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This 'Kickstarter' trend seems slightly dangerous in the long run, no?

kami_sama said:
Kotaku just posted an article about Kickstarter:
http://kotaku.com/5894315/could-kickstarter-damage-studios-relationships-with-publishers

A bit speculative, but IMO a good read.
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If publishers really did turn away developers for the reason that they've gone to crowdfunding, it wouldn't be long before fans could start putting pressure, or at least, threatening organized protests or started tarring and feathering those that are revealed to have done so across the internet's forums and websites. Besides, unless they say or do something directly attacking them, I doubt any publisher could argue why it was a sound decision to pass up a good partner for their ability to deliver fans of theirs as well as fans of the new product being produced.

JWong said:
I thought the idea of Double Fine Adventures and Wasteland 2 is that is will be formulaic.
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The idea is that fans of practically now-vacant genres and gametypes from legendary creators and pioneers they trust are being asked if they want new entries and these new games don't necessarily have to be strictly kept in a stasis, in terms of vintage of design and interface. It's that the core design is of the old-fashioned variety. Obviously, there are loads of people who have no problem pledging money to something they want. Over twenty-five thousand of them for Wasteland 2, alone. And we're still 29 days away from the end, too.
 
XiaNaphryz said:
It shouldn't be that surprising actually. ;P
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Well, ah... yeah, you've got a point. :( Guess I'm just too optimistic!

MightyHedgehog said:
If publishers really did turn away developers for the reason that they've gone to crowdfunding, it wouldn't be long before fans could start putting pressure, or at least, threatening organized protests or started tarring and feathering those that are revealed to have done so across the internet's forums and websites. Besides, unless they say or do something directly attacking them, I doubt any publisher could argue why it was a sound decision to pass up a good partner for their ability to deliver fans of theirs as well as fans of the new product being produced.
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If publishers turned developers away because of their prior history with crowdsourcing I don't think the fans would need to retaliate to cause problems; they would probably cave under the loss of developers. I think it's easily something that would eventually come back to bite them in the arse.
 
MightyHedgehog said:
The idea is that fans of practically now-vacant genres and gametypes from legendary creators and pioneers they trust are being asked if they want new entries and these new games don't necessarily have to be strictly kept in a stasis, in terms of vintage of design and interface. It's that the core design is of the old-fashioned variety. Obviously, there are loads of people who have no problem pledging money to something they want. Over twenty-five thousand of them for Wasteland 2, alone. And we're still 29 days away from the end, too.
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This is precisely why I want to see this succeed, because there are certain people who have a very powerful influence on the overall feel of a game, that has nothing whatsoever to do with specific game mechanics, interface, graphics, input methods, etcetc

That stuff is secondary.

As an example, I'd love to have Jon Van Caneghem work on an rpg again - the whimsy in the early Might & Magic games and Heroes was wonderful.

I doubt that'd happen though - he most recently worked at NCSoft, co-founded Trion (Rift anyone?), and then left to work at EA managing the C&C franchise (???)

But it's not purely nostalgic longing for remakes of old games, I'm interested in funding any independant, small scale, or otherwise interesting game development, I don't care who is working on it

See: Starfarer

http://fractalsoftworks.com/
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
I understand this gut reaction (and you're not the only one who has had it) to larger studios using Kickstarter. Don't they have their own money?
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I "understand it" in the sense that I understand that it's a thought process people with a very limited understanding of how video games are funded would have, because people aware of how the industry works wouldn't ask this question. :P

Stumpokapow said:
Mobile Frame Zero Rapid Attack - Some sort of live action war-game using lego robots?
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These are friends of mine. Both of the principals have multiple published tabletop games, been visible in the field for eight years, multiple industry awards, extensive online presences, they run a gaming convention in Massachusetts, etc. It is indeed a miniature wargame that uses LEGO robots. I played it (or, rather, the previous iteration) one time, it was pretty fun.

