I wholly agree. I’ll buy Bloodstained when it releases.
Ew. Just say no to backer-exclusive content priced at a fortune.
Also always annoyed when big names in the industry resort to Kickstarter… get a bank loan or regular funding, man!
Backer achievements are cute, but I can see this becoming yet another gamer OCD cash-grab.
I guess I feel negative about this, lol.
Publishers have said they want to judge market enthusiasm based on how people vote with their dollars. It’s a legitimate need. Maybe there is a better way to do it than Kickstarter though.
I really object to the idea that people who have made a name for themselves shouldn’t use crowdfunding. It’s just one way to fund stuff. It has its plusses and minuses like any other method, and frankly, people (and companies) with a significant public profile are probably among the best equipped to take advantage of it. Kickstarter may not originally have been conceived as the one-size-fits-all crowdfunding platform and it’s possible someone may someday come along and put together a platform better suited to the big leagues crowdfunding efforts, but right now it’s the only one with any real name recognition or attention being paid to it. (Aside from maybe Patreon, which is a different approach altogether.)
(That said, um…Igarashi -is- getting regular funding, too. The Kickstarter is apparently more of a demonstration to said funding source that there’s demand. Which isn’t something I’m personally interested in putting money into, but whatever floats people’s boats, I guess.)
I support a developer I respect.
Also, there are a shit ton of assumptions going on in this article. You don’t pay a salary to the people making your Kickstarter rewards, you pay for their service. That’s entirely separate from the development cost.
Anyway, it doesn’t really matter.
I think the core point’s a good one, though: it’s pretty unrealistic to develop even a AA-quality game for, say, $400,000 these days. Sure, we might all “know” most of these devs are getting outside funding, or expect to string themselves along on an Early Access release or maybe shoot for a sort of Star Citizen-esque pre-launch DLC fortune, but I think all that sort of betrays the core tenet of the service: that we, the people, are financing the creation of something we want to see exist, [at least at the higher tiers] out of the goodness of our own hearts.
When devs are shady or hedge-y about the whole process, I find that discouraging and dishonest, personally, and frankly, it’s a little concerning. A reliable percentage of KS funds are gonna reach the dev (less fees, taxes, and the handful of dead cards they always hit). On the other hand, an angel investor or publisher could pull out unexpectedly (perhaps even for good reason!), Early Access might be a dead (or at least not enough of a hit to fund them), and of course, only one company seems to have achieved Star Citizen-level success, well, ever. If you can’t finish the game with what’s freely given by the KS backers, any one of a number of monkey wrenches could wreck the whole thing–moreso if your non-KS funding makes up 50, or 70, or 90% of your actual budget.
Sure, it’s a concern, but it’s not like they hid the fact they were seeking more funding.
As an aside, it seems that some peoples takeaway is that people have the wrong idea about how much games cost to make? Is this a really big issue that has an impact on modern life? I’m not referring to anyone here, just reading comments, etc, about this article.
“Come in here Richards. Sit down. I’ve heard some troubling news.”
“Wh-what’s that, sir?”
“People are talking. I heard you don’t know how much it costs to make a game.”
“SIR! That’s preposterous!”
“Prove it. How much does it cost to make AAA games?”
“Like, 45 thousand dollars?”
“You make me sick. Pack your shit and get out. You’ll never work in this town again.”
It matters to developers who get a lot of static from potential backers who have unrealistic expectations.
I’m not sure what you can do about that though. It’s too hard to educate consumers. Describing the problem is nice but I don’t see a lot changing.
I’m honestly surprised anyone can get funding. There are so many freaking games out there. The market has been flooded. When she described the game they were trying to fund, I almost laughed.
Anyway, I guess this is a discussion for another thread. Igavania!
More that it’s a little misleading when a dev isn’t upfront about that stuff, and it does prey on consumer ignorance. Igavania’s probably not the best example (he’s pretty clear that he’s got other backers lined up if the KS succeeds), but in a general sense? It’s something some Kickstarters have done, consciously or not.
Specifically, I think there are some people (a number between 1 and all) who wouldn’t fund a game if they realized that their contribution would only produce a result if a lot of other funders they had no control over came through. It’s already risky enough with the infamously unsteady dev cycle of most games (huge delays, total project rewrites, developers quitting or even dying on the job, etc.). The KS mechanism itself sort of secures against that feeling of throwing your money away on something incompletable: it doesn’t fund unless it reaches the desired critical mass. By setting an artificially low goal (that’s perceived as more achievable), then making successful development contingent upon outside funding, you’re short-circuiting that safety mechanism entirely.
Like, it’s not an epic injustice on the scale of the Holocaust or anything, but it’s something worthwhile to educate consumers on.
On a note specifically pertaining to Bloodstained, both Koji Igarashi and Inti Creates are used to creating games on Kickstarter-level budgets, with small teams, and with short dev cycles. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up with more funding than IGA’s used to.
I don’t agree with everything that Polygon article puts forth - for example, I know that using AAA “napkin math” on the budgets of small indie developers is unfair, but I do agree that most of these high profile Kickstarter budgets are an utter fantasy. Whether that’s from developer ignorance or a cynical attempt to not scare pledgers away is still an issue.
First, and foremost, in the case of this game, if you think that 500K is going to cover MANUFACTURING A DISC then I don’t really know what to say.
For Bloodstained, I imagine they set their goal to what the backers wanted to see in interest. If not, well, that sucks I guess. I understand that we aren’t talking directly about this KS at every point, but it’s the example they put forth.
Iiiiiit’s here:
Anyone playing it yet? I will admit that I was almost tempted until I checked out the steam page and saw that the game was modeled more after the NES-era Castlevanias than the SNES/PS1-era games (at least in terms of visuals), which I realize is super shallow of me.
Then again, the last time I played an actual game on Steam was August, so who am I even kidding?
This is just a tie in game I think.
Well now I’ve got egg on my face!
OMG, that voice over. And it’s totally not Castlevania III.
That aside, it looks pretty great, especially since it’s just a stretch goal.
Kind of unique seeing an 8-bit game as a stretch goal, right? I like the old Castlevanias well enough so I’m thinking I’ll give it a go.
ARISE!
Out today. Anyone playing? I’m tempted.
Waiting for reviews, some of the development turmoil and the lack of reviews makes me a bit leery. Also getting hints of performance issues from ResetEra posts. I’ll check out some footage and see if it grabs me a bit later, there was some concern the “day 1 patch” still hadn’t dropped a bit ago, before I went to lunch.
I’m waiting for my physical copy from the Kickstarter. I chose GoG, so I’m sure it’s just a case with a code in it.