DiscoJer
Member
I think he's critiquing the guy that said games don't need to be funded by Kickstarter to be made.
Wasteland 2 is probably the best example though - Brian Fargo tried to get it funded for years and years the traditional way.
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Penny Arcade Kickstarter
- Thread starter LiK
- Start date
I think he's critiquing the guy that said games don't need to be funded by Kickstarter to be made.
Wasteland 2 is probably the best example though - Brian Fargo tried to get it funded for years and years the traditional way.
No, it's a critique against the idea that all Schafer has to do is bug publishers enough and they'll fund a game in a small genre with little hope of making it's money back.
Especially when publishers have already been burned by gamers claiming they'll all buy a niche game, so they're like "Aw yeah, we found an audience!", then like 20% of those people actually buy the game when it comes out.
He's mocking mik.
HyperCubed4
Member
Really? Like what, specifically? That's an honest question, that sounds pretty depressing for a developer.
All I'm saying is that Tim Shafer, a man who has found funding for an entire independent studio's worth of employees for 12 years across seven shipped games and several more in development... funded with a different kind of arrangement, based on what's feasible for the project's size, nature, and scope, probably has the clout, gumption, and wherewithal to get funding for an adventure game without crowd sourcing it.
Chris says that's "pretty much impossible."
Roland Garros
Banned
dr3upmushroom
Banned
I'm not totally in agreement with mik here, but doesn't that describe every game that Double Fine has shipped?
The subtext here that these two guys arguing both do podcasts, one of which collected 100k from a KS project and is put out less regularly than the one that collected zero dollars.
Neither is really wrong, they just have very different perspectives on raising money, how far a dollar can go, and what the appropriate use of donations is.
Getting 400k involves making friends with an angel investor. Is that "pretty much impossible?" No. That happens all the time. But sure, it's a pain in the ass and an investment is different from a no-strings-attached donation. I don't have any problem with the DoubleFine project, but raising 400k is not pretty much impossible, it's just pretty much impossible to do so without giving up something you probably don't want to give up.
If you get a loan you have to pay back the loan. If you get investment you have to give the investor favorable terms. By comparison money from KS is essentially a gift.
I do agree that if DF basically wastes the money and delivers garbage or nothing at all there will be a huge backlash, but that's not the same as a deal where you get a 400k advance and have to pay that back from initial revenue then give the investor an ongoing split as well.
Neither is really wrong, they just have very different perspectives on raising money, how far a dollar can go, and what the appropriate use of donations is.
Getting 400k involves making friends with an angel investor. Is that "pretty much impossible?" No. That happens all the time. But sure, it's a pain in the ass and an investment is different from a no-strings-attached donation. I don't have any problem with the DoubleFine project, but raising 400k is not pretty much impossible, it's just pretty much impossible to do so without giving up something you probably don't want to give up.
If you get a loan you have to pay back the loan. If you get investment you have to give the investor favorable terms. By comparison money from KS is essentially a gift.
I do agree that if DF basically wastes the money and delivers garbage or nothing at all there will be a huge backlash, but that's not the same as a deal where you get a 400k advance and have to pay that back from initial revenue then give the investor an ongoing split as well.
Chris Remo
Member
There are reasons why none of those other games were adventure games, even though before founding Double Fine, Tim had made nothing but adventure games. Also, finding $400,000 from investors would have been very, very weird. Investors want to make money, and there's a real inherent limit to how much money you're likely to make back on a traditional adventure game especially with a budget that small. Pretty much every game that's a runaway success for independent studios with investors is a systems-driven game-as-service, usually multiplayer. And publishers don't even do deals that small, especially for independent developers who want to retain their own IP. It may not be super risky, but there's hardly any point because the publishers can't make any real money even in the best case. On the other hand, a larger-budget traditional adventure game is incredibly risky, because publishers have no evidence that they are successful on any kind of scale.
