Monaco dev calls out Kickstarter stretch goals’ ‘variable budget’ effect

Andy Schatz, developer of the upcoming award-winning indie Monaco, has expressed his concern with Kickstarter stretch goals – calling the idea total bullshit” when going about designing a game.

Speaking to Penny Arcade Report, Schatz stated that while happy for the people that have found success on the crowdfunding platform; he felt the use of cash goals going beyond the original funding goal isn’t a sound idea because of the design killer of feature creep.”

"I have a little bit of an unpopular opinion of Kickstarter. I’m really glad for the people that have been really successful on Kickstarter, and don’t get me wrong, I really like the idea of free money, but I’m of the opinion that designing a game around a variable budget is a terrible way to design a game. To be frank, I think that stretch goals are total bullshit.

"If you are adding in some optional thing to incentivize people to give you money… there’s a difference between allowing your fans to have an extreme amount of input on the game, which I do, the beta testers have an incredible influence on the game, but letting them design the game in the sense of ‘if the budget is this, then I’ll do this, and if the budget is that, then I’ll do that,’ that to me sounds like the perfect way to make a game that’s insufficiently complete or bloated.”

Monaco itself received $100,000 from the Indie Fund – a private organization of successful indie developers who look to give standout indie projects a workable development budget. It’s expected to launch on Steam and XBLA this April.