Stumpokapow said:
Dwimmermount: Old School Fantasy RPG - Clear description of game, clear description of budget, writing seems to be done, author is running campaigns of the game over Google+, numerous public playtests, publisher seems legit
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This guy is like one step removed from people I know, decades of credits in tabletop RP books from major publishers, actually publishing this because people have been begging him to do so on his widely-read old-school-D&D blog.

tokkun said:
That seems like an awfully optimistic view. The world is full of examples of projects, both video game and otherwise, that significantly exceed their original budget. Project timelines must also be produced to sell a project to investors, and I don't feel particularly confident that the average Kickstarter funder has better means of assessing the feasibility of such timelines than the average publisher/investor.
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It's not a problem if the project winds up going over budget or over schedule, only if the original estimate is so wildly off-base that it makes the project impossible to complete without additional funding (or at least so wildly unprofitable that there's no way to move forward on it.)

Another friend of mine did a Kickstarter for a tabletop game that was largely designed, with the Kickstarter paying for layout, art, and physical production; she raised about 600% of her original request. After she was done, she discovered that her original option for t-shirts wasn't going to work out and each one was going to cost her twice what she thought. Oops! That cost her a few hundred dollars extra and cut into the revenue, sure, but she was already funded well over her bare minimum. Most projects are gonna work out like that -- they might go over to some degree, but not in a way that actually renders the entire project a waste.
 
I look forward to the backlashes you know are coming. People go apeshit on stuff they buy, wait until they start funding shit. All it will take is a design choice or a missed ship date. There will be reckonings.
 
Slayven said:
I look forward to the backlashes you know are coming. People go apeshit on stuff buy, wait until they start funding shit. All it will take is a design choice or a missed ship date. There will be reckonings.
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As I was asking jcm, why is this backlash going to start now for these projects when it hasn't really manifested for all the stuff people have already been funding on kickstarter for the past two years?
 
The only thing that makes me weary is that these Kickstarter projects are essentially people paying money for a product to be made, so that they can spend more money.

Everyone is, of course, entitled to spend their money however they see fit, and there are certainly projects that I would donate to, as well. That said, I think it's a dangerous signal we're sending publishers: "Shit! Not only are they willing to pay for it, they're willing to finance it! All we do is sit around and collect the money!"
 
Slayven said:
I look forward to the backlashes you know are coming. People go apeshit on stuff buy, wait until they start funding shit. All it will take is a design choice or a missed ship date. There will be reckonings.
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Better to have had hope and a game to play that you wouldn't have seen made otherwise. The odds of these bigger, better-crowdfunded releases being genuinely bad products seem low and since there's every reason to cater to the fans who funded it, the amount of things that players would wish for are probably more likely to happen in a release through this independent channel. That and all of the wonderful goodies and deluxe packaging at low prices, too.

The alternative is to wait at the trough like every other piggie, getting the stream of polished cinematic blah and still complain about the games and lose more money upfront to the typical full-priced commercial release. Then there's all of the DLC and other extended content release...something that lately has been hot for pre-completed DLC work already on disc/in-game and still being charged for.
 
charlequin said:
As I was asking jcm, why is this backlash going to start now for these projects when it hasn't really manifested for all the stuff people have already been funding on kickstarter for the past two years?
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Getting more popular and drawing more attention. It is only a matter of time before they draw some crazy element. Plus it is video games, you got people that think because a company makes a game they don't like the company owes them blood vengeance.


MightyHedgehog said:
Better to have had hope and a game to play that you wouldn't have seen made otherwise. The odds of these bigger, better-crowdfunded releases being genuinely bad products seem low and since there's every reason to cater to the fans who funded it, the amount of things that players would wish for are probably more likely to happen in a release through this independent channel. That and all of the wonderful goodies and deluxe packaging at low prices, too.

The alternative is to wait at the trough like every other piggie, getting the stream of polished cinematic blah and still complain about the games and lose more money upfront to the typical full-priced commercial release. Then there's all of the DLC and other extended content release...something that lately has been hot for pre-completed DLC work already on disc/in-game and still being charged for.
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I am saying it's not a bad idea, just that I can see how it can go wrong.
 
