Could Kickstarter Flirtation Lead to Publisher Excommunication?

Publishers are no doubt keeping a close eye on the recent Kickstarter craze to see where it goes, and I suppose there’s even a chance that they might even consider it a bit… off-putting if a developer they’ve previously chatted with chooses to take the crowd-funding route rather than work with said publisher on their next game. That sort of “excommunication” is the topic of a new editorial on RIPTEN that uses Obsidian Entertainment as their main focal point:

Developers going outside the standard model, pitching projects directly to gamers, unbalances the equation. No longer are publishers the arbiters of good taste, determining what the public will and won’t buy, what we crave and what we loathe. Their power is eroding under the crashing waves of backer payments small and large. What’s more, one thing has resonated with the advent of successful crowd-sourcing by quality developers. The message is clear, (We don’t need publishers.) Tim Schafer and company were a bit more tactful than that, though, when they proposed their Double Fine Adventure project.

(To finance the production, promotion, and distribution of these massive undertakings, companies like Double Fine have to rely on external sources like publishers, investment firms, or loans. And while they fulfill an important role in the process, their involvement also comes with significant strings attached that can pull the game in the wrong directions or even cancel its production altogether.)

Brian Fargo was a bit more pointed in his hilarious pitch video for Wasteland 2 and writeup on their Kickstarter page.

(This is probably the last chance for a Wasteland sequel. We have tried to pitch this game multiple times to game publishers, but they’ve balked. They don’t think there’s any interest in a solid, old school type of game. This is our shot at proving them wrong.)

And then there’s Obsidian. They merely promoted possible Kickstarter ideas on their website, taking the first steps on the path to a life without publishers. And while that may seem attractive, their reality is an ailing studio currently being kept afloat by (dirty, unwanted publisher money.) One can’t help but wonder how a publisher, who has put a significant amount of money into a studio, must feel about their partner shouting, (damn the man!)

If this is the case if publishers really are seething at the idea of Kickstarter-funded games could this be setting up a war? Will we see successful Kickstarted developers locked out of publishing deals? Maybe we are going to see new clauses in contracts emerging that prevent developers from crowd-sourcing for a period of time surrounding launch of a publisher-funded project?