The Wonderful 101 is being remade by Platinum Games after recently running a successful Kickstarter campaign and meeting several stretch goals. However, it seems as though the Kickstarter for the title was not actually necessary for development.
In an interview with Gematsu, the publication asked Studio Head and Executive VP Atsushi Inaba about the funding campaign:
Gematsu: The Wonderful 101: Remastered was announced as a Kickstarter project in early February, and a May release date was announced later in the month. Can you explain what from the funding went into the game itself?
Inaba: “Well the actual reason we decided to do a Kickstarter campaign was not for funding at all, it was more about gauging interest in The Wonderful 101. This is a game we’ve always wanted to revisit at some point in time, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to bring the fans together—to unite them—and gauge interest. And in essence, to release the game. So it wasn’t really about the amount of funding at all, it was about self-publishing, bringing fans together, and revisiting The Wonderful 101.”
Gematsu: Just to clarify, what is the money that was crowdfunded being used towards?
Inaba: “First off, the money is going towards the production of all the goods—I don’t know if you’ve seen all the tiers and their rewards, but those cost money to produce. The rest of the money is going towards the additional content that will be added to the game. All that costs money, and it takes time and work to port the game to the additional platforms. I want to clarify that we didn’t do the campaign to ‘get money’ or anything like that—that wasn’t the point of it. The main goal was to bring the fans together, gauge interest, and find a good way to revisit and release the game.”
Inaba and Kamiya answer further questions about The Wonderful 101 : Remastered in the interview including the possible Xbox One port. You can find the full interview here.
Our Take
This seems like a rather dangerous precedent to start. Kickstarter is used for funding development of games/projects that typically have no other way of being created. For Platinum to say they would have developed the game anyway and just used the platform for marketing purposes, seems disingenuous. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter!
[…] A few weeks ago Platinum Games stated that the Kickstarter for Wonderful 101 Remastered was not necessary to fund the game’s development. But rather, the campaign was merely used to raise awareness. […]