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RED ASH Kickstarter crashes n burns (Comcept/Inafune/Hyde making Mega Man Legends 3)
- Thread starter TDLink
- Start date
Should have been up front about everything. Why wait this damn long to announce the PS4 goal. Had he done that from the start it probably would have been met.
Admiral Woofington
Member
YEP
Mikey Jr.
Member
I'm telling you, they have to scrap this whole kickstarter. I know people say "What will that accomplish?" or whatever.
Well, cancelling it will save face, allow them to regroup, and to reorganize this whole kickstarter.
Nothing at this point will turn this around. The whole kickstarter is poisoned. People are confused about what the fuck they are getting. Console version was announced with 10 days left. Whole thing has come to a crawl and most likely won't even reach 800k, nevermind a million. MN9 isn't even out yet, despite being "finished".
Just fucking scrap it. Come back fresh a few months later.
edit: Also, this whole push with the anime and clothing that they launched at the same time was really fucking tacky I gotta say.
Indeed or wait til after Mighty No 9 is out. People who backed MN9 like me aren't interested in another Comcept KS before they even released MN9.
twothunder
Member
Dropped back from $455,552 to $455,498 now.
The update has done nothing so far.
Yeah. The incompetence of this kickstarter and the air of negativity it created has truly poisoned it.
The update has done nothing so far.
Yeah. The incompetence of this kickstarter and the air of negativity it created has truly poisoned it.
so i've been keeping an eye on this thread. it really seems you guys have gotten a raw deal with what comcept are offering. i pretty much lived in the shenmue 3 kickstarter thread for the last month. despite some difficulties with the people staffing the campaign, it seems nothing in comparison to the fuckery you guys are dealing with.
maybe they'll do the right thing and cancel this now and come back with a better plan after might number 9 is out.
maybe they'll do the right thing and cancel this now and come back with a better plan after might number 9 is out.
Well I think people are still hesitant being that the PS4 Version is at the 1mil mark. The way things are going the 200k between the funding goal and PS4 stretch is pretty big and it would suck to pledge and end up with the PC version.
I'm also betting that people are gonna watch and ride it out. I'll definitely donate if it shows promise of hitting the PS4 mark.
timetokill
Banned
Haha, fuck this Kickstarter
There's nothing they can do, if the project fails then it fails.
All they can do is go back to the drawing board and look at why the kickstarter campaign failed and improved from them.
But honestly speaking Inafune has burned a lot of people trust over how he handled Mighty No 9 and aren't willing to donate money to a man who hasn't exactly proven that he can deliver on his promises.
He really should had waited until after Mighty No 9 was released.
kubricks
Member
I hope they do this instead of claiming there is no market of MML games, again. ;/
rockman zx
Member
I can't believe the platform reveal did nothing.
dottme
Member
Why would it change anything? It looks clear that the KS won't reach the stretch goal. So even if they reveal a platform, it doesn't change that it will probably be PC only
PeakPointMatrix
Member
Honestly, this is the only hope left.
does this mean we'll at least get to see some gameplay before the campaign is over?
NoFaceNico
Member
Apparently, Hyde, Inc. makes iPhone games. They've made two, Quiz Marionette Maker and Quiz Marionette Maker Plus.
Ruh-roh
Ruh-roh
Chairmanchuck
Member
Hyde is working on japanese AAA games from what I heard, but arent allowed to talk about it because of contracts.
I agree. The anime movie tiers was absolutely ridiculous to begin with. What is sad is I think Red Ash looks amazing for a video game in art direction, but Kickstarter is really public opinion. People are not backing it until seeing how Mighty No. 9 is and to be frank, the graphics look bad in that game. They should scrap the KS, save face rather than have an unfunded campaign which wouod look worse and relaunch in a couple of months and better organized.