Slayven said:
Getting more popular and drawing more attention. It is only a matter of time before they draw some crazy element. Plus it is video games, you got people that think because a company makes a game they don't like the company owes them blood vengeance.
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So your argument is basically: Video game fans are crazy psychotic people with no grasp on reality?

If I fund a game and it comes out and it sucks, how exactly is that different than me pre-ordering a game on faith and it comes out and sucks?

Biggest difference on my end is one is $15, the other is $60

I suppose there's also the chance of funding something and having the funder run away with my money, but uh... a) I'm careful about what I'm funding in the first place and b) I give no fucks if I take a $15 hit
 
Perfect Cha0s said:
The only thing that makes me weary is that these Kickstarter projects are essentially people paying money for a product to be made, so that they can spend more money.

Everyone is, of course, entitled to spend their money however they see fit, and there are certainly projects that I would donate to, as well. That said, I think it's a dangerous signal we're sending publishers: "Shit! Not only are they willing to pay for it, they're willing to finance it! All we do is sit around and collect the money!"
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You are getting copy of the game with minimal pledge.
 
Perfect Cha0s said:
The only thing that makes me weary is that these Kickstarter projects are essentially people paying money for a product to be made, so that they can spend more money.

Everyone is, of course, entitled to spend their money however they see fit, and there are certainly projects that I would donate to, as well. That said, I think it's a dangerous signal we're sending publishers: "Shit! Not only are they willing to pay for it, they're willing to finance it! All we do is sit around and collect the money!"
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They also create the product and deliver it to people who want it. Just a minor point, perhaps.
 
Victrix said:
So your argument is basically: Video game fans are crazy psychotic people with no grasp on reality?

If I fund a game and it comes out and it sucks, how exactly is that different than me pre-ordering a game on faith and it comes out and sucks?

Biggest difference on my end is one is $15, the other is $60

I suppose there's also the chance of funding something and having the funder run away with my money, but uh... a) I'm careful about what I'm funding in the first place and b) I give no fucks if I take a $15 hit
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No, I am saying some video game fans can be psychotic. But hey it's just my opinion. May all Kickstarters be successful or whatevs.
 
Perfect Cha0s said:
The only thing that makes me weary is that these Kickstarter projects are essentially people paying money for a product to be made, so that they can spend more money.
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Discover -> Games -> Video Games -> Popular This Week

Wasteland 2 - $15 includes game
FTL - $10 includes games
Hardcore Tactical Shooter - $15 includes game
Auditorium 2 - $15 includes game
Idle Thumbs - Not a game
High Score 3rd Edition - Not a game, $30 includes book
Bacillus - $10 includes game
Spike (animated bob ross holy shit!!!) - $4 includes game
Americana Dawn - Freeware
Feeble's Fable - $12 includes game
The Ant Experiment - $10 includes game
4See - This is some weird edutainment MMO, but $20 includes game and year subscription
Aura Tactics - $5 includes game
Mecha Galaxy - $5 includes beta, can't tell if this is free or not
Jib Life - Can't understand rewards, somewhere between $5 and $25 includes game
College-Ruled Universe - $3 includes game
Prof Cat's Mazing Machine - $1 includes game
Loc - $25 includes game
Heroes of (really?) Forevia - $5 for beta, $10 for full game
Tempus Chronicle - Seems to be Freemium?
Guncraft - $15 includes game

So I'm fairly certain people investing in video games are ... getting the video games :p
 
JWong said:
I thought the idea of Double Fine Adventures and Wasteland 2 is that is will be formulaic. Nothing wrong with it, but it seems like a contradiction in your statement. The investors want their old games back as I understand it.

And there are a few cases where the big names will invest in something creative and insane. Like Sony investing in ThatGameCompany and Quantic Dream.

Well, okay, maybe Sony is the only one insane enough to do it.
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Most videogames are by definition "formulaic". People continue buying EA Sports and Call of Duty games in their droves precisely because they want that formula. There have been very few games in the point and click adventure genre and oldskool WRPGs of the kind typified by Fallout etc in recent years. There's a huge amount that can be done with these games as they've been left domant for so long - the good parts can be retained (e.g. detailed combat with large parties of characters that isn't possible with first person or real time systems) and less good bits can be replaced with new ideas and experimentation. Just because a game fits into an existing genre doesn't mean it can't be progressive and original. In this case it's clear already WL2 won't have the same combat system as the original, and will be some kind of hybrid with the style seen in Fallout. That's not buying the same game again.

