I pledged for Death Inc. on their own site after the Kickstarter failed, and I would of loved to have seen it.
I got a full refund (of my £10), I’d add.
JD
2808
I backed Zenzizenzic. It’s basically done by one guy who’s asking for 2000 bucks to finish it. Enjoyable stuff comparable to Geometry Wars with a neat soundtrack. There’s also a demo.
Aleck
2809
Not to defend McQuaid, whose ethics are still questionable, but remember that as an independent contractor, he’s responsible for all his benefits, insurance, etc. For a regular job, that’s somewhere between 33% and 45% of most jobs. So it’s more like he did the equivalent of steal $30K rather than $50K. Doesn’t that make you feel better?
No? Me neither (although I didn’t back the project either…)
Why would his individual benefits run $20k for three months? The Affordable Health Care Act? Thanks, Obama, for derailing Pantheon!
In relation to the concerns over Kickstarter, did anyone see this yet? A GDC talk about the ethics of running a Kickstarter?
‘Video: The complex ethics of funding a game via Kickstarter’:
I suspect most devs do want to do the right thing, for the right reasons, but that will not stop the scam artists exploiting the platform. I suppose the only good thing is once you make one scamish Kickstarter, it is very hard (impossible probably?) to make another?
Pod
2812
Why would you need to make another scam-ish kickstarter if you’re already rolling in millions ? :)
Nesrie
2813
It’s money without consequences. I would think a lot of companies would do that. They don’t have debtors like a loan would force them to have. They can pocket that cash or produce a poor product with few consequences. They don’t have to answer to investors. Others get offended if you call it actual begging, but it’s basically free money.
Few game kickstarters make millions (and that ‘golden age’ is now probably over for most projects), which is why i’m not personally jumping on the band-wagon of crowdfunding being mostly about scammers. As with any kind of ‘investment’ you do your due diligence and except there are risks involved. The great thing about crowdfunding is it allows many more people to take part, with lower levels of risk (less money per head) per user, and you get to democratically vote for the games YOU want, rather than the games the typical AAA game investors want.
‘Kaiju-a-Gogo’ - (ho Ho a bad 80’s uk pop band pun! maybe?)
An interesting looking project from the excellent Kerberos Productions team:
RPS has something on it here:
JD
2816
Woot! SuperHot finally is up at Kickstarter. I really enjoyed the prototype way back. It’s a really neat take on the FPS genre.
Kerberos’s track record with microbudget titles isn’t exactly hot. For that matter, their track record with SOTS II hasn’t been that great either. But they didn’t just up and abandon it the way they did Fort Zombie and the way I strongly suspect they would Kaiju-a-Gogo.
We are long overdue for a Mail Order Monsters, Crush Crumble & Chomp or Movie Monster remake. I’m just not sure this is the game after the Kickstarter video. Despite my enthusiasm for the potential, quite a few things are off. The video doesn’t show much game or play concept. The timing seems early and I don’t like the statement that getting onto Steam Early Access as a “successful” Kickstarter project for backers. Going to pass, and sad about it.
In a better alternate universe, Sparky and Lars would have launched They Came From Hollywood in sync with the Kickstarter craze and made zillions of dollars.
Fair point - campaign videos don’t leave a lot of room for detailed semantics, and depending on the where and when a game is in Early Access, it’s not always a big party. In the case of Ground Pounders (different team from Kaiju-A-GoGo), we entered Early Access a couple of months ago and will be leaving it in just a few weeks. Players were hands-on with the PC and Android versions from the start, and we just released the Mac and Linux builds a week and a bit back, with iOS wrapping as I type. In the time the game was in Early Access, the feedback and playtesting, on all the platforms, has been critical to the game. That kind of feedback and testing isn’t something a small dev team can manage on their own.
Kickstarter campaigns vary as to where they are in development and we are in the early days on Kaiju-A-GoGo - somewhere past tech demo, but not strong enough to show it and call it gameplay. So, we opted to go into features and art at the start, and we’ll be showing off the game as it is now mid-campaign. It’s a tough decision to make, we’ve learned - you show what you’ve got working, and some, like you, appreciate seeing something in action, while others judge your metaphorical book by that cover. Or, as in this case, we lead with concept art and features, and people get excited by the idea, but then those looking for a deeper look like yourself are wondering what it means that there’s nothing being shown. Basically, we’ll do our best to talk to people about the game (the FAQ has already begun forming, and we’ve been answer questions wherever we find them about the game) and pull back more and more of the curtains as the campaign progresses.
All of this may or may not make you less sad, but hopefully it clarifies things a bit, on things the campaign video didn’t/couldn’t get into. And hopefully you’ll keep an eye out for more info on the game as we update and see if things are more in line with what you’re hoping to see.
Kickstarter is a tough crowd these days, so good luck with Kaiju-A-GoGo (and is it an actual pun of the name of the british 80’s band Kajagoogoo?).
Hush hush…
No, but you’re not the first to mentioned them, so it does ring that bell for some people. When we first starting putting the design on paper, a long time back, the working title was just “Kaiju”, but over time as the style and tone came together, we wanted something lighter, more MST3K, so we added “a-gogo”. How very googie! And thanks for the luck - so far, it’s moving along nicely, getting lots of good questions, filling out details on the game for people, and talked a bit about the first expansions / potential stretch goal.
Great… now the song is stuck in my head…
For that i am truly sorry. The 80’s. Glad the KS is going good :)
The Universimkickstarter dev’s have gone crazy or something. Their latest update talks about $50 discounts on the high level tiers $1000 and up. O_o
The kickstarter seems stalled at just past the 2/3 mark of its goal. I really think their failure to generate interest in the tiers from $70-$250 is gonna be a factor in seeing if this game makes its goal.
I think it might actually fail. I am still backing for $10. :p
Stalled? they have an amazingly healthy curve: http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/crytivogames/the-universim/
I think they’ll make it, but yes, it’s going to be last minute…
In happier news, the Gangs of Deadville (Rebuild sequel) is out for backers. YISS!
