Have you ever had a dream that you hung onto for 20 years? Have you ever pursued a passion relentlessly as you grew older, overcoming one rejection after another? How many times can you hear variations of the word No before you begin to doubt yourself?
Meet the reality of Brian Fargo. In 1988 Brian released Wasteland, a video game that would lay the ground work for generations of gamers to come. And then, after its success, he began his quest to produce a sequel. With concept in hand he went from one publisher to another. And one after another told him No, No Chance, Maybe Next Time, Sorry.
Brian is a pretty passionate guy, but even for him, 20 years of rejection took its toll. He came to the realization that his dream was never going to happen. And with a sense of finality he put the project into a drawer and closed it forever, walking away from 20 years of fruitless effort.
But when dreams are destiny they can't be walked away from.
Two weeks later, Double Fine went live on Kickstarter and set the gaming world on fire. Asking for $400,000, they blew by their goal in 8 hours, then $1 million in 24 hours, finally ending at $3.3 million for a final total.
Suddenly Brian's dream was alive. He pulled it out of the drawer and took it to Kickstarter. He knew what he needed to do. He needed to ask for $1 million dollars for his project. But he was willing to risk his own money on his passion and so he asked for $900,000 from backers and he promised to pledge $100,000 of his own money.
Wasteland 2 was the largest request for funding in Kickstarter's history. A number that a few weeks earlier had only been successfully reached by one company. But Brian still believed, and so did his fans. After a few days, Wasteland 2 shot past the funding goal and at the time of the writing of this post, is at $1.9 million dollars.
With his Dream's future firmly in hand, Brian set his sights on another project, Kicking it Forward. Brian remembers the futility of trying to get someone else to see his vision and share in his dream. His Kicking it Forward project is a pledge by Kickstarter project owners to give back 5% of their profits to the Kickstarter community. To be clear, he isn't talking about giving back 5% of their funds from Kickstarter. He means once a project is successful and the product is built and generating revenue, a project owner will take 5% of their profits and back future Kickstarters.
Brian sits down with me to talk about his journey, his passion, the succeess he is having after 20 years of trying and his passion for Kicking it Forward.
You can listen to Funding the Dream on Kickstarter Ep 47 here
You can back Wasteland 2 on Kickstarter here
You can check out Kicking it Forward at www.kickingitforward.org
Be sure to follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gamewhisperer
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