Wonderful 101
Image: PlatinumGames

Japanese studio PlatinumGames shocked quite a few people when it launched a crowdfunding campaign for a remaster of the Wii U title Wonderful 101; not only was the game a Nintendo exclusive, it was also something of a commercial flop upon release.

PlatinumGames later revealed that it had done a deal with Nintendo to relaunch the title, but there were still questions over why the company had decided to take the Kickstarter route – especially when it was confirmed that the game would release in May of this year.

In an interview with Gematsu at PAX East, PlatinumGames' Atsushi Inaba finally admitted what many had suspected – the Kickstarter wasn't anything to do with raising funds, but more to gauge interest in such a project:

Well the actual reason we decided to do a Kickstarter campaign was not for funding at all, it was more about gauging interest in The Wonderful 101. This is a game we’ve always wanted to revisit at some point in time, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to bring the fans together—to unite them—and gauge interest. And in essence, to release the game. So it wasn’t really about the amount of funding at all, it was about self-publishing, bringing fans together, and revisiting The Wonderful 101.

When asked what the Kickstarter funds would be used for, Inaba added:

First off, the money is going towards the production of all the goods—I don’t know if you’ve seen all the tiers and their rewards, but those cost money to produce. The rest of the money is going towards the additional content that will be added to the game. All that costs money, and it takes time and work to port the game to the additional platforms. I want to clarify that we didn’t do the campaign to ‘get money’ or anything like that—that wasn’t the point of it. The main goal was to bring the fans together, gauge interest, and find a good way to revisit and release the game.

The Wonderful 101 will launch in North America on 19th May, in Europe on 22nd May, and in Japan on 11th June.

[source gematsu.com]