Living On The Pledge(s): The Banner Saga

I'm sure that many of the people reading this have pledged their hard-earned to at least one Kickstarter project and it may be of interest to see where that money has gone. Not into an actual game in most cases, not yet, but what happens when a project reaches its goals, the timer ticks down and the money rolls in? Stoic, the ex-Bioware staff working on turn-based beauty The Banner Saga, have released a video showing precisely what happens. Not only is the continuing transparency wonderful, with details of where the money is being spent, the video itself is fantastic. This is what the brave new world looks like. So many boxes.

Next time you pledge for a physical reward, think of the storage space, think of the boxes, think of the poor developers with "Minecraft in their house".

It is actually quite frightening. I've never been faced with a logistical challenge as large as the one that has landed, quite literally, at Stoic's front door. I forget to post my Lovefilm discs back for weeks at a time and I've still got a birthday card in my front room for a friend whose birthday was in September. Thankfully, it's not an age-specific one so I'm just going to use it this September.

There's a full update on where the money is being spent, with the most startling aspect being this.

We're still not taking personal salaries. We'll be living off our savings until our game starts making income.

So they're not actually living on the pledge(s) at all! That's dedication and, I guess, a confidence in delivering quality.