that my individual dollars-spent are having very little impact on corporate strategy when they’re compared to the millions of dollars spent by people buying the games the major advertising campaigns told them to buy.
For example–I don’t enjoy the fact that my purchase of Brutal Legend went more to funding EA’s drive to escalate their profits than it did to ensuring Double Fine gets to publish another game. I have little doubt that EA’s renewal of their, “any game that isn’t a very high profit contributor and high unit seller will be eliminated from this point going forward,” policy is the writing on the wall for future involvement with studios like Double Fine, which historically has had difficulty keeping publishers.
But I know that the money Rachel contributed to Deirdra’s game will have exactly the sort of impact on the industry that I’d like my dollars to have. It will encourage independent development. It will encourage developers who want their work to reflect themselves. It will encourage developers who choose to forge direct and respectful relationships with their audience. It will encourage direct-to-consumer distribution models. It will encourage sites like Kickstarter, who build invaluable support structures for the individual developer.
We paid a AAA price tag for Life Flashes By and if we could have justified it in our budget, I wouldn’t have minded spending more. So next year’s game budget is going to specifically set aside dollars for indie projects like Deirdra’s. Think what a transformative effect we could have on the future of games if we all reserved the cost of even a single AAA video game purchase and spent that money on 5-10 different indie titles instead. Not only would we be helping send a message to the monolithic risk-adverse publishers, but we’d be getting exponentially more gameplay than we would otherwise.
Deirdra’s project has 69 days to go and only $490 to raise. If she doesn’t reach her goal, then those of us who have pledged don’t get charged and our efforts to help change the face of the industry will be for naught. So here’s my challenge to you–to everyone who wishes they could effect the way games are designed, to everyone who wishes games had more meaning, to everyone who believes games are art, to everyone who is tired of paying $60 for derivative gameplay, to everyone who feels like a powerless cog in a consumer machine–help me put our money where our mouths are. Seek out projects like Life Flashes By and Today I Die Again and give them your financial support.
If every single person who subscribes to my RSS feed, follows me on Twitter or Friendfeed, or is my friend on Facebook would rush out and contribute $5 to Life Flashes By, Deirdra would reach (exceed) her goal within the hour. In fact, even if I did the math and ruled out all the duplicate people between the lists, I suspect she’d reach her goal within minutes. So don’t let Rachel and my efforts go to waste. Don’t let EA define what a video game ought to be. Don’t let talent like Deirdra’s go unnoticed. Pledge your support and ask your friends to do the same. Together, you and I and the indie developers, can make an enormous difference in the world of video games.
Make a difference now while you can because I can assure you that the longer you’re here, the more quickly Life Flashes By.
(and if Deirdra’s project is already fully funded when you get to it, there are other worthy projects out there as well)
Tagged:deirdra kiai, indie-games, kickstarter, life flashes by. | 6 Comments »
November 12th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Regarding your final parenthetical note: Kickstarter allows over-funding projects (at one point the average funding for projects that made funding was somewhere around 130%, IIRC). People should fund Deirdra’s project even if the fund goal is met (the goal is merely a reserve in the “auction”, really), as that will also send a message!
November 13th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Happy birthday, Corvus! Mine was on the 1st.
Interesting philosophy about birthday presents. I got my better half something a bit unusual this year: a recurring donation to a cat rescue shelter. Tabby’s Place lets you sponsor specific special-needs cats. I think it meant more than something that would just add to the pile of stuff we already have to pack up every time we move.
Good on you for supporting independent developers. I’ve thought about raising some funds for a project as well. Perhaps you can support me some day.
Have fun!
November 13th, 2009 at 5:20 am
Seeing as you’ve got a decade worth more of experience than me, I’ll go with you on this one
.
Oh, and happy upcoming birthday.
November 13th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
As it happens, it’s my birthday month too — in just over a week, I’ll be your age reversed. Perfect timing, if I do say so myself.
November 15th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Brian, happy belated birthday! I’d be delighted to pimp your indie project some day. The sooner the better!
November 19th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Happy birthday!