As for Quantic Dream - none of their games have really been very good, and they're all quixotic attempts at interactive storytelling primarily and videogames secondarily. I have a degree of sympathy with what they are trying to do but I'd actually argue their works are deeply conservative and steeped in the likes of Laserdisc games and '90s "interactive movies". You are probably right thoguh that Kickstarter isn't a great way to fund completely out there/unproven ideas, especially from new developers.

A big name company investing in a game heavily based around purely visual storytelling (see also LA Noire for another shitty game that was generally well received becasue it was LIKE A FILM LOL) is nowhere near the same risk as investing in a game that is heavily text based. See the other WL2 thread for people throwing their toys out of the pram as soon as it dawned on them that a comparitively low budget game that is specifically created to do new things with a dormant genre might not have every single word on the screen read aloud to them by the same four bored voice actors like every other big budget game out there. And that's from people who actively sought out such an obscure project. Imagine selling that "hardship" to the mainstream.
 
Slayven said:
Getting more popular and drawing more attention. It is only a matter of time before they draw some crazy element.
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I honestly don't know where to start with this. I feel like this kind of paranoia would make it difficult to participate in normal activities.
 
I hope it will democratize which games are created so that we don't have to wait say, 10 years for a fallout sequel that everyone wants.

Ending super long copyrights would be the next step
 
Stumpokapow said:
So I'm fairly certain people investing in video games are ... getting the video games :p
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That actually makes me think of a point I hadn't considered before.

The publishers are obviously getting funded enough to make said game, however, everybody that's backing them is already getting a copy of the game from the money they backed. It'll be interesting to see if these games make a profit, i.e. people who didn't back them end up purchasing them in the long run.
 
So far, every negative Kickstarter post I've seen on GAF is from people who fundamentally misunderstand how the website operates or people who know almost nothing about modern videogame publishing and financing. Here's our own JWong in another thread:

Indie devs need to learn how to manage money.

Because if they do, they would realize that kickstarter is not a viable financial solution.
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These developers do not have ANY money to manage. The game would not exist if it wasn't for outside money, be it from crowdsourcing or a separate publisher. ..unless the dev team gets a second job, I guess.
 
SovanJedi said:
If publishers turned developers away because of their prior history with crowdsourcing I don't think the fans would need to retaliate to cause problems; they would probably cave under the loss of developers. I think it's easily something that would eventually come back to bite them in the arse.
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That's true, it's just a dumb idea when the whole industry is so closely-tied together. Still, I like the idea of the consumer being able to represent their wishes for things that the industry deems not profitable or not profitable enough...because it means that there's likely an opportunity for someone to prove the preconceptions wrong.
 
MightyHedgehog said:
That's true, it's just a dumb idea when the whole industry is so closely-tied together. Still, I like the idea of the consumer being able to represent their wishes for things that the industry deems not profitable or not profitable enough...because it means that there's likely an opportunity for someone to prove the preconceptions wrong.
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This is my take too. Kick-starting game from much-loved developers is like having a "donate" button on their site. Only in this case, we get an idea of what our money would do, and maybe have some input in the process. We might find out a Dev's wild idea, that would never fly in the normal publishing system, could actually find an audience.

People worrying about abuse or things running wild aren't completely wrong. The game publishing business also runs wild with bad decisions and bad ideas. I say let's see where this takes us.
 
I'm surprised how many just attack publishers as idiots so openly. I thought the way that Doublefine handled it was tasteful, "If I pitched an adventure game they would laugh at my face", but some of the other ones are just painful. The Wasteland one just mocks publishers having a kid play the part, and others don't really help either.
I'm sure someone like Tim won't have a problem selling a game to a publisher that makes sense, but does that open mocking from someone like inXile make it more difficult for them in the future? Does association on the staff sour their opportunities moving forward?
You never want to burn bridges in games because it is a very small industry and you never know who your boss will be in the future.
 
