Project Eternity's Avellone worried that "Kickstarter exhaustion" may eventually kick in

Project Eternity has been a lucky goose, what with surpassing its $1.1 million funding goal on Kickstarter with close to $4 million earned; however, Obsidian's Chris Avellone is slightly worried that "Kickstarter exhaustion" may eventually take hold with potential backers.

Speaking with GI International, Avellone feels the future of using Kickstarter for games development will be determined once the first successful, or unsuccessful, project is released.

"I'm not really sure how long Kickstarter will last. What we were worried about with Eternity is that it seemed like a lot of gaming companies were barely making their funding goals," he said. "Double Fine and Wasteland 2 charged pretty strong out of the gate. Shadowrun did pretty well, but then we noticed there's been a drop-off of how much people were willing to donate.

"I'm worried about Kickstarter exhaustion; it seems like there's always a new Kickstarter project going up. That was one of the challenges we knew we had to face going into it. We had no idea if we'd make our funding goal at all, just because we'd seen that pattern developing. We're like, 'Do we have enough appeal to even stand out in the crowd?' Fortunately we did.

"When the first successful title hits, or even the first unsuccessful title hits, that'll change Kickstarter in different ways. We haven't really seen the upper levels of how much people are willing to donate.

"Then there's the danger of when the first big failure comes out on Kickstarter, I think people will be even more hesitant about donating. It will be beyond exhaustion level; it will be 'I'm not sure this process is going to pan out.'

"I feel like Kickstarter is still in its infancy when it comes to the process; I feel like we're in the honeymoon phase."

You can read the full interview through the link.