inXile signs deal to publish Wasteland 2 on Electronic Arts' PC platform
Electronic Arts has pledged to host crowdfunded games on its Origin platform without charging developers any “distribution fees” for a 90-day grace period.
Within that crucial first three months of a game’s release, studios hosting crowdfunded content on Origin will not pay any publishing fees or have to share revenue.
The only exception is transaction fees (such as from Credit Card vendors), where a small percentage of revenue will be used to reimburse EA for the charges incurred.
The publisher will make no money during this grace period, an EA representative told Develop.
On the back of a Kickstarter craze that has swept through the games development sector, EA revealed plans to publish a number of popular games financed through the popular crowdfunding platform.
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The major coup so far is Wasteland 2, an upcoming RPG built by California studio inXile Entertainment.
The project amassed $2.9 million during an extraordinary month of bidding on the Kickstarter platform.
"I have had a long relationship with EA and it is great to see them recognise and support the crowd-funded games model," said inXile CEO Brian Fargo.
"Having Origin waive their distribution fees for 90 days for fan funded games is a major economic bonus for small developers. We look forward to bringing Wasteland 2 to the Origin audience,” he added.
Further financial arrangements following the 90-day grace period are unclear. EA does not reveal its royalty rates or fees for publishing on its Origin platform.
It is beleived that more than 12 million accounts have signed up to Origin.
More details on the Origin deal can be found here.
I thought the whole point of crowd-funding is to stay far far away from big publishers like EA who are well known to rape games...
They're known to rape games because they provide the money for them and therefore have power over the development - which means that they are free to demand ridiculous things like releasing an unfinished game.
In this case, there appears to be no real drawback. They have no power whatsoever over development, they're only acting as a distribution platform. In fact, it means that if you really want to support the developer, you'd buy the game on Origin rather than steam (for the first 3 months anyway).
Well, I was planning on enjoying the game, but I don't condone EA in any way, shape or form. That and having to download spyware on my computer just to play a game seems like a bad trade off.
This is BS,EA is the reason small developers have to go through Kickstarter.
By letting your games be sold through Origin, you're not only turning your back on the people that funded your game, but also encouraging people to install spyware.
This is exactly why I did not support Double Fine's pet project either. Who are these guys kidding by waving the indie flag when they have been knee deep in the industry for years! It's as if Madonna decided to kickstart her next album after she gets dropped from her label. Or if David Lynch crowfunds his next film after failing to secure funding the traditional way!! These established players are going to ruin the whole crowdfunding system for the rest who have yet to prove themselves.
I think a bunch of people mis-understand what crowd funding is about. it is NOT about giving people a chance that have yet to prove themselves, its about allowing the "crowd" to determine whats worth producing, by backing it with their wallet. basically a risky pre-order with some perks. This allows for the viable production of niche titles that big-house publishers would not touch due to not having enough perceived community interest and profit margins to warrant production. I think it would be fantastic if big AAA production houses turned to crowd funding as a viable alternative source of funding in order to test various new ideas.
A lot of the resistance to this idea seems to come from a misunderstanding of terms. There is a difference between "publishing" and being a "publisher" in this context. Typically, a development house pitches their idea to a publisher, who assumes the financial risk and pays the development house to produce the game (in a method determined by their agreement). In that instance the publisher assumes the risk, it has to make a decision if its going to be profitable for them or not, based on a number of factors. In this case however, EA is "publishing" the game to their origin marketplace. This is the same as say, the steam/ioS marketplace/google Play/etc. They are not assuming any development risks/costs, so outside of possible marketplace standards, they don't play an active (and annoying) role in the production of games.
From a marketing point of view, this is a stroke of genius on EA's part. By offering to promote a game on their distribution platform for free, they have effectively boosted the desirability of Origin in comparison to other platforms like Steam/Desura/Play etc and taken yet another step in increasing their customer base. It also makes the game immediately available to all Origin customers for what is likely to be an entirely reasonable price, at least for the 3 months they're offering.
Although I personally prefer Steam, and dislike this tactic, I can't help but admit that it's genius - It's just a pity EA thought of it first. Maybe the other platforms will get with it and bring competition to the table.
...Origin does not support OS X, so EA's "support" of tacitly installing spyware on my computer is a non-issue. Also, since I contributed to this project through Kickstarter, I can get a DRM-free version directly from inXile.
For those decrying the "big names" getting crowd-sourcing, consider the fact that inXile and Double Fine, in particular, generally make solid games which never seem to sell in numbers deemed "acceptable" by publishers. Yet, theirs are some of the games which I count amongst my favorites. In addition, there is the hope that if these crowd-funded titles succeed, more publishers would be willing to gamble on these and other developers' future games, rather than pumping out yet another annual update to a "run hard & put away wet" franchise.
