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OZombie likely to be part-funded by publishers despite Kickstarter money

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Kickstarter’s taking a beating this week: first Double Fine come out and say that, despite raising more than 800% more funding than their original target, they need more money to complete the game. Now Spicy Horse say that they’re not able to make American McGee’s take on the Wizard of Oz stories, OZombie, with the funding they’re seeking but will only be “enough to get us started and deliver some initial chapters”.

They aim to make up the deficit with other sources of funding, possibly publishers.

“That amount is less than what we’ll need to develop the full game, but enough to get us started and deliver some initial chapters,” American McGee told Strategy Informer. “We’ll need to throw some of our own funding at it, work to secure outside funding (perhaps via publishing deals) and find other creative ways to bridge the gap. This is the kind of thing we do constantly as an independent studio, so I’m confident we can use whatever funding we secure to make an excellent product and expand on whatever gets built first.”

Whenever a developer asks for less than the amount of money they need to develop a game I get a little worried. OZombie has a microtransaction element built into its multiplayer, so post-release it would have a revenue stream to earn a little towards development but it would have to be a success to fund development of a full singleplayer campaign. At which point you’re looking at a Kickstarter project that may never deliver on its original goal.

From the artwork on OZombie’s Kickstarter page it does look like a fascinating game. Though it’s only the singleplayer that appeals from the pitch. If Spicy Horse can’t guarantee that funding would lead to a full singleplayer campaign then I’m wary about backing it.