Broken Sword creator: Kickstarter will suffer ‘catastrophic’ game funding campaigns in 2015

The creator of Broken Sword and CEO of Revolution has warned that crowdfunding platform Kickstarter will suffer ‘catastrophic’ game funding failures within the next year.

Charles Cecil was speaking as part of a panel on game funding at the BFI Video Games Day.

Cecil, who utilised the crowdfunding platform to fund the fifth instalment in the Broken Sword series, Broken Sword 5:The Serpent’s Curse, said that while crowdfunding can be a ‘powerful’ tool for getting developers up and running, there was a danger that future games would fail to deliver on their initial promise by underestimating the amount of funding truly needed.

"Kickstarter was a great tool two years ago, but it was new and fresh then," then said.

"There will be catastrophic Kickstarters within the next year, definitely."

Broken Sword 5 raised more than $850,000 from 15,000 backers on Kickstarter, but this sum only comprised 25 to 30 per cent of the game’s total funding.

Cecil also warned budding developers against an expectation that securing funding would instantly make their game a success.

"You have to get off the starting block yourself," he said.