Monaco dev talks Kickstarter

Andy Schatz, the man behind the hugely anticipated indie title, Monaco, has been talking about his feelings regarding the recent splurge of Kickstarter projects.

In an interview with Penny Arcade Report the designer aired his slightly contraversial opinions regarding Kickstarter and stretch goals, and why he feels they might have a negative impact on game design.

"I have a little bit of an unpopular opinion of Kickstarter," he said. "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," Schatz added.

"If the game is missing a finger, add a finger, if the game is not missing a finger, don't add one," he eloquently stated.