Someone update the thread title. "This 'Kickstarter' trend seems slightly dangerous in the long run, no? (No, not really.)"
 
Incendiary said:
That actually makes me think of a point I hadn't considered before.

The publishers are obviously getting funded enough to make said game, however, everybody that's backing them is already getting a copy of the game from the money they backed. It'll be interesting to see if these games make a profit, i.e. people who didn't back them end up purchasing them in the long run.
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There are more people who doesn't use kickstarter (or even know what it is), than those who use.
Right now Hardcore tactical shooter has 1500 backers and 56k pledge. Let's assume they have their 200k pledge (with 6000 backers just by multiplying numbers). I'm sure in the end there would be more people willing to try released product.
 
element said:
I'm surprised how many just attack publishers as idiots so openly.
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You can find hundreds of rock songs where bands make fun of record labels, A&R guys, touring managers, etc. too, I don't really find this particularly unusual. :P

Honestly, I would be concerned about working with a billion-dollar company engaged in funding creative ventures where the representative we met with to discuss a project was offended because I had made fun of publishers in general in a video a few years earlier.
 
Does Kickstarter explain why they allow projects to go over their funding goal? That is the only part that seems sort of dubious to me, if a project requires 'x' amount of money to be successful why do they continue taking money after that goal has been reached without explanation of what that money is for. Kickstarter is taking a percentage of all money raised from the projects so I can see why its in their interests but it does seem odd to me.
 
element said:
I'm surprised how many just attack publishers as idiots so openly. I thought the way that Doublefine handled it was tasteful, "If I pitched an adventure game they would laugh at my face", but some of the other ones are just painful. The Wasteland one just mocks publishers having a kid play the part, and others don't really help either.
I'm sure someone like Tim won't have a problem selling a game to a publisher that makes sense, but does that open mocking from someone like inXile make it more difficult for them in the future? Does association on the staff sour their opportunities moving forward?
You never want to burn bridges in games because it is a very small industry and you never know who your boss will be in the future.
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may be Fargo decided it's enough for him, so his studio goes indie or bust. I doubt he has no money to retire.

Tim ridiculed publishers too in one of his videos (not related to Kickstarter though). Some beast from Sesame's street was acting as a publisher.
 
Haunted said:
Hot damn, those updates are actually hilarious.
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I just noticed he got another $10k pledge. :0 It's almost 2% funded now!

MightyHedgehog said:
That's true, it's just a dumb idea when the whole industry is so closely-tied together. Still, I like the idea of the consumer being able to represent their wishes for things that the industry deems not profitable or not profitable enough...because it means that there's likely an opportunity for someone to prove the preconceptions wrong.
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Absolutely! And that's the beauty of Kickstarter for game devs - publishers are always looking to reach the largest audience with their projects and there is nothing wrong with that at all (they evolved into that line of thinking over years of scrutiny), but they will leave people with niche desires like you Wasteland fans unfulfilled, and even when they attempt to address those audiences it's with audience-expanding caveats like extensive cutscenes or genre changes. This is a chance for people to make exactly what they want to make, exactly for the fans who have been asking for that. If I want a point-and-click 2D adventure game set in an offbeat world of beautiful handpainted backdrops, but with kooky humour and cheesy tributes to underlying principles of modern American culture, all wrapped up in a game package bursting with genius, satisfactory puzzles, then by god I'm going to pay for it. And I did.

As for it being a dumb idea, well... People can hold grudges over the most ridiculous shit, even to the point of ruining other people's careers over some dumb comment or other. Sometimes it's downright pathetic how many people can get hurt feelings over the most trivial of shit, it's almost playschool level. Honestly, I think Microsoft would welcome the idea of Obsidian branching out to crowdsource a smaller project of theirs on the side, if only because the extra income takes the pressure off of Microsoft to be punctual with the paychecks for their contracted project.

