As Larry Laffer tries his luck with Kickstarter, his creator Al Lowe has released a video explaining why his company, Replay Games, decided to pursue Kickstarter funding despite having announced that it had the license to Leisure Suit Larry months ago.
Replay Games took a bit of heat from the gaming community for jumping onboard the Kickstarter bandwagon despite their announcement months back that they had acquired the license to remake Leisure Suit Larry. Al Lowe says that in short, the reason they had to pursue Kickstarter was because they couldn't acquire funding from publishers to make the game. The big money boys, he said, were "only interested in the next Angry Birds," and obviously Leisure Suit Larry wasn't something they wanted to fund.
He also answered the question of why Replay Games is making a remake of the first game instead of a new game. Simply put, they only own the license to produce a remake, but the property is currently owned by Codemasters. They'll have to prove themselves capable of producing a good remake if they want to make an all new game. Al Lowe says that they have long-term plans to make all new Leisure Suit Larry games. In any case, a remake shouldn't be too much of an issue given the fact that most people haven't had the chance to play the first game.
In the video, Al Lowe dismissed the two most recent Leisure Suit Larry titles, which were developed by a studio completely unrelated to the original games. None of the people involved in those games were a part of the original makers.
Finally, Al Lowe assures us that everyone at Replay Games is a Sierra veteran, so the series—should it get funded—is in good hands.
You can help Larry get remade by supporting the Kickstarter here.