Harkins1721
Banned
The KS states they are doing this for fan support. Which im all for. I liked putting effort into MML3 and seeing results.
rockman zx
Member
They are far from a company that makes only mobile games.
http://hyde.co.jp/service/business_result/
PeakPointMatrix
Member
This has long been debunked as fudd in the sense that these are experienced devs that have worked and collaborated on far bigger projects as "shadow developers" that cannot list their projects due to contractual obligations. Unfortunately this is only a piece of the misinformation that has sent this KS into an early tailspin.
We already went through this like 10 pages ago. Hyde works on a lot of things they can't talk about.
BudokaiMR2
Member
I have just been busy!
However, there wasn't really anything productive happening with me arguing with people who have already made up their minds regarding the project.
And seeing someone quote Gamefaqs (really?) to try and discredit a developer which they have no actual personal opinion on just reminded me why I should stay out of the thread.
I have no problem with people bringing up actual complaints or concerns.
However, going out of their way to slander a company who they have probably never had a single interaction with just shows how petty some people really are. I guess they feel justified to do that for some reason?
Not really pointing fingers at anyone here, as they were probably just misled by the fudd already out there.
NoFaceNico
Member
Easy. Easy. I was just going off what I found when I did a search for their company and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who reacted to the news with "who the hell is Hyde, Inc.??"
BTW, you might want to read their official site you link to before shooting me down. (FYI: I'm using Google translate so forgive the engrish) Under "Service" they say:
I hear you guys saying that they've worked on AAA games and can't discuss for contractual reasons but it seems that those games are vaguely described on their site. Let's take a look at the work they did on those:
A lot of their work is graphical design. Judging by the Kickstarter pitch video, I think Red Ash has enough graphic designers right now. I see Hyde, Inc. has a lot of "development of" experience, but again, if it's true that they have experience in actual game development why don't they get credit? Game development is hard and I don't care what the contract says, you want credit. Hell, even the QA testers get credit. I'm sticking to my guns on this one. But I guess we'll see what they can produce in the new update.
Here's another little tidbit you can find on their site. According to their service credits and the image below, apparently this will be the first PS4 project they've ever worked on (of course, that's if they can get to the PS4 stretch goal). Could that be a reason why they wanted to stay PC only at first since Hyde doesn't have experience with current gen hardware?
BTW, you might want to read their official site you link to before shooting me down. (FYI: I'm using Google translate so forgive the engrish) Under "Service" they say:
I hear you guys saying that they've worked on AAA games and can't discuss for contractual reasons but it seems that those games are vaguely described on their site. Let's take a look at the work they did on those:
A lot of their work is graphical design. Judging by the Kickstarter pitch video, I think Red Ash has enough graphic designers right now. I see Hyde, Inc. has a lot of "development of" experience, but again, if it's true that they have experience in actual game development why don't they get credit? Game development is hard and I don't care what the contract says, you want credit. Hell, even the QA testers get credit. I'm sticking to my guns on this one. But I guess we'll see what they can produce in the new update.
Here's another little tidbit you can find on their site. According to their service credits and the image below, apparently this will be the first PS4 project they've ever worked on (of course, that's if they can get to the PS4 stretch goal). Could that be a reason why they wanted to stay PC only at first since Hyde doesn't have experience with current gen hardware?
BudokaiMR2
Member
Uhh....I'm not even sure what you are trying to point out in that first part. They even list consumer as one of their core business models. Just to be clear 'consumer' is what they call 'consoles' in Japanese.
There are plenty of cases where developers still never get credit for their games. It is an unfortunate practice but is still fairly normal in the JP game industry. You even have companies like Tose whose entire company policy is based around this sort of business setup.
I don't think many people here are actually experienced enough in the industry to be making claims about a company like this. In my opinion, it's very reductionist to do a few google searches and start making assumptions that fit your own view.
I am sure that the games you see listed are just a few examples of what they have worked on.
Regarding the graph not including PS4, I am guessing that is just because they haven't updated it. It's pretty obvious that they haven't been a very public facing company for their entire history, so I am guessing they rarely update their site.
I can guarantee that they have worked on PS4 projects.
