System Shock Remake Kickstarter Is Funded

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With seventeen days to go, the crew at Nightdive Studios have announced that the Kickstarter for its System Shock remake has reached its $900,000 goal. Currently there are stretch goals up to $1.9 million which, given the amount of time the campaign has left, seem like they are attainable.

When Nightdive started in 2012, it was a one man operation with a singular goal- Recover gaming's lost treasures and make them available again for all to enjoy. As operating systems and video cards become more complex, we lose the ability to go back and replay many of the games we grew up with. I wanted to do everything I could to breathe new life into these forgotten classics.
 
Absolutely can't wait to play this. We had a Mac from 1994-2001 and I missed out on a ton of great PC games from that era.

I've gone back and played (I think) every must play game with the exception of System Shock 1 & 2.
 
I'll buy this if the reviews are good, but I'm not pre-ordering any games anymore. Kickstarter is just a preorder with no ability for refund even if they don't deliver anything at all.
 
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Quix said:
I'll buy this if the reviews are good, but I'm not pre-ordering any games anymore. Kickstarter is just a preorder with no ability for refund even if they don't deliver anything at all.
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I agree. As much as I want to play this game, the idea of dropping $ on something that isn't even guaranteed to be released boggles the mind.
 
I first played SS2 back in 2007 when a forum member graciously shared a copy with me since they were no longer available for sale except for ridiculous prices on Ebay. Fantastic game and with the mods was actually very playable and though "squarey" wasn't horrible to look at. The storyline was just awesome and I think I may just support this KS. I thought the last Tex Murphy was a lot of fun and that was KS'd. So here is to hoping it succeeds.
 
NeoNemesis said:
I agree. As much as I want to play this game, the idea of dropping $ on something that isn't even guaranteed to be released boggles the mind.
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It's not a pre-order, it's an investment. That might give a great game as a return, might give a terrible game, or might not return anything.
 
M76 said:
It's not a pre-order, it's an investment. That might give a great game as a return, might give a terrible game, or might not return anything.
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It's a lot of risk with very little reward. I certainly appreciate that great things have come from kickstarter.

I hold the 'investors' in the same category as early adopters. I'm thankful for them and what they do, just not enough to become one of them.
 
Azrak said:
Like me, I'm sure you don't play the lottery either.
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I know I don't.

M76 said:
It's not a pre-order, it's an investment. That might give a great game as a return, might give a terrible game, or might not return anything.
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No, it's not. Investors are giving money speculatively, expecting a payout. That payout may or may not come and it's totally dependent on the results of the effort in question. In this case you're giving cash for a fixed outcome, if the product sells 100,000 units for 100,000,000 units your result is the same. That's not an investment.
 
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At least with an investment you could possibly get something back, even at a loss. And you have the opportunity to sue for fraud and there are tax write offs. Can you write off a Kickstart investment?

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Rustynuts said:
In before next year's "sorry" notice from the developer.
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There are more successfully completed Kickstarter games than failures. The failures just get more press while the good games go on with no mention of them being successful crowdfunded titles.
 
Quix said:
No, it's not. Investors are giving money speculatively, expecting a payout. That payout may or may not come and it's totally dependent on the results of the effort in question. In this case you're giving cash for a fixed outcome, if the product sells 100,000 units for 100,000,000 units your result is the same. That's not an investment.
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Aren't CD's considered an investment? Same goes for binds...
 
NeoNemesis said:
Absolutely can't wait to play this. We had a Mac from 1994-2001 and I missed out on a ton of great PC games from that era.

I've gone back and played (I think) every must play game with the exception of System Shock 1 & 2.
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GOG sells the original System Shock and System Shock 2 that are guaranteed to run on modern machines.
 
Quix said:
I know I don't.



No, it's not. Investors are giving money speculatively, expecting a payout. That payout may or may not come and it's totally dependent on the results of the effort in question. In this case you're giving cash for a fixed outcome, if the product sells 100,000 units for 100,000,000 units your result is the same. That's not an investment.
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Every investment has a possible return. And a minimal investment. You know both when you invest. In this case you know that the best return you can hope for is a game period. Nothing else. Regardless of the future commercial success of the game.

