By Craig Pearson on March 16th, 2012 at 1:30 pm.
A tweet from the usually rather quiet GSC Stalker Twitter account has assured us that the game is still being worked on. It’s the first word we’ve had on the development of game since January, when we heard that they were seeking funding for the project following the studio’s collapse. That they’ve lasted until now, and that they’re speaking positively, is encouraging, but I don’t doubt that it’ll be a struggle to get the game out the door: the first game was a massive struggle with publisher support. I wonder if crowd-finding an AAA game the size of Stalker 2 is possible? If only Kickstarter would allow non-US funding, they could have all my money.
They point out that there’s no release date, which made me giggle.
Via VG247.
16/03/2012 at 13:44 Lev Astov says:
Excellent news! I was thinking the same thing about crowd funding it, Craig. I’d definitely fork over $50 today for a Stalker 2 tomorrow.
16/03/2012 at 13:51 bear912 says:
Yes, yes indeed. STALKER fund-raiser! Go!
16/03/2012 at 13:57 Apples says:
I only started playing STALKER games recently, and I feel kind of guitly for buying them really cheap off Amazon when they clearly deserved more of my cash. Game companies should set up donation methods for people who pirated/bought late and now want to pay over the current retail price straight to the devs.
16/03/2012 at 17:39 Fumarole says:
Buy multiple copies and give them to poor students or the homeless.
17/03/2012 at 08:31 MarcusCardiff says:
Because the homeless play a lot of video games…..
17/03/2012 at 10:32 Apples says:
Well, the homeless guy outside my work sometimes has a gameboy. I don’t think its specs are quite up to STALKER, though…
16/03/2012 at 14:01 Necroscope says:
A stalker 2 kickstarter campaign would be a roaring success. I’d happily donate £30. + We’d get to see screenshots of WIP, which would make me very very happy. If only! I really hope Stalker 2 makes it across the finish line without any painful delays, it’s one modern game series that simply must continue! It’s critical to PC gaming.
17/03/2012 at 04:26 Voon says:
Oh, I wish I could just give whatever I got if I didn’t have a huge hole in my wallet. Dang!
16/03/2012 at 13:46 capeutaine says:
Hurray ! There might some other crowdfunding system out there that works for more than the US of A, Ulule is one for example.
16/03/2012 at 14:05 Bfox says:
That’s odd, Kickstarter works fine for me using my UK Amazon account…
16/03/2012 at 14:12 sneetch says:
I think they mean that Kickstarter only allows for projects based in the US… probably for legal reasons.
17/03/2012 at 08:33 MarcusCardiff says:
If you have money to donate the give it to developers that need it.
16/03/2012 at 15:21 Hoaxfish says:
why is there a category for London if it’s USA only?
16/03/2012 at 15:38 IshtarGate says:
London is in the USA, silly
16/03/2012 at 20:58 Drayk says:
Dear USA,
We would like to have our island back.
Thank you.
The European Union
16/03/2012 at 16:56 Craig Stern says:
Actually, every single crowdfunding service other than Kickstarter accepts non-U.S. projects. If they wanted to go the crowdfunding route, they certainly could.
16/03/2012 at 13:46 BatmanBaggins says:
Yay
16/03/2012 at 13:46 derbefrier says:
Sweet I only recently started playing SOC for the first time the game is pretty damn fun. Haven’t gotten into a FPS like that since half life 2. I really hope this game doesn’t turn into vaporware
16/03/2012 at 16:26 aronbarco says:
me too. playing with OGSE (Old Good Stalker Evolution: http://www.moddb.com/mods/old-good-stalker-evolution) and, wow, the Zone is alive!
I strongly recommend OGSE.
16/03/2012 at 13:47 andash says:
To Craig:
http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/backing%20a%20project#CanPeopFromOutsTheUsPledToProj
Just thought I’d point that out. If you are referring to something else, sorry in that case!
Edit: Err, it does seem reasonable that you meant the devs on second thought. Got confused by the “allow non-US funding”.