My problem isn't with people bringing up the fact that Hyde is an unknown. It's the fact that they consider themselves experts and make blatant claims about the company without anything but the most superficial research. I doubt many of those people even know what white label development is or why it still exists.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Add it to a long list of reasons why this Kickstarter was ill-conceived and the project should have been prototyped before asking for money.
You can NDA pubs and reps so they get to know the white label ins and outs of Hive, but since you cant with the public, its back to hush hush. For a Kickstarter that asks for a lot of blind faith already (that 2 game plan is a real stinker), going even further so the actual developers remain a "but who ARE they?" mystery stacks yet more jenga blocks onto a tower that has the sole Inafune Awkward Grin block at its base and has been wobbling for months.
That the Kickstarter is still going is a detriment to the entire project and just looks greedy at this point like "any money will do, final quality be damned". Thats why its become increasingly hard to sell as a passion project that is what fires up fans. Hell, its the main reason why all the Mighty No 9 stuff kicked off with the speed and eagerness of franchising giving too much of a look at real Inafune.
Is there really any chance to get the stretch goal or even the PS4 port...
Depends on what they do and show next really.There is always a chance it could get a last minute push if they can put out some nice prototype video or proof of concept.
BudokaiMR2
Member
The part about the 2 game plan being a problem, I guess I will never understand. We could have easily changed the marketing copy to never call it a prologue. That would have been extremely easy.
Is that what you really want? To just blatantly lie about the project?
We made the decision not to do so because we wanted to be completely truthful about what we were aiming to create.
The ideal game we want to make is going to be $10 million or more easily. That's just the reality of the situation. The only way that Red Ash was ever going to be a fit for Kickstarter was to scale it down in some way. The KalKanon story was always going to be a part of the game so it was decided to push that as the Kickstarter project so that we could at least start somewhere.
Honestly, the backlash against the prologue idea makes me question whether full transparency really does have a place on Kickstarter.
Also, I still find it unbelievable that people actually expect prototypes when a Kickstarter launches.
Let me go through why this is absolutely ludicrous.
1) When you are working with multiple partners, it is very difficult for an outside company to attach that many resources to a project before a Kickstarter even launches. This is why you see so many prototypes pop up at the tail end of a project. Work usually starts once the project is live.
2) Not even most publishers demand a prototype. The normal flow is to get an initial small amount of funding from the publisher to create a prototype and then go from there. Isn't the whole point of Kickstarter to help certain creators bypass publishers? Then why should it be a unspoken requirement to provide something like that at the start?
3) As comcept is not even a development studio, creating a prototype would mean more than just assigning human resources to a project. That is obviously possible in certain cases (Yooka-Laylee), but in comcept's case it is a bit tough.
And I will never understand the greedy image that people seem to throw around of Inafune. Just one little piece of info that recently came up in a 4Gamer interview, but Inafune brought Kazushi Ito into comcept solely for this project. And that was over a year ago. He has helped out in some small ways on other projects, but the majority of his time has been working on pre-production for this project. There have been resources spent on this project for over a year. Maybe not in the way that some people want, but it was a solid contribution in my opinion. However, some people are going to just dismiss all of his work as "useless doodles" or whatever.
Stone Ocean
Member
Don't, just don't. The prologue backlash is because people want to Kickstart a full MML spiritual sucessor, not a prologue. Don't pin this on transparency as if people are misunderstanding things.
BudokaiMR2
Member
And you honestly think a $10 Million dollar Initial goal Kickstarter would be possible?
I feel like we explained that several times already....
Stone Ocean
Member
If your solution to scaling down a game is making a prologue instead of just making a smaller, full fledged, self contained game then maybe Red Ash just doesn't fit a Kickstarter, specially when like half the prologue is behind stretch goals.
Sadly, they wont.
Hey BudokaiMR2, I'm not sure if you read my previous post about what I feel the Kickstarter is failing at, but it really is a perception problem. Ignoring all the people who want to specifically shit on Inafune or Comcept, or those wishing that the project fails or whatever, just as an honest critique of what makes this come off poorly even for fans of the concept - it's too centered on the rigid way you want to present it while feeling like a raw deal to people who want to support it.