The reason Tim has been able to get funding isn't because he's just good at making money appear. All of those pitches had to be attractive to investors or publishers. There have been plenty of potentially awesome games Double Fine has prototyped internally and spent a LONG time trying to pitch with no success. I don't know why you think any game can get greenlit if you just hustle enough. Double Fine has ample evidence to suggest otherwise. It's not a foregone conclusion that for every potential project there is a company or group with both the desire and the means to fund it--and once you start adding in criteria like IP ownership, it gets even tougher. There are ultimately only a limited number of avenues you can go for traditional funding--especially if you want halfway-decent terms--and if none of them are appropriate, you have to use other means.
Chris Remo
Member
If that was the subtext, I wasn't aware of it; I'm not familiar with mik's podcast. However, looking at its website, unless I'm reading it wrong (which is possible), your statement about frequency is objectively false. Idle Thumbs has put out something like 19 or 20 total audio episodes and a whole bunch of video content in 2012, whereas the Lunchcast appears to have put out four episodes this year. If that's not the podcast you're talking about, apologies; I found it linked in his profile.
Edit: Just in case it's not clear, I never said you can't raise $400k from an angel investor. DF has done deals that are precisely what you've outlined in terms of taking an advance from an investor. But there's a difference between the ability to do that in general terms, and the ability to do it for any given project you could ever dream up, such as a traditional old-school graphic adventure game.
dr3upmushroom
Banned
Margalis probably meant Player One, which has been put out weekly for some years with only a few missed weeks. I'm not sure if the difference in podcast funding is what's influencing mik's opinion here, but he is pretty outspoken about his view of Kickstarter on P1, and the hosts have (semi-jokingly) brought up the fact that they've provided their show on a very regular basis for free where others have been Kickstarted and relatively dropped the ball.
Chris Remo
Member
Ah okay, my bad then. We put out the original run of Idle Thumbs for two years with (as far as I can recall) pretty much no missed weeks. We did the Kickstarter because we have more ambitious plans than just doing the podcast--not that we had a problem before with just doing the podcast, but we saw this as an opportunity to try some things we wouldn't have been able to try without some kind of funding. We also quite literally would have had no place to record the podcast now without the office the Kickstarter allowed us to rent. We're all in roommate situations that make it untenable. I would agree that our order of operations has been less than ideal, and we've admitted that on the cast, which is why we're starting the regular podcast back up this week even though we had originally not planned not to do that until other stuff was farther along. Live and learn on that one. If we've lost trust, we'll try and earn it back. I think once people start getting their backer rewards they'll be pretty happy with them.
dr3upmushroom
Banned
I feel kind of weird talking in their place, but I don't think they ever specifically called you guys out, they'll just make a teasing reference to Kickstarted or similarly funded gaming podcasts in general (Comedy Button, Rebel FM, etc.).
"We'd like piece of that action, too bad we suck too much to garner the donations." "We've been doing this for free for HOW long for free?!" "SOME podcasts don't need a few tens of thousands of dollars to provide entertainment to their fans!"
They're more clever than that, and nowhere near as bitter as those manufactured quotes might come off if you're not familiar with the show, but that's the gist of it, nothing hostile (from the other three hosts at least, as I mentioned earlier mik is outspoken about his lack of enthusiasm for the whole crowdfunding thing).
Chris Remo
Member
Oh yeah, I didn't take you to mean that they did. I was just acknowledging that I understand why some people have disagreed with how we've gone about things post-Kickstarter.
Anatoli Bacharach
Member
Hella page views, plus lots of additional revenue streams on the side.
edit: Also Robert Khoo is a next-level business machine trapped in the body of beautiful asian man.
Oh so that's why milk was making aggressively rude comments about non sequiturs on the last page. He's bitter as fuck.
Makes total sense now, thanks.
And all I'm saying is it is not impossible. I understand it's considerably more difficult. You could even add the prefix "hella-" before difficult if that's your predilection.