Seems that is not possible, or at least if no one on their team is a permanent US resident.
16/03/2012 at 13:48 Davee says:
Yay! Good news.
16/03/2012 at 13:49 SexualHarassmentPanda says:
Get out of here stalker!
(don’t actually though)
16/03/2012 at 14:11 Tyrone Slothrop. says:
Don’t just stand there, come in!
16/03/2012 at 15:00 magnus says:
Hidy Ho!
17/03/2012 at 09:25 Phantoon says:
Marked one?! What the hell!
16/03/2012 at 13:52 Esti2 says:
IndieGoGo is a great alternative.
16/03/2012 at 14:10 Evil Betty says:
Good luck Stalker
16/03/2012 at 14:14 absolofdoom says:
Hell, I’d probably donate $100. But only if they promise none of that “everything is on a remote server” drm bullshit they were saying they might use.
16/03/2012 at 15:42 Synesthesia says:
ouch, now i remember that. Hope they wisened up about it.
16/03/2012 at 14:14 eks says:
They should setup pre-orders or something if they need an injection of cash. I’m probably one of many who are willing to throw money at anything “S.T.A.L.K.E.R”.
16/03/2012 at 14:18 LifeSuport says:
I asked via twitter if they will do fan-funding if money is the issue. I loved the first game and I have the others waiting for once I finish my programing for my game and can block out the week. This is one of the few games I would gladly pay the premium $40-$60 for instead of waiting a few months for the 50% reduction in price.
16/03/2012 at 14:20 Drinking with Skeletons says:
So what happened with that contest they ran where you could submit ideas about Stalker 2 content?
16/03/2012 at 14:36 HexagonalBolts says:
Definitely definitely definitely should be crowd funded, at least in part.
16/03/2012 at 14:36 Shooop says:
The fact that it’s still alive and being made is great news nonetheless. The series has sold reasonably well before, I’m sure some publisher out there would back it.
16/03/2012 at 14:47 golem09 says:
I hope they start realizing how badly people want to throw money in other peoples faces. Me included.
16/03/2012 at 15:14 Kleppy says:
I seriously doubt even a successful kickstarter would be able to net enough dough for a project like this. It wouldn’t hurt, sure, but a game of this scope needs a publisher.
16/03/2012 at 15:19 Mistabashi says:
Just to temper people’s enthusiasm with a little bit of pessimism:
1) The “@GSCstalker” Twitter account isn’t operated by anyone directly involved with GSC, and much like the tweets put out originally they don’t seem to be based on facts or any sort of inside knowledge. Consider it a fan-account.
2) Based on posts I’ve seen by the moderator of the English GSC forum (who has rather more insight into the situation) the dev team are indeed still working on the project in some capacity, but they aren’t being payed and there doesn’t seem to have been any developments regarding future funding. Sergey Grigorovich seems to have allowed them to continue with the project provided they can find outside funding, but he seems to have no interest in funding it any further himself.
16/03/2012 at 18:48 dryg says:
Exept it’s the same guy. Joe[GSC] on the forums is their english community manager, he also runs the facebook and twitter accounts.
17/03/2012 at 14:13 Mistabashi says:
Joe[GSC] doesn’t have anything to do with the forums, all he does is operate the Facebook and Twitter accounts. The forum moderator is Don Reba, and he seems to have some direct contact with the dev team.
16/03/2012 at 15:52 StickyNavels says:
There’s IndieGoGo, right? Seems vaguely like Kickstarter. I think they do continual payouts though and regardless whether the funding goal is met or not.
16/03/2012 at 16:05 engion3 says:
WANT PLAY DADDY
16/03/2012 at 16:27 slpk says:
I just can’t press the send money button fast enough!
16/03/2012 at 16:31 mtyler88 says:
Hopefully this means that they will only be developing for PC.
I really don’t want this to be consolised.
16/03/2012 at 17:31 nyarlathotep-88 says:
It would be a sad day if STALKER was dumbed down :( . I would rather not think about it.