Transparency is good, but if you're presenting something honestly which is going to be perceived as a poor value for the target audience, then unfortunately crowdsourcing is probably the wrong place to go for that. The solution is to either try harder to make a commercial deal instead, or to rethink the project scope so it can be presented in a way fans would actually feel good about supporting.
No one likes backing a project which upfront tells fans that they're not getting a complete product even at the base goal.
Transparency is good, but if you're presenting something honestly which is going to be perceived as a poor value for the target audience, then unfortunately crowdsourcing is probably the wrong place to go for that. The solution is to either try harder to make a commercial deal instead, or to rethink the project scope so it can be presented in a way fans would actually feel good about supporting.
No one likes backing a project which upfront tells fans that they're not getting a complete product even at the base goal.
BudokaiMR2
Member
I am not even sure what you want at this point. Are we just arguing semantics at this point?
I am seriously curious about this. Any instance of prologue or anything related could have been deleted in the text and it would just be seen as a "small, full fledged game."
I can understand why people would rather have the main game. However, it just wasn't a fit for Kickstarter so the idea was to take this isolated KalKanon story and use it as the starting point for Red Ash.
Silvawuff
Member
Hiya, I appreciate you coming forward and sharing your thoughts. I think a lot of different reasons are working in concert that are poisoning this project's KS. Transparency has little to do with it. When people say they "want a working prototype," they're saying "We want to see what we're actually purchasing." Even a mock up of an in-game concept is good. MN9 did this, and IIRC they also had a pre-rendered working video concept up later in the KS.
I think a publisher is only as good at their last project, which is why I frequently see people say "Hey, let's see how MN9 comes out." That is pretty much the only thing the public will have to go on regarding the finished quality of games we can expect from Comcept, which I think is fair.
Another big reason is, well, poor timing! There were several other high-profile franchise reboots on the table when this launched. Also add to the fact that this KS is competing with itself with an anime project, and the whole thing feels very hamfisted from a business perspective. It's making people nervous, and rightfully so.
As for calling Inafune greedy: I think this has to do more with the perception of value. People are used to backing projects for cheaper than his (realistic) asking price for a copy of the game. I think this whole situation is unfortunate. Fans want a continuation of the MML legacy -- spiritual or otherwise -- and fans were already heartbroken at Capcom's handling of MML3. This KS is essentially just another kick in the teeth while the fans are down.
If Inafune really wants to pitch a project like this, he really needs to kill it with a presentation of facts, smart timing, and respect of craft, instead of relying on the fans' nostalgia to back him with little to show for his work outside of a few conceptual sketches and a promise.
I think a publisher is only as good at their last project, which is why I frequently see people say "Hey, let's see how MN9 comes out." That is pretty much the only thing the public will have to go on regarding the finished quality of games we can expect from Comcept, which I think is fair.
Another big reason is, well, poor timing! There were several other high-profile franchise reboots on the table when this launched. Also add to the fact that this KS is competing with itself with an anime project, and the whole thing feels very hamfisted from a business perspective. It's making people nervous, and rightfully so.
As for calling Inafune greedy: I think this has to do more with the perception of value. People are used to backing projects for cheaper than his (realistic) asking price for a copy of the game. I think this whole situation is unfortunate. Fans want a continuation of the MML legacy -- spiritual or otherwise -- and fans were already heartbroken at Capcom's handling of MML3. This KS is essentially just another kick in the teeth while the fans are down.
If Inafune really wants to pitch a project like this, he really needs to kill it with a presentation of facts, smart timing, and respect of craft, instead of relying on the fans' nostalgia to back him with little to show for his work outside of a few conceptual sketches and a promise.
Stone Ocean
Member
"Prologue" implies the story is basically just a hook into the main game. It implies stuff like cliffhangers, "Ground Zeroes", "to be continued" "prequel" and etc. It's not just semantics, it's the tone the word brings to a project.
