Precinct shuts down Kickstarter and reboots with its own "staged funding" plan

It's always sad to see a promising Kickstarter pull the plug, and this time is no different: Precinct, the revitalization of the classic Police Quest lineage, has suspended its Kickstarter .

. Precinct will be moving to a “staged” crowdfunding effort on its own website.

Precinct had raised just shy of $90,000 of its $500,000 goal since the campaign began. With only ten days left on the clock, creators Jim Walls and Robert Lindsley decided to call it and try a new tactic.

The new staged funding drive works differently than Kickstarter. At each funding stage (currently set at $25,000, $90,000, $250,000 and $400,000), the funds pledged will be charged and sent to Walls and Lindsley to fuel that portion of the project. When $25,000 is reached, for example, the developers will deliver a “proof of concept,” a short but playable sample of the Precinct experience. The fundraising drive has no time limit, so whenever the money is raised is when the game gets made.

The idea is to reduce risk for backers by showing them concrete evidence of their funding. If backers don't like the proof of concept or the demo ($250,000 goal) for example, they can vote with their wallets and stop contributing. On the other hand, if the community demand for this game just isn't as big as the $400,000 goal, willing backers may spend an awful lot of money and receive only a playable demo in return, a risk that Kickstarter's all-or-nothing model prevents.

It's also interesting to note some of the costs involved with Kickstarter that have now been removed. The creators are asking for $100,000 less with this model, the tradeoff being that backers no longer receive physical rewards.

If you're still hungry for the kind of realistic police procedural that Precinct is aiming for, head over to the new fundraising website.