Outerlands, Six-Part Documentary Hits Kickstarter Target

There are 32 hours to go on the Outerlands: Season One videogame documentary Kickstarter, but it's already surpassed its $210,000 target. Produced by the makers of The 1UP Show, it's a six-part documentary series on the culture of videogames.

There's a pitch video through on the Kickstarter page which explains more, and a representative short which I've embedded below.

This is just a short designed to give you some sense of the team's ability, in terms of being able to deliver stories and presumably in terms of being able to make everything appear sentimental. Full episodes will range from 42 to 60 minutes, will travel the world and so hopefully be a little less US-centric, and will cover diverse topics. The Kickstarter suggests they'll turn their penetrating soft-focus cameras to the worlds of videogame streaming, e-sports, disabled gamers, gamers in the military, the fighting game community and more. They namecheck This American Life, which sounds like a good reference point: multiple stories each episode shaped around a single theme, and the kinds of stories you can use to warm yourself on a cold night.

To get the documentary series, you need to back the project at the $25 level. $10 is the lowest backer level, and gives you access to backers-only livestreams charting the creation and development of the series.

There have been a lot of Kickstarted documentary projects since Indie Game: The Movie was a success, but Outerlands is in the rare position of being produced by experienced video makers and already having hit its target. Back it, don't back it; this is a thing to keep an eye on.