If that's not what the KalKanon Incident is supposed to be then yes, you guys should not have called it a prologue or talked about the main game.
BudokaiMR2
Member
Yeah, I did see your post. There were several issues that are unavoidable with the project, and regarding the prologue issue I honestly guess I just put too much faith in people to try and see the good in the project. We didn't want to mislead anyone, so we came out and said what we could realistically create with a KS sized budget.
The sad thing is that we honestly could have avoided some of this by just glossing over some of this stuff. And of course we knew that during the planning stages, but the team decided to take the risk and be as transparent as possible.
BudokaiMR2
Member
We tried to clear this up in the first update, but KalKanon was always designed as its own isolated incident. That said, it still will hook into the main game in a lot of ways so that is why it was called a prologue.
Just to be clear, I have no problem with people not wanting to back because its a prologue. That's the beauty of Kickstarter! It's up to each person to decide whether they want to back. It is very possible that a game of this scope is just not a good fit for Kickstarter.
However, I also think it is unfair to call it a shitty campaign just because we are being honest. Sure, maybe it isn't what a lot of players would want in a perfect world but we presented what we wanted to (and could realistically) create as best as we could with the resources we had.
Could we ask why you guys wasted your time on a poll for a console? The game cames out in 2017 which is going to be after Nintendo release the nx. So releasing it on wiiu then would of been silly. And japanese games traditionally don't sell well on xbox. Also the fact of the ps4 out selling xbox 2 to 1. It was kinda obvious ps4 would win. Even if you did it to not piss a publisher off, you still have to sell the game to non backers after release and the audience and market would be with the ps4. So if everyone made a joke vote for wiiu, you would be screwed cause you would need to release it on a dead console.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
A lot of this gets to the core with the problem of such larger scale Kickstarters. Kickstarter/"a collective mass of the publics money with no liability" is not a slot in replacement for the publisher model.
"Not even most publishers demand a prototype." Right, but publishers have contracts and 'power' with which to come down hard on any backend frippery if the project doesnt measure up in the long run. Asking the general public to fund things on blind faith perhaps works the first time, but when they are given a front row seats to the shit that went on with Mighty No 9, your second go around needs to be a lot more watertight. Indeed, Comcept is "established" now, and has money coming in from multiple avenues. Kickstarter, not Kicksustain.
"Honestly, the backlash against the prologue idea makes me question whether full transparency really does have a place on Kickstarter." People want a good deal on Kickstarter. Thats why rewards exist, it isnt a donation only drive, it is for better or worse, a pre-order initiative that gives you money upfront. The whole prologue thing is telling early supporters they're not getting a good deal. The 'New Order' stuff should be the lofty plans for a Red Ash 2 that may or may not ever happen kept in your back pockets while the intent is to make 'Red Ash 1' as full experience as possible and not some cliffhanger bullshit.
What exactly happens to $79 backers if New Order never gets picked up/doesn't happen by the way? Thats where extending a Kickstarters reach so far beyond its initial purpose gets weird. Maybe you guys already have publisher backing or funding for "Red Ash 2", but then that makes this little run-around feel even worse for a backer.
This Kickstarter launched with a whole bunch of nothing. Truly rough looking animatics, not even a solid named console to support for a stretch goal, and not a scrap of prototype. It was a "name only" Kickstarter, and the problem with trading on names is they have to still carry loyalty and the good feels. Spending several weeks continuing to drag all that through the mud is not a good way to do that.
Stone Ocean
Member
The problem is not the honesty, it's the way you guys went about it. Just looking at the first update:
It was probably not what you guys intendend, but phrasing like this just gives a "next time on Dragonball Z!" type of feeling. It doesn't inspire confidence in the base project by making it sound gimped and incomplete unless it hits the stretch goals. Again, if the KalKanon incident wasn't supposed to be that then that's the perception your wording gave it. For example, why are the extra episodes numbered? Why aren't they called for example, "Extra episode 1 and 2" if they are just extra stuff? Instead they are called 4 and 5 as if the base goal only gets like a quarter of the overall vision of the game.