Maybe I am too optimistic about the state of the industry, or what can be accomplished by a person with the respect, cachet, and track record that Tim Schafer has. That's gotta be where my intense, white-hot bitterness comes from.
Ingueferroque
Banned
I didn't follow the argument exactly, but why would mik call Tim Schafer a liar just because he disagrees with him? AFAIK he isn't even talking to Tim Schafer or discussed this with him directly.
So... he is being rude to Schafer? What?
mik is just being an optimist, I'd have to agree with the statement that finding funding/backing for a left-field game genre/concept is not 'impossible'. That's a ridiculously strong and negative statement to make.
PS. If Schafer wanted he could find funding in a heartbeat, he chose Kickstarter for a reason, not because he didn't have any options but because he wanted to stay in control of the project. I'm sure Tim Schafer could make a quick phone call to Microsoft and they'd love to throw him a deal.
Schafer: "We could not have gone to a publisher and said we wanted to make a graphic adventure--at all. Maybe if we were only asking for $100,000 or something"
Mik: "I don't believe for a second that there's no way DF could have raised $400 grand on their own."
That is saying you think he is lying.
And now you're being pedantic, too. He's obviously saying no publisher would let them make the game they wanted.
Question: how many video games have you produced, and how did you finance them? Because I don't know you, and maybe you have a lot more knowledge about the industry than it seems. The idea of some random guy claiming he knows more about Double Fine's ability to raise funds than Tim Schafer seems pretty ridiculous.
Mackenzie 92
Member
Thought this was a joke, then saw it's a "yeah, but we'll still take your money." Anyway just confirms my dislike of Penny Arcade and Gabe and Tycho.
It's a shame that with all these BS kickstarters, there are gonna be some really good ones that really need funding that won't even get off the ground thanks to PA and others lessening the integrity of it.
I also expect that Android console to pull a Phantom.
I dunno, seems like greed is already killing Kickstarter, glad that we got Doublefine Adventure, Shadowrun, Wasteland 2, Grimdawn and The Banner Saga. I probably won't fund anything else unless it's a true indie dev in need.
It's a shame that with all these BS kickstarters, there are gonna be some really good ones that really need funding that won't even get off the ground thanks to PA and others lessening the integrity of it.
I also expect that Android console to pull a Phantom.
I dunno, seems like greed is already killing Kickstarter, glad that we got Doublefine Adventure, Shadowrun, Wasteland 2, Grimdawn and The Banner Saga. I probably won't fund anything else unless it's a true indie dev in need.
They reached their first $250,000 goal, but I have my doubts that they'll hit the second stretch goal ($325,000 and a 6 page AUTOMATA story... yup) and I think I'm certain that they won't hit $1,000,000 since its seems all of the slots for the high prizes are all filled.
So the likeliest scenario is that they ONLY remove the top banner ad. Which means we'll get the see the Penny Arcade Logo stretched out to fill that space OR they'll just pile it with their instore merch.
So the likeliest scenario is that they ONLY remove the top banner ad. Which means we'll get the see the Penny Arcade Logo stretched out to fill that space OR they'll just pile it with their instore merch.
GamerVoice
Banned
Lazy vs Crazy
Member
Good new is that with less ad space available, they get to charge more for it.
I'm pretty sure they'll end up surpassing 325k.
But 1mill isn't coming close to happening.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
it doesn't matter what you're selling, it matters how exposed you are.
bistromathics
facing a bright new dawn
Wow I want a kickstarter for Mike Phillips vs Chris Remo cage match. Most of the funds would be to hire Uwe Boll as the referee, of course.
GamerVoice
Banned
LOL xD
I take it back, I'm going to go donate to the Kickstarter right now.
NoirVisage
Banned
LOL xD
I take it back, I'm going to go donate to the Kickstarter right now.
i actually found that funny.. wow.
