In an interview with Games Industry BIZ, Fargo revealed, “I want to make it unbelievable. I want to show that you can make an unbelievable game without a publisher.”
However, despite making millions of dollars in raising funds on Kickstarter for Wasteland 2, Fargo thinks that there’s still a lot to learn about crowdfunding.
”The process was already much more sophisticated on Torment than it was on Wasteland,” he noted, adding ”Whatever worked six months ago might not work today. Who’s to say if I did the exact same Torment campaign today I’d get the same amount of money? There’s an emotional component to it. To me it’s all about timing, and what your messaging is at the time. I bet you I would arrive at some different kinds of conclusions if I was doing it today.”
He also plans to have a console release for Wasteland 2, and revealed that Microsoft has contacted him. ”It’s been happening, and I’ve heard from Microsoft,” Fargo confided, saying in the past, he had to jump through hoops with the company. ”I used to want to publish directly on the Xbox, and it was ‘OK, how many retail SKUs are you going to put out?’ I always felt there was there this huge disconnect. Why do I have to put products on a retail shelf in order to be on XBLA?”
Now Microsoft is the one pursing Fargo, instead of the other way around.
”You’re hearing Microsoft reaching out, they’re saying ‘Hey, we want you on the machine,’ they’re making the calls,” he said. ”You can use the hardware as a development kit, making it more accessible, because indies can’t afford to buy (development kits). It used to be that if you shipped on Sony first you could never be on the Xbox. Now they’re like ‘Well, we’re flexible, maybe there are features…’ There’s a different dialog there.”
“They’ve come full circle in a matter of ninety days, on every part of it, including the ability to be on the platform at all. Sony was already there; they go one step further with their Dev Pub fund, where they actually give developers money upon delivery of a game. You’re actually hearing executives at both those companies - and Nintendo, I should say - talk about why indies are important. Someone called it the Cambrian explosion of creativity, I love that phrase.”
Fargo still has a major publisher, Deep Silver, distributing the physical copies of Wasteland 2, as well as all the Kickstarter rewards.
