I think that that is probably part of the problem. It’s a pretty good piece of a game. I had more fun with it than I did with a lot of games that got a good reception. It looks like he doesn’t have the ability or resources or whatever to finish it, but I suppose it’s tougher to walk away from a good fragment than from a total mess.
Yea, don’t get me wrong, I wish he had the resources to do more. I agree with you I had a significant amount of fun in what was a largely unfinished product. Although, I know there are plenty of other folk who find the most fun of any 4x game in the eXplore and eXpand, and in my case the least amount of fun in the eXterminate. Unlike many 4x games (Stellaris ) I actually finished ATG, a couple of times.
I actually bought this to support Jon and haven’t even launched it yet.
Same here. Will do it again, given a chance.
same here.
Guys, its worth launching at least unless 4x games aren’t your thing.
To be honest, I planned on playing it after he’d had a chance to really polish it up - meaning, I was never going to refund it once I found out it was a under-cooked, but from what I’ve read it still has a ways to go yet. I’m not lacking for 4X games to play right now, so I’m content to keep waiting. I’ll dive in at some point, it’s still flagged in my backlog category.
I still find it strange that games inhabit this special space where people can take a bunch of money, under-perform, and just have it waved away.
I genuinely feel for the guy. I do. I’m sorry for his mental health issues. But where else in life does this happen? Where you give your attorney a retainer, he shows up six months late with a sloppily drafted will and trust for you, and keeps the money, saying he’s suffering from anxiety disorders. No one would find that acceptable.
Before you say, “That’s because legal documents are so important,” well, I frankly think it would be the same with anything. Hiring a carpenter to build a table, and he takes your cash and then six months late gives you something nailed together in a shitty, half-baked fashion and says, “Sorry, I’ve really been struggling.” You would empathize, but you’d also be like, “What the fuck dude, give me my money back.”
This is less about Jon Shafer, and more about this bizarre thing (to me) that I see with games, where there is a large subset of people who just seem to have some type of Stockholm Syndrome with game developers and publishers. It’s like they go out of their way to excuse behavior that in other areas of life would be frankly close to fraud. I see all of the failed and half-baked Kickstarters, etc. for board games, and it’s frankly all kind of bullshit.
I’m trying to be sensitive here, because I do understand mental health issues, and at the day, what’s done is done. And I am concerned about the health of an individual. But I also think that we tend to just wave off this type of behavior in ways that also enable the indie industry to sometimes just shovel bullshit onto people.
Nobody is forcing you to give away your money, so the risk is entirely with you. Do you want to support this person or not? There’s nobody else to blame than yourself if things go awry.
The problem isn’t not getting what you thought you’d get, the problem is people thinking Kickstarter is the same as pre-ordering something. It’s completely different, and the sooner people realize this the better.
I’ve struggled with depression. I’m currently going through the worst time of my life due to my problems in my marriage. When I see a person struggling, who seems to be genuinely trying his best, I try to find room in my heart for mercy for them. How much I relied upon them matters, too- which in this case just isn’t very much.
No it isn’t. I’ve been through this discussion a thousand times. The entire “Kickstarter is just a donation” thing is simply false. It’s literally false under Kickstarter’s own policies.
As have I. It’s not about mercy for them. I feel badly, and I empathize. But it’s also not just about the money you as an individual gave - it’s about the aggregate amounts of money that are being put out for these things. Are ponzi schemes okay if they only take $20 per person, but take in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the group?
I’m not saying this (or other situations) are intentional fraud, but you understand the logic. I’m wary of, “No one individual lost that much, so it’s okay.”
But do you seriosuly think it’s the same as pre-ordering something? Really?
Think about it the way Bioshock Infinite was presented and what ended up as the final product. Making games is hard and sometimes you’re unable to implement the vision you had. And you have to finish it sometime. And if you don’t think that then you’re just an entitled asshole.
Ponzi schemes are different in an important way- intent. They are crafted from bottom up to be a fraudulent, criminal enterprise. I do not put them in the same moral category as people who try their best and fail.
What’s the source on that assertion?
The game, and his blog posts about the game. No, I’m not going to go dig around for quotes and such, nor am I going to go into the code, go through lists of the bugs and missing elements, etc. I’m not proving an academic thesis. It’s obvious, and if you don’t find it obvious, I’m okay with that.
Yeah, that’s me too.
I prefer to take the more charitable view: we don’t rely on games in the way that we do estate planning documents or even tables, and these days the supply/demand situation so favors the consumer over the indie game dev, that we are able to be generous to people in trouble. Isn’t that a good thing?
(Especially given that there was a genuine effort (with genuine consequences), and no intent to defraud.)
Wait, did people not like BioShock Infinite? Man, I thought that was a great game and I’ve replayed it a few times over the years!
I suspect the difference here is Jon posts here and many of us have interacted with him, it puts a face to the name in a way that makes it hard to be super upset when it’s clear he tried and had some hurdles that were just unforeseen.
I don’t know if I’d be as forgiving of many other games/projects that I bought into early with the expectation I’d have a cool game at the end of my patience, though. After all, I suspect if you were to look at the Steam forums or on Reddit or other similar sites for discussions of this game, are people there cutting him slack, or is it really just a few of us here on Qt3? I don’t generally believe games “inhabit a special space” where people get away with taking money for broken products at all, so your original assertion may be faulty. Certainly, gamers feel like the most entitled group, and I would be hard pressed to find a community that typically gives developers a pass, at least in most corners of the 'net.
In principal, I agree with you @SlyFrog and you are correct about the Kickstarter terms.
In Jon’s specific case I believe he tried his best to deliver a quality game. I don’t know him, but he strikes me as a genuine guy. An ambitious guy. Out of the failed kickstarters I backed, I feel best about the effort Jon put in to try and deliver. I don’t think it is ‘OK’ to accept money and not deliver, so I realized Kickstarter is not something I want to throw more money at. I don’t have enough extra money to not care.
There are people who are frauds and I would like to hold them accountable, but I don’t think Jon is one of them.