Steve Weatherly, a senior programmer at Obsidian Entertainment and key developer on Kickstarter project Pillars of Eternity, loves the liberty of a publisher-free development cycle. The studio recently put on a Reddit AMA for its devoted fans and during the discussion, Weatherly explained some of the key benefits of using the Kickstarter model.
“For me, as a programmer, I love that I don't have to put together a ‘dog and pony show’ for anyone with fake code that's going to get ripped out,” he explained. “If I'm writing code, it's something we will potentially ship with and that's a really refreshing difference.”
Lead producer Brandon Adler chimed in on the issue, too.
“Steve's reply is a good one. Sometimes, the team's time can be spent polishing systems or areas that are going to have to be redone just because it needs to look nice for a demo,” Adler said. “That can really set the team back.
“That said, we are trying to move at a brisk pace and be smart about what goes into the game. We want to make sure everything that goes into development will get a good level of polish before we release it.”
Pillars of Eternity will look to recapture some nostalgic feelings though the use of the nearly $4 million it received from backers.