It's not declared anywhere that every investment has to be made in money, and every return is in the form of money. Sure that is the most common.But you can also invest time, or other resources, and returns can be goods, or market growth or a number of other things that are in your interest.

You don't have to like kickstarter, and you don't have to like games made using community funding. But your disliking the idea doesn't make it less of an investment for those who think it's worthwhile to support games that otherwise would have zero chance to be made.
 
M76 said:
It's not a pre-order, it's an investment. That might give a great game as a return, might give a terrible game, or might not return anything.
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Its not an investment either, its a donation. You're giving the project money because it interests you and/or you believe in its goals, not because you'll be getting any kind of return.
 
NeoNemesis said:
It's a lot of risk with very little reward. I certainly appreciate that great things have come from kickstarter.

I hold the 'investors' in the same category as early adopters. I'm thankful for them and what they do, just not enough to become one of them.
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Even I wouldn't call a 10-50 USD investment high risk, and I make less than 15.000 USD / year. And if the reward is the game you always wanted that big publishers would never risk, then I'd call that a good reward.
 
King of Heroes said:
Its not an investment either, its a donation. You're giving the project money because it interests you and/or you believe in its goals, not because you'll be getting any kind of return.
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The game itself is the return.

I don't understand how is this concept so hard to grasp. You get a game made to your liking, and delivered to you without any additional fees. How is that not a return? You can't call the money you put in a donation, since you're expecting something in return for it.
 
M76 said:
Even I wouldn't call a 10-50 USD investment high risk, and I make less than 15.000 USD / year. And if the reward is the game you always wanted that big publishers would never risk, then I'd call that a good reward.
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Its worthwhile to you, but I still wouldn't categorize it as an investment. It would be more like paying for a hobby than investing in something.
 
NeoNemesis said:
Its worthwhile to you, but I still wouldn't categorize it as an investment. It would be more like paying for a hobby than investing in something.
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Buying a game that is already released is paying for a hobby. Putting money towards a game that is being made, but might not even be released, is an investment no matter how I look at it. You literally have invested your money in the game's development, even if the possible return is poor or unacceptable to some.
 
I look forward to playing this game but after being burned by M#9 I will wait until the game is actually out.
 
How is $30 that big of an investment. The Night Dive guys have successfully released other games INCLUDING SYSTEM SHOCK 2 already. Not really much of a gamble, especially when they've already got most of the major real dev work out of the way. Now it's just creating assets at this point. I highly doubt they'd allow themselves to screw this up with System Shock 3 on the distant horizon. This isn't really a tough one to back.
 
It's like donating money to feed starving children in africa... they often don't write back to say thanks and usually end up dead in a year anyways...
 
Well, I guess if those starving children had a previous track record for restoring old products to usable states, and were then working on a new product, that was already well under way, then it would be a bit like that. :p
 
M76 said:
It's not a pre-order, it's an investment. That might give a great game as a return, might give a terrible game, or might not return anything.
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It's not an investment. When you invest in something your return is supposed to be greater than your investment. When you pre-order something you get exactly what you ordered, the product. Thats all kickstarter does, you give them $50 and you get a game in 12 months. Except sometimes you get nothing.
 
Good, because I always wanted to play it, and when I DID get the original and tried it, I realized it was WAY too dated to be playable.
 
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I more willingly Bet money against kickstarters like this producing a good product. I'm far more likely to actually get something back that way.
 
I haven't lost the bet on anything I've backed yet. Maybe I should hit the blackjack tables...
 
Rustynuts said:
In before next year's "sorry" notice from the developer.
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It's Night Dive, not a fly-by-night operation, and they have the experience necessary. To be honest, the Alpha is already pretty polished. Just add more content to that and I'd be happy.
 
nysmo said:
It's not an investment. When you invest in something your return is supposed to be greater than your investment. When you pre-order something you get exactly what you ordered, the product. Thats all kickstarter does, you give them $50 and you get a game in 12 months. Except sometimes you get nothing.
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An investment with poor or no return is still an investment. Plus getting the game you always wanted might be a bigger reward for some than 50 measly bucks.
 
I kickstarted Divinity: Original Sin 2 because Larian has proven itself with D:OS (which was also a kickstarter project) that it was able to deliver, and I believe I did so because the price was a little cheaper.

I also wanted to kickstart Bloodstained, but unfortunately by the time I found out about it, the window already closed, though it was also funded.
 
