Monaco creator believes Kickstarter stretch goals are "total bulls**t"

Andy Schatz, designer of Monaco, hasn't been tempted to use Kickstarter to help launch his long-awaited indie game. In fact, he believes the Kickstarter stretch goal process is nothing more than "total bullshit."

Kickstarter opinions engulf the Internet these days, but it's interesting to get the perspective of a game designer. Schatz isn't backwards in his hatred for the site that sees many undeveloped ideas funded towards release.

"I have a little bit of an unpopular opinion of Kickstarter," he told The Penny Arcade Report.

"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."

"This is the idealist game designer in me speaking now," he continued. "When you’re designing a game, the way I think you should do it, and not everyone is the same way and I recognize that, but the way you should do it is you figure out what the game is, you figure out what the game needs, and you should make that."

Schatz believes fans can have a greater input in other ways.

"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."

Do you agree with his opinion?