Brian Fargo’s Wasteland 2 raises $502,000+ in a day on Kickstarter

Double Fine Productions ended its campaign on crowd-funding site Kickstarter today, raising $3.3 million from more than 87,000 donors. But gamers can keep on giving.

Brian Fargo, chief executive of InXile Entertainment and a veteran game-maker, has raised more than $502,000 from 8,000-plus donors in a campaign to raise money for Wasteland 2 on Kickstarter.

Fargo was inspired to raise the money to finance his new game after Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions successfully staged a similar campaign to fund their next game. Schafer plans to use the money to fund a new adventure game that traditional publishers have shied away from.

The 1988 version of Wasteland was a post-apocalyptic role-playing game. It was a single-player game with lots of characters. After it came out, Interplay switched over to making Fallout games. But Fargo has wanted to make an online multiplayer version of Wasteland for the Internet, where large parties can come together and play. Fargo still has 34 days to go in his campaign, which set a $900,000 goal.

Pledges are for $15 or more. Fargo said in his Kickstarter video that Wasteland was made in the golden age of games when creativity was at its peak.

He hasn’t had any luck getting traditional game publishers to fund the game. The video makes light of the problem of how publishers aren’t taking risks on medium-sized indie efforts these days.

“Did you do Angry Birds?” the faux kid producer asks Fargo in the video.

“Would I f***ing be here if I made Angry Birds?,” Fargo replies.

As envisioned, Wasteland 2 is a turn-based, top-down, role-playing, party game set in a Fallout-like post-apocalypse game.

“This really might be a last chance for a Wasteland 2,” Fargo said.

With respect to other game Kickstarter projects, Rusel DeMaria has one going to finance the writing and publishing of the third edition of his High Score video-game history book. And Exato Games is running a Kickstarter campaign for its Guncraft game. Cipher Primes is raising $60,000 for its Auditorium 2 game. Josh Hughes is also raising money via Kickstarter for an indie rhythm game. But Fargo’s is the most ambitious of the new crop.

 GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.