Does Kickstarter explain why they allow projects to go over their funding goal? That is the only part that seems sort of dubious to me, if a project requires 'x' amount of money to be successful why do they continue taking money after that goal has been reached without explanation of what that money is for. Kickstarter is taking a percentage of all money raised from the projects so I can see why its in their interests but it does seem odd to me.
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Most projects do tend to outline what the extra money will go to - Double Fine for example mentioned that any over their goal amount would go to voice acting and ports to different platforms. If a project has no outlines for where the extra budget will go, people will rightfully be suspicious and not so eager to fund it. Of course there is likely to be no limit on people just pledging the base amount in order to get the product in question, cos that's just sales, really.
 
Thank you Stumpokapow, and everyone else for the insightful post(s).

I didn't want to come off as someone proclaiming "DOOM AND GLOOM". Again, what I meant by the op, is that some will abuse the system, which will oversaturate it, and if projects fail, then it will lower 'trust' from gamers. Which will be bad for future titles that could actually be good.

But, some great posts were made. I still have my concerns about it, but I am more optimistic now.
 
snaffles said:
Does Kickstarter explain why they allow projects to go over their funding goal? That is the only part that seems sort of dubious to me, if a project requires 'x' amount of money to be successful why do they continue taking money after that goal has been reached without explanation of what that money is for. Kickstarter is taking a percentage of all money raised from the projects so I can see why its in their interests but it does seem odd to me.
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Why wouldn't they? The additional people who back past the target want the rewards, the creators want the additional help, Kickstarter wants the additional cut. What interested party would NOT want this to be possible? All three of those involved parties know exactly what they're getting out of it, because the rewards are all clearly stated on the page. It's not an investment that demands financial return, so there is no additional risk involved with there being more backers.
 
element said:
I'm surprised how many just attack publishers as idiots so openly. I thought the way that Doublefine handled it was tasteful, "If I pitched an adventure game they would laugh at my face", but some of the other ones are just painful. The Wasteland one just mocks publishers having a kid play the part, and others don't really help either.

I'm sure someone like Tim won't have a problem selling a game to a publisher that makes sense, but does that open mocking from someone like inXile make it more difficult for them in the future? Does association on the staff sour their opportunities moving forward?
You never want to burn bridges in games because it is a very small industry and you never know who your boss will be in the future.
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I actually agree with this, but there could be any number of reasons for him doing that - I kind of get the feeling he was sick of the industry and considering bailing out anyway. Whether that makes it cool for him to potentially torch relationships for the people working at his company...

To some degree it could just be catharsis - he can finally say 'FUCK YOU, PEOPLE DO WANT THIS', because he has to be feeling a certain amount of that. No publisher will fund the game for years - whether because of inxiles track record or any other reason, and then several thousand people come out of the woodwork and throw money at the project.

Tim's story is identical, he just handled the situation differently.
 
snaffles said:
Does Kickstarter explain why they allow projects to go over their funding goal?
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Three reasons:

  • Encourages project runners to set a reasonable minimum goal to help them get funded at all. This helps people choose a number (just pick the lowest you can actually use to do the project) and avoids gamesmanship; if there are tiers of "better job" you can do, just commit to them as the funding reaches different levels above the minimum.
  • Encourages people to participate by funding to get the rewards offered; otherwise it'd be a race to get your pledge in during the open window rather than letting anyone who wants to support a particular project do so.
  • Lets people profit off of having a particularly good, desirable offering, because part of the idea of the site really is as a capitalist, meritocratic marketplace-of-ideas and so the idea is people who make a good pitch of a desirable product should be able to reap the rewards of doing so.
 
epmode said:
These developers do not have ANY money to manage. The game would not exist if it wasn't for outside money, be it from crowdsourcing or a separate publisher. ..unless the dev team gets a second job, I guess.
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There's a huge difference between being given money to go nuts and having a publisher who interacts regularly to check progress, put development on track when it starts veering and doles out money once certain milestones are hit rather than upfront. Good publishers will make the project better and use less money. Scope blowout is the number 1 killer of software. For the project that are getting lots of money or many times their budget I'd worry a lot more about them figuring out how to effectively allocate it.
 
