Kickstarter is wearing itself out, says Gas Powered Games CEO

Gas Powered Games CEO Chris Taylor is "a little more on the cynical side" when it comes to Kickstarter and thinks the platform is "starting to wear itself out," VentureBeat reports.

Taylor recently spoke at the Casual Connect event in Europe, where he touched on the company's experience with recently canceled Kickstarter, Wildman.

"It's a numbers game," Taylor said. "Someone has lightning in a bottle. This business is really, really tough. It's turning into a lottery business, unless you work 12 hours a day, seven days a week and study gaming for decades."

According to Taylor, the "heyday" of gamemaking has passed.

"There was a heyday in the 1990s where you could burst in the door of a publisher and you could get a contract," Taylor said. "You blew your budget anyway, and they dealt with it. That has locked itself so tight. Consoles are going to just hit the wall. The guys who wrote these big checks — that's just gone."

Gas Powered Games canceled Wildman four days before funding ended to focus on keeping the company running. The campaign had raised just over $500,000 of the $1.1 million goal. Gas Powered faced substantial layoffs shortly after the Kickstarter's launch, prompting a heartfelt message from Taylor about whether or not to keep the project running. Shortly after, Taylor told Polygon that the Kickstarter could potentially save the company.

"I have almost been driven out of business," Taylor said at the conference. "I am still in business. I know everyone in the industry. They didn't help me. It's about whether you have a blockbuster that can ship 10 million units."