Roland Garros
Banned
There are tons of funny Penny Arcade comics. Don't make me post them.
Roland Garros
Banned
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.
PA has long since entered redundant repetition territory these days for their comics so they would have been wise to make the jump to stuff like Lookouts or Automata themselves full time ever since they became disenfranchised fathers who have produced their own videogames and readily promote their brand through Xbox Live avatars/items, or as characters entire in Tekken.
Their 'tackling the industry' strips these days give off the feel of someone pretending to give a shit about the console war, but then looking out the window of their international space station and knocking back intergalactic spice spirits from a goblet crafted of Venusian diamond. At times it feels like theyre only playing videogames so as to have strip stuff to write about, and its not like theyre drilling deep into these things like the young men they once were.
Gabes recent news post reaffirmed to me the absurdity of him being able to upon being kickfunded focus creative efforts on Lookouts/other stuff rather than a quarterly 5 page Zelda/Assasins Creed/etc affair. Not to devalue creating a MWF comic strip, and I guess the awful Trenches comic too, but if this dude was doing 9-5 days at the office 5 days a week, he couldnt be shitting out graphic novels every half a year anyway? Dudes want money for less work.
Their 'tackling the industry' strips these days give off the feel of someone pretending to give a shit about the console war, but then looking out the window of their international space station and knocking back intergalactic spice spirits from a goblet crafted of Venusian diamond. At times it feels like theyre only playing videogames so as to have strip stuff to write about, and its not like theyre drilling deep into these things like the young men they once were.
Gabes recent news post reaffirmed to me the absurdity of him being able to upon being kickfunded focus creative efforts on Lookouts/other stuff rather than a quarterly 5 page Zelda/Assasins Creed/etc affair. Not to devalue creating a MWF comic strip, and I guess the awful Trenches comic too, but if this dude was doing 9-5 days at the office 5 days a week, he couldnt be shitting out graphic novels every half a year anyway? Dudes want money for less work.
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
Uh, what? Maybe old PA isn't so great looking but current PA is some of the best cartooning in any medium.
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.
why must you exaggerate so, why. Gabe's good. He is capable of great now and then, especially when he experimented a lot more with how the strip was coloured. It can however often look routinely ugly and awful because of the exaggerated banana-paw look he uploaded into his brain meats. To suggest most of modern PA is "the best cartooning in any medium" however is to exhibit signs of severe brain poisoning.
Dude, stop reading my mind. But honestly, PA has been on a steady decline from being biting satire of the industry to now just going through the motions for months with the occassional "HA! that was funny" (the Halo/I gotta go to bed one comes to mind).
Honestly, they're blog post and strip seem to point to the idea that they rather play DnD all day or just doing what they're doing in the Kickstarter vid (literally just shooting the shit).
Regarding the Art on PA, I like the art now of days. At least its not the vectory done in Illustrator look that has become the go to art style for EVERY webcomic trying to copy PA's schtick. My main issue isn't really art or writing, but that they seem to be doing the strip just to maintain revenue and don't seem to have their heart in writing about videogames. Hence all the blogs about DnD and comics about tabletop games. The problem with that is, well, I don't think most folks think of tabletop games when they go to PA. People want a webcomic about videogames when they read PA, maybe some ridiculous situations too.
David H Wong
Banned
Well they're at 286K now, they hit 250 on Saturday. So unless I'm doing the math wrong, they'll hit 325 by Thursday or so. With 26 days left after that...
GamerVoice
Banned
If they reach a million and Defense Grid 2 doesn't, it will be a tragedy of unprecedented proportions.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
According to a januari or so post, they are also both on anti-depressants.
And let's completely real here: there are certainly things that are NOT possible with advertisers exercising power over you. Sarcasm, parody, criticism, it doesn't matter: if they say 'no', you can only play ball or become unemployed.
Yeh, they may reach it. I don't know. Or it might start to slowdown after a certain point. I still don't see them reaching $1 million.