M76 said:
An investment with poor or no return is still an investment.
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Thats being results oriented. The purpose of an investment is that you expect a positive return. When you invest in kickstarter there is no return at all, you simply get the product you paid for, hence it's just a pre-order.
 
M76 said:
An investment with poor or no return is still an investment. Plus getting the game you always wanted might be a bigger reward for some than 50 measly bucks.
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Kickstarter isn't an investment, it is gambling pure and simple.


tetris42 said:
I'll take that bet. How much you want to put up?
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Not in a position to bet at the moment, otherwise I would. That said, I do actually hope this one sees the light of day but I am not holding my breath either.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Not in a position to bet at the moment, otherwise I would. That said, I do actually hope this one sees the light of day but I am not holding my breath either.
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See I think too many people here can't tell the difference between a likely project and one doomed from the get-go. As someone else said, the MAJORITY of kickstarted games come to fruition (though the majority are also late). So in other words, if you just play raw odds, you'll lose money on average if you bet against a game on kickstarter coming out. As for System Shock, it has so many factors in its favor, I'd be amazed if this one DIDN'T come out and wasn't good. I mean let's look at the list:

-From a devoted small developer with experience updating dated games.
-It's a big name IP that will be under the scrutiny of the internet
-It's a team of people dedicated to the game, not just one developer saying "hey, remember me from 20 years ago"
-They have a working demo already (not just some concept art sketches like many kickstarters)
-They're not aiming for the moon. They're keeping the map design the same, it's just a corridor shooter, and they already have a working prototype and roadmap of exactly how the game should be (the original game). This isn't the sort of project that's susceptible to lots of feature creep.
-They've already received ample funding.

This has all the signs of a game that gets launched, not the more common "maybe it will happen, maybe it won't" types on kickstarter.
 
tetris42 said:
See I think too many people here can't tell the difference between a likely project and one doomed from the get-go. As someone else said, the MAJORITY of kickstarted games come to fruition (though the majority are also late). So in other words, if you just play raw odds, you'll lose money on average if you bet against a game on kickstarter coming out. As for System Shock, it has so many factors in its favor, I'd be amazed if this one DIDN'T come out and wasn't good. I mean let's look at the list:

-From a devoted small developer with experience updating dated games.
-It's a big name IP that will be under the scrutiny of the internet
-It's a team of people dedicated to the game, not just one developer saying "hey, remember me from 20 years ago"
-They have a working demo already (not just some concept art sketches like many kickstarters)
-They're not aiming for the moon. They're keeping the map design the same, it's just a corridor shooter, and they already have a working prototype and roadmap of exactly how the game should be (the original game). This isn't the sort of project that's susceptible to lots of feature creep.
-They've already received ample funding.

This has all the signs of a game that gets launched, not the more common "maybe it will happen, maybe it won't" types on kickstarter.
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Generally speaking I don't bet against it coming out, though the really obvious ones I will. I usually bet against it being massively over hyped. A couple notables spring to mind with this being Mighty no9 (A personal disappointment) and Star Citizen or should I say "Buy more Ships simulator". But like I said to the one guy, KS projects are gambling. You are hoping you get something good out of throwing money at it but the odds aren't really in your favor.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
Generally speaking I don't bet against it coming out, though the really obvious ones I will. I usually bet against it being massively over hyped. A couple notables spring to mind with this being Mighty no9 (A personal disappointment) and Star Citizen or should I say "Buy more Ships simulator". But like I said to the one guy, KS projects are gambling. You are hoping you get something good out of throwing money at it but the odds aren't really in your favor.
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It really depends on the game and studio. MN9 is one of the few examples of a game that had no real warning signs going in. In a lot of cases you can take a look at a Kickstarter and figure out how likely it is to actually end up worthwhile. When it comes to developers with actual experience and credibility behind them there is a much better chance of things turning out well. System Shock has all the signs of being one of those. Nightdive has already been listening to what players are talking about with the demo and have made changes to account for that. They're even talking about potentially changing engines since a lot of people have problems with them using Unity. I don't blame anyone for not backing Kickstarters, it is a risk and people have to be willing to accept it. However, like with most games, a little research and careful thinking can separate out most of the bad projects.
 
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