16/03/2012 at 18:08 lurkalisk says:
That’s what I was thinking.
I’m guessing the last thing on their minds right now is any console version of this project.
16/03/2012 at 16:44 DestructibleEnvironments says:
The wonderful thing about this is, that I’m a big fan of the stalker series, yet I have only touched the first game. I must finish all the games one day, and there is more stalker goodness yet to come, yes!
I also vote for a fund-raiser of some kind.
16/03/2012 at 17:17 The Godzilla Hunter says:
This is my experience with Stalker:
“ohh, this is really fun and tense. Look! a fire. Shiny. Look at the refraction. Wait a moment…am I crazy or did that refraction just move. That’s definitly-OHHH [censored]”
I then promptly close the game, tell myself Ill play it later, and never do.
16/03/2012 at 19:31 nootpingu86 says:
Call of Pripyat is a bit more human and welcoming. You might like it since it eases into the hellish inflection of SotC (the one from 2007) in the final stretch of the game, but isn’t as smothering. SotC is the real winner in that regard, but CoP has its share tense combat and a lot more manshooting things, combined with a marginal improvement on the melancholy post-soviet look the series goes for with its environments and buildings. The texture packs and weather overhaul (atmosfear 3) also make the game quite a looker in the technical sense too, but up the system requirements a bit. Just make sure you have ~4GB of RAM and a good, modern GPU. It should be fine.
16/03/2012 at 17:29 Kyrius says:
And I have yet to play/buy Stalker…
17/03/2012 at 04:30 Voon says:
Be sure to nab Call of Pripyat if you got the chance
16/03/2012 at 17:29 nyarlathotep-88 says:
More STALKER!!! I would fund them without a second thought. Take my money please ;)
16/03/2012 at 19:15 fish99 says:
This is one game I’d definitely pre-purchase to help them finish it.
18/03/2012 at 04:36 Octopi says:
Agreed
16/03/2012 at 19:20 nootpingu86 says:
Is it really necessary to fellate kickstarter in every article?
17/03/2012 at 08:09 Poet says:
When it keeps successfully funding games I want to play then HELL YES!
17/03/2012 at 11:20 nootpingu86 says:
My objection is that kickstarter is a corporate donation. It’s not an investment, which is a much more favorable transaction to the people shelling out, obviously. Kickstarter itself was intended to be used for existing projects that needed, well, a Kickstarter for distributing or assembling a prototype. To that end, I think it’s a neat idea, although a bit odd, given that most gamers aren’t made of money or investors at all in the US. This current trend with indie developers is worrisome, at least from an American capitalism perspective, because there’s no incentive to spend the kickstarter fund to the fullest extent to make the game.
17/03/2012 at 11:22 Unaco says:
Have there been any successes with Kickstarter yet? I know there have been plenty of Kickstarters bringing in plenty of money… but have any of the big Kickstarter projects, with games you want to play, come to fruition, to completion yet?
17/03/2012 at 14:56 fish99 says:
In this case, yes, because GSC are clearly short on funds and capable of making amazing games.
19/03/2012 at 12:21 nootpingu86 says:
I just explained why. Don’t let that stop you from commenting.
16/03/2012 at 19:32 RegisteredUser says:
Given how much less I liked anything past the original SOC I am a lot more meh about this than I thought.
17/03/2012 at 11:22 nootpingu86 says:
I can relate to this school of thought because clear sky and call of pripyat did compromise the atmosphere, but as a unabashed manshoot fan I just. can’t. agree!
17/03/2012 at 04:46 squirrel says:
For this news,
Pros: This project is still alive.
Cons: Release within this year is out of the question.
17/03/2012 at 12:46 nootpingu86 says:
It’ll be worth the wait. Just like the first 3 games. Plus there are numerous mods to chew on, including ones with things from the early alpha stage where the game was vastly more ambitious. fyi SotC was scheduled for release in 2004 originally