JediPunisher wrote on Apr 17, 2012, 21:54:
Since Wasteland 2 is already funded, the publisher won’t get the chance to interfere with Brian’s vision for the game.
Besides, I doubt Brian Fargo wants to spend HALF of the pledges towards marketing, fulfillment, and product support. I’m sure you’ll agree, that money is better spent on game content.
Sure they could. The way publishers are, they could say they'd only sign him and fund marketing/retail publishing if he agreed to give them the IP rights for any sequels, or only agree to it if he put ponies in it. He would be in a position of asking THEM for money for these things so they could say WTF ever they want as a condition, exactly as they've done in the past to him and many others.
Also, he doesn't need to spend much of anything for marketing, many people interested in the game probably already know about it. And the vast horde of consolers wouldn't care anyway about it, they want a CoD shooter and don't care about PC. The rest of the people can find out about it and buy it on steam when it comes out. The people who want a collectors edition box have either already kickstarted or can get it direct once its out.
As for fulfillment, pretty sure if he has a clue, he's factored all that into the equation when he offered those physical product rewards. I doubt he's doing this without at least a basic business plan (he's run a business before). He even knew at what level of pledging he'd have to kick in some of his own money to get the project funded and done.
As for support, indies pull off support, he's done games before, he has a game company, I'm sure he knows what support will require and is ready for it.
In fact, he's not only run a business before, he's run a publishing business before, so he's well aware of all these factors and more besides.