Why do you think there aren't more game developers using Kickstarter? I'm not talking low-budget, obscure developers. I'm talking SquareEnix, Bethesda, Bioware, EA, Ubisoft, etc.

SquareEnix - Final Fantasy VII HD Remake, Final Fantasy VIII HD Remake, and Final Fantasy IX HD Remake.

Microsoft - Lost Odyssey 2

Bethesda - Pretty much anything that has "Elder Scrolls" in the title.

Bioware - Anything with dragons it.

EA - They're not stopping with Battlefied anytime soon.

Ubisoft - Everyone likes assassinating people. In video games.

I just feel like a Kickstarter would give the developers more up front cash to put into their game, and honestly all they would have to give in return is either a free DLC, or a shirt, or something ridiculously cheap. Then when the game comes out you're still paying for the game. I know I've heard a lot of people (myself included) discuss this regarding SquareEnix especially, just because an HD version of the top selling Final Fantasy games would be awesome. Personally, I want Microsoft to get Mistwalker to make a Lost Odyssey 2. What are your thoughts? Why do you think more (well known/good/etc) developers aren't giving Kickstarter a shot?

Probably cause kickstarters don't usually fund enough money for them to make it

But honestly, I am glad they aren't. (Although, I am pretty sure some of them did some stuff with kickstarter already) The reason why indie developers are doing it is cause they need money but these giant companies don't need the extra money so if they start doing kickstarter, that would be terrible and greedy as fuck

I feel like it would be somewhat humiliating for big publishers to use Kickstarter. There are also a few problems with Kickstarter, namely Kickstarters usually cover the cost of development. A big publisher wouldn't really care about that, what they want is the profit and even if a Kickstarter does well that doesn't necessarily the game will be successful when it actually comes out. If the game doesn't make a lot of profit afterward it will have become a waste of time and talent for them, they could have used the developers else where on a game like Assassin's Creed that would have been a guaranteed success.

I understand both of those arguments. I don't think I would really want to fund another Assassin's Creed game, and then pay for it. I guess what I really would like to see are the [big] developers using Kickstarter to fund projects that they would not do normally (e.g. Lost Odyssey 2, or any of those Final Fantasy HD Remakes I mentioned). If my choice was to pay money for a Kickstarter for game I wanted and then pay for the game itself, or the game doesn't get released at all, I would pick to fund the Kickstarter.

Indie developers, being smaller than big companies, benefit greatly from KickStarter, especially if they've never made a game before, since they don't exactly have all the funds available in the world.

Big companies should not have to rely on KickStarter, mainly because they wouldn't make a huge profit from it, and would be somewhat unprofessional looking if a big company had to rely on KickStarter to make sure a game is being developed.

Ya maybe Nintendo could do it with all the ips they own.

They don't need to. They have the money.

On KS, you essentially have to sell the games for less. SO $50 would get you a copy of battlefield hardline.
They could sell that same unit to same amount of consumers for $10 more.

Kickstarter is for developers who don't have enough own money to fund their games. Why should we fund big developers/publishers who already have enough money for their projects?

I have backed a couple of projects. No games though. Most of them look like shovel/wiiware to me.

I would back Lost Odyssey 2 though.

There is no harm in a big developer setting up a KS for an obscure game in the hopes that a publisher would pick it up. It happened with Veronica Mars.

They have the money to do so. When it comes to mainline games, they already have micro transactions and DLCs for the extra income and maximizing profit. About spin-offs, well they usually aren't that expensive to develop when compared to the main series and they could simply give the project to a relatively unimportant team within the company. If they ever use KS, especially Microsoft (insanely rich), Ubisoft (Abusive micro transactions and DLC incorporation) and EA (Same as Ubi), it would really make them look ridiculous imo.