Chris Remo said:
Why wouldn't they? The additional people who back past the target want the rewards, the creators want the additional help, Kickstarter wants the additional cut. What interested party would NOT want this to be possible? All three of those involved parties know exactly what they're getting out of it, because the rewards are all clearly stated on the page. It's not an investment that demands of return, so there is no additional risk involved with there being more backers.
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I think really the only problem with vastly overfunding is when you have a project whose scope is ambiguous (like a game) and the additional money causes scope creep in the project. Double Fine actually is a pretty good example of this; they looked at this as a smaller project, and now it's probably got 6 months tacked on to the dev time as a result of the scope. I think it's important for projects to be transparent with moves like that, but I can't think of an example that hasn't been.

Also that's a pretty small fraction of Kickstarter projects. Most projects can expand their quality, materials, or equipment without expanding the temporal scope, or else they can just pocket the extra money (a good thing IMO!) So for the vast majority of cases, extreme overfunding doesn't have any kind of controversial impact.
 
Stumpokapow said:
Also that's a pretty small fraction of Kickstarter projects. Most projects can expand their quality, materials, or equipment without expanding the temporal scope, or else they can just pocket the extra money (a good thing IMO!)
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With the tabletop projects the people I know have been involved in, the discussions upfront have generally involved identifying some virtual second-tiers above the minimum upfront ("if we reach $5000 we'll add X Y Z!") so that the scope of extra work is well-understood before anyone starts, and then just agreeing that anything above those will get pocketed.

I think the way things have gone with DFA and Wasteland 2, there's evidence of at least some of this -- both projects had clear thresholds in mind for multiplatform support and/or localization, for example.
 
My problem with some of the Kickstarters is the vague goal they have in mind and nothing to show for it. No art, no Storyboard, no mockups of any sort. Take Serrellan for example, I wish the guy the best, but he has nothing to show for the game. Did he go to publishers with a video of him shooting guns and stating is credentials and what he wanted to do? If so no wonder they turned him down and his Kickstarter looks to fall well short of his goal. On top of that he doesn't even sound so sure if it will be first person or third person. Then he says he wants a tactical shooter but then goes on to say he never looked at the PS3 as a hardcore gaming platform and thought it was more for just cinematic games. HELLO! SOCOM!!! The best selling tactical shooter for Sony ever. Not to mention his comment sounds like the exact same comment from publishers, that Console players aren't into hardcore shooters.

Having said all that though Kickstarter represents a quasi free market and bad projects or ones that are poorly pitched will fail to get funded. I just hope this doesn't become a slippery slope where DLC is funded through Kickstarter or projects that already have the bankroll ask for more money to line thier pockets with.

The other thing I don't get is why are publishers putting 400-700 people onto one project? Isn't this the same problem the film industry went through? The film industry kept putting these massive budget films ($200 million+) that felt like sure bets, but at the same time relied on massive box office success to recoup. However, a few years ago the Film Industry realized that they can make modest budget films and recoup the cost in the opening weekend in the US alone. Why can't gaming publishers do the same thing? Journey was made by 12 people, Braid was made by what 2 people? Uncharted has a big budget but hardly the budget of other games and has a much smaller team than other studios. So instead of putting 700 people on Epic Mickey and creating a bloated budget, instead create smaller teams that can deveop smaller budget titles and recoup their costs with only a few hundred thousand sales. Then we wouldn't need Kickstarter as much and we could get more niche games.

Sorry that's a long read....but I am just frustrated that Kickstarter is even need when publishers have the resources and could accomplish all of this themselves.
 
Somnid said:
There's a huge difference between being given money to go nuts and having a publisher who interacts regularly to check progress, put development on track when it starts veering and doles out money once certain milestones are hit rather than upfront. Good publishers will make the project better and use less money. Scope blowout is the number 1 killer of software. For the project that are getting lots of money or many times their budget I'd worry a lot more about them figuring out how to effectively allocate it.
Click to expand...
Games funded by publishers or created by publisher-owned studios end up delayed or over-initial-budget or of poor quality so frequently that it seems like a self-evident property of this industry. Those things clearly can happen to independently-funded games as well, but to set up a made-up comparison like "being given money to go nuts" and this hypothetical perfect unabusive healthy dev/pub relationship you've set up is silly.

