So is Kickstarter a good or bad thing?

So is Kickstarter a good or bad thing?

So Shenmue III has become the highest funded video game so far on kickstarter, not only that but its currently sitting pretty as the sixth highest funded kickstarter for anything ever. It has last I checked made a total of $6,333,295 in funds with a total of 69,320  Backers:

With a base goal of $2,000,000, Shenmue III reached this within one day of its kickstarter being up but even then apparently it not only reached this goal it also apparently broke kickstarter with people unable to donate do to the site being so jammed.

As most who are familiar with Kickstarter will know there is never really just an amount laid out which will decided if the project will go ahead or not there are all kinds of ''stretch goals'' Basically if we make X amount then we will add function Y or mode Z, we will print T shirts and give them to all donaters above a set amount etcetera.

Shenmue 3 met about half of its stretch goals but when they put it up on Kickstarter they were ambitious they put goals all the way up to $11 million.

The things that will be added to the game thanks to these stretch goals include Shenmue 1 & 2 cinema shorts, multiple languages , expanded Mini-Games, expanded additional quests,expanded battle events,

I suppose the speed at which this gained its goals just shows that there was enough people out there desperate enough for a Shenmue III but if this was the case then why did it need to be funded in this way? I guess basically because no one official had the faith in it to green light the project and invest in it. So like it or loath it in a world without kickstarter it looks like we wouldn't be getting a Shenmue III.

This is not the only game we are getting because of Kickstarter, my friend over at the GameOverYeah blog recently posted about Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night which is basically a spiritual sequel to the castlevania metroidvania style games, you can find his article here http://dstegameoveryeah.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/bloodstained-ritual-of-night.html . This at my lest check had reached $5,545,991 with 64,867 Backers.

I could continue but I think I have proven the point that Kickstarter does lead to us getting games we otherwise would not get but yet lets look at another example Project Cars 2 was announced with a crowd funding goal of £7,000,000, roughly $11 million. This is the sequel to a game which was made due to crowd funding. Surly the idea should be to help get ideas off the ground and running. You might say oh well Shenmue III is a sequel, but its a sequel to a game from long ago that people had given up on. If Kickstarter gets a game out there and in the public eye making money then surly some of the profit should be used to fund future sequels rather than them wanting users to fund game after game.