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Bad PR was the least of their problems, or rather it was a mirror into the deeper issues - they didn't really plan much nor did they have anything interesting to say about the game. Disregarding the well-thought feedback of their backers probably didn't help, either.

I do too. But would it sell enough to make the effort worth it? Having the involvement of a Jim Walls would give it more publicity.

I'm not saying this to be negative, but the Precinct kickstarter is an indicator that Jim Walls isn't very marketable. They banked the whole campaign on people seeing his name and wanting to hear him listen to talk about being a cop, and it didn't work. The PQ games sold because they were unlike anything else at that time.

Nothing against Walls or his design abilities - I'm a lifelong fan - but this has been true of most of the "Sierra" kickstarters. Their names were a big part of advertising games back then, but in the present the larger audience cares more about the pitch and the communication of the team than they do who's behind it. There are exceptions, though, for those few projects that made millions purely on name and track record like Project Eternity.

That would be awesome. I wonder where Christy is these days?

who thinks HS should make there own police adventure?

I do.

They lost out not working with Himalaya!

Perhaps Himalaya dodged a bullet? Yes, a Walls-involved police adventure game has great potential. But AGDI/Himalaya has built a sterling reputation, and maybe this project would have presented challenges and frustrations outside Himalaya's control that would have sullied Himalaya's image at a time when Himalaya is still riding high from the bang-up job they did with their Mage's Kickstarter campaign.

Still wouldn't mind seeing Walls team up with Himalaya in the future!

If you asked me, I'd say it should be Walls asking for the honor of working with Himalaya and not the other way around. 

I just have no idea what he and Robert L. were thinking. The flex funding thing just makes it look all the worse.

It's really melancholic to see how this Kickstarter floundered and, even now, continues to wage an uphill battle with the new funding system. It's evident that the relevant lessons weren't learned as they're still doing the chasing, rather than being chased. Sadly, I don't think this game is ever going to see the light of day with the current approach or attitude to crowdfunding.

What confounds me is that when we were talking with Robert about working together on the Precinct Kickstarter, we were very clear with him about the caveats; about all of these potential pitfalls that have now come to pass. We gave him practical advice about how to avoid them -- as well as offering financial/accounting/swag production/logistics expertise when it comes to physical rewards for backers while keeping costs to a minimum so that it doesn't eat too much into the budget. Not to mention that we have another cop on the team who could have worked very well alongside Jim to give the story some modern day flair and authenticity). In their recent Reddit AMA, Robert quoted $150k to cover all of their swag costs (sans shipping). Now, I'm not sure who's doing their accounting, but had they involved us, we could have handled all of this for a fraction of that cost (and offered more rewards to boot), ran a sharper campaign, and helped greatly to promote it amongst the adventure community.

We had already put several months of time and effort into researching rewards for the Kickstarter campaign and fine-tuning potential financials to help Jim and Robert get the absolute most from the campaign, but before we knew it, and without informing us, they launched the Precinct Kickstarter without providing us with a reason for why they reneged on such a well-suited team for the task. I can't guarantee that our involvement would have ensured Precinct's success, but I CAN say that even if it failed, the campaign would have come out with a professional image, a more heavily-anticipated title with a clearly-defined structure, and a more trustworthy-looking foundation from which to launch a second attempt.

As things panned out, I see this as a really disappointing campaign, where everything that could go wrong DID go wrong and the game's reputation has suffered, perhaps irrevocably, for it. According to our research, Police Quest was Sierra's 2nd or 3rd best-selling series, behind only King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. The potential of this campaign was huge, and unfortunately, they didn't listen to the advice given prior to and during the campaign, and made a royal mess of something that could have been a shoo-in for success.

Thank you for the informative post.

The Precinct campaign was a disaster. They tried banking on nostalgia and Jim Walls' name almost exclusively. They made every mistake previous kickstarters made. They didn't listen to backers who were trying to offer advice.

It was embarrassing to watch and, quite frankly, your post puts everything in perspective much more in regard to them ignoring your advice and launching the campaign without advance notice.

I backed this. Very excited! I still haven't played J.U.L.I.A., in fact.

Realm looks great!

Took me awhile to figure out the door system, but I liked it!