Games can be made well with a publisher, and they can be made poorly. It's meaningless to only make this argument using the posited "good publishers" because devs on Kickstarter aren't choosing with this Kickstarter to work with "good publisher" or "no publisher," they were choosing between "any publisher" and "no publisher."

Developers that raise considerably more than their target will simply budget accordingly. Or they won't, and they could be yet one more example of a poorly-managed project in a publisher-dominated industry that still somehow manages to be chock-full of poorly-managed projects. Regardless, they're only on the hook for what they've promised on the Kickstarter page, not for someone else's extrapolation of what that extra money would be good for.
 
Man-is-Obsolete said:
My problem with some of the Kickstarters is the vague goal they have in mind and nothing to show for it. No art, no Storyboard, no mockups of any sort. Take Serrellan for example, I wish the guy the best, but he has nothing to show for the game. Did he go to publishers with a video of him shooting guns and stating is credentials and what he wanted to do? If so no wonder they turned him down and his Kickstarter looks to fall well short of his goal. On top of that he doesn't even sound so sure if it will be first person or third person. Then he says he wants a tactical shooter but then goes on to say he never looked at the PS3 as a hardcore gaming platform and thought it was more for just cinematic games. HELLO! SOCOM!!! The best selling tactical shooter for Sony ever. Not to mention his comment sounds like the exact same comment from publishers, that Console players aren't into hardcore shooters.

Having said all that though Kickstarter represents a quasi free market and bad projects or ones that are poorly pitched will fail to get funded. I just hope this doesn't become a slippery slope where DLC is funded through Kickstarter or projects that already have the bankroll ask for more money to line thier pockets with..
Click to expand...

Well, as you sort of imply with your second paragraph, the sole example you've chosen as a Kickstarter with a poorly-defined goal is a project that is currently NOT on track to actually raise the money it asked for, so your concern seems oddly placed. It's definitely possible that game will surge in the last two weeks of its campaign, but Kickstarters almost always raise their biggest chunk of cash in the first few days, and even if the tactical game continues raising money at the same daily rate it has for the first half of the campaign (which is pretty much unheard of), it won't hit its target.
 
Man-is-Obsolete said:
Sorry that's a long read....but I am just frustrated that Kickstarter is even need when publishers have the resources and could accomplish all of this themselves.
Click to expand...

This is a vastly more complicated issue than 'having the resources'. Many (all?) of them are beholden to stockholders, and that means meeting quarterly projections, growing profits, and making blockbusters that sell enough to keep momentum going.

If a small side project breaks even or makes a small profit, it doesn't make enough of a blip to be worth the time invested from the publisher to oversee the project in the first place (project oversight, QA, marketing, distribution, etc)

Basically: They aren't structured to handle this process, they're structured to make really big games

The industry is diversifying itself thanks to digitial distribution, and we're seeing more games funded directly by fans, Kickstarter is simply another evolution in a process that has already been occuring for several years now.

Make no mistake though, they're paying lots of attention to the Minecrafts of the world, but consider that even if they wanted to, say, spin off a 'mini publisher' that funds digital distribution projects, gamers are fickle, and investing in the wrong ones could easily sink the company, whereas with the crowdsourcing model, the risk is distributed - each of us gets 'burned' to a small degree, which is different than the company going under.

The people who invest/donate/contribute/fund/however you want to look at it are naturally going to grow increasingly savvy when it comes to putting money down for projects that look shady.

Unless we see a situation where shitloads of crowdsourced games fail miserably or run off with the money, it's not going to stop, and that's a good thing.

And really, going by the history of indie games I've funded during alpha/pre-production, I'm completely comfortable with the model. So are many other people who have funded real, physical objects created by strangers online.

Distributed loans are already a Thing too, though I've not done the research into microloans and the like, I don't know how successful they have been.
 
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