I received about $700 total, and I was living with my parents (most of that $700 was from my family, but there were several other people who donated). I actually still have a list of the donations, and I covered this topic in my Kickstarter page (which is not yet public). I probably should have returned the original donations as it was not a huge amount of money, but I was planning to surprise my original backers with something -- cat is out of the bag now I guess. I still remain friends with many of the original Genesis fans like David Sahlin, Collin Popel, and Seiji Tanaka.
My parents were very supportive, but at the same time I had been living with them 8 months post college, and it came to the point where they were hinting more and more that I get a job and move out. After I launched, it became pretty clear that I was not going to support myself off of Genesis even though the reception was very positive (there was no equivalent of Kickstarter at that point in 2006, unfortunately). Not more than 2-3 months after launching I got an offer at my the startup my brother worked for (which was not lucrative, just $35k year to work 80 hour weeks). I put in 10,000+ hours of work into Genesis, no one was more disappointed than me to shut it down. I did what I could and released the source code, hoping that I could return to it later. I made several attempts over the next couple years to make Genesis-related projects (most of my failed game engines) or make something that could support me to do so. For the most part, I've been working 80 hours or more trying to make up for it for the past decade.
The only situation in which my current project will become vaporware is if I run out of money and have to get another job, and I am really hoping this does not happen because I have put so much work into it again. Thank you for bringing this up, if I can do anything else to make up for Genesis please let me know.
Also, the silver lining in this is that it led to where I am now. My honest opinion of Genesis is that it was doomed from the start: I was a young, naive coder and did not know enough to make a project that ambitious work (even now, I still have my doubts in myself). I learned a lot over the following decade that hopefully puts me in a more capable position now. Also, for a bit of further clarification, my first job was at Goowy Media (not a game company), although I got job offers from EA and a few other companies but I did not want to work in the game industry (it is fun if you are independent, but mostly pretty bad conditions otherwise)...
All of that said, I myself am going to warn people against giving me money. This is obviously a very ambitious, very risky project and I want everyone to have a very realistic idea of what I am up against. Some people are willing to take that risk for the chance of producing something new and interesting, but not everybody.
I'd say go for it if it will support you to finish the project. I think now that kickstarter is common people are a bit more accustomed to giving money to projects and not necessarily expecting immediate results.
Thanks! Yes, unfortunately many people have differentiating ideas about what Kickstarter should/shouldn't be, so I really have to tip toe through a minefield not to piss anyone off.
Just for posterity, here is the list of backers from Paypal; I have removed the names and other sensitive information. $500 was from my family ($100,$200, and $200 entries). The total gross is $759...totals are at bottom.
I received about $700 total, and I was living with my parents (most of that $700 was from my family, but there were several other people who donated). I actually still have a list of the donations, and I covered this topic in my Kickstarter page (which is not yet public). I probably should have returned the original donations as it was not a huge amount of money, but I was planning to surprise my original backers with something -- cat is out of the bag now I guess. I still remain friends with many of the original Genesis fans like David Sahlin, Collin Popel, and Seiji Tanaka.
My parents were very supportive, but at the same time I had been living with them 8 months post college, and it came to the point where they were hinting more and more that I get a job and move out. After I launched, it became pretty clear that I was not going to support myself off of Genesis even though the reception was very positive (there was no equivalent of Kickstarter at that point in 2006, unfortunately). Not more than 2-3 months after launching I got an offer at my the startup my brother worked for (which was not lucrative, just $35k year to work 80 hour weeks). I put in 10,000+ hours of work into Genesis, no one was more disappointed than me to shut it down. I did what I could and released the source code, hoping that I could return to it later. I made several attempts over the next couple years to make Genesis-related projects (most of my failed game engines) or make something that could support me to do so. For the most part, I've been working 80 hours or more trying to make up for it for the past decade.
The only situation in which my current project will become vaporware is if I run out of money and have to get another job, and I am really hoping this does not happen because I have put so much work into it again. Thank you for bringing this up, if I can do anything else to make up for Genesis please let me know.