Hey look, it’s another dead Kickstarter
Founders basically cop to asking for much less money than they knew they’d need to do the game, and so, unsurprisingly, when they only got that amount, they subsequently ran out of cash. They’re currently begging for someone to come in and pay them to finish it up.
Yaaaaaaaay
Galadin
3788
This kind of thing sucks, but at the end of the day, isn’t it up to the backer to make sure the item he is backing seems reasonable? I know it isn’t an investment platform with actual cash returns, but I would expect the backers need to do some legwork to make sure the projects seem reasonable. That doesn’t mean all reasonable projects will succeed, but at least can trim out the ones that aren’t even reasonable.
Now, of course most people have no clue about how much a game should cost to make, and I am starting to wonder if there might a beneficial service opening here. A way for an outside firm to examine Kickstarter projects and give a rating, so that you can utilize someone else’s experience to determine feasibility of a project for an area where you are lacking the same experience? Again, this is done all the time with investments, and Kickstarter is basically an investment platform regardless of how much they couch it in something else.
To be fair, I absolutely agree. Unless a game is trying to tack on a couple of “nice to have” features to an otherwise complete game (e.g., Divinity: Original Sin) or just get their stuff out to print (e.g., most boardgame Kickstarters), I’m super wary of any KS asking for a low dollar total unless they’ve got some fancy ass graphs and spreadsheets to prove their point.
I know that KS doesn’t want to get themselves deeper into the liability pit, but I think if anyone were in a position to do the kind of evaluation you talked about, Galadin, it’d be them–some things to check off during the approval process for a new project. Or, at the very least, a requirement that, say, all projects asking for more than X, or those wanting a special “Financially Validated!” tag, should have to go to one of these fine evaluators, etc.
Galadin
3790
The biggest issue I would have with Kickstarter doing any kind of validation is their financial stake. They don’t get money for protecting backers, or successful projects, they get money for projects that are successfully funded. Now, with a long term vision, they might realize that allowing too many projects to fund without a successful project should be part of their analysis, it is always hard to drive anything away from their financial drivers.
This is where an outside company, with some kind of subscription platform or such, could be better. Tie their financial gains to the outcome of projects they examine. If they say a project should be successful, they get some kind of better reward, if a project they said would fail succeeds, they get dinged financially somehow.
hepcat
3791
And my copy of Martin Wallace’s Moongha Invaders FINALLY arrived. It’s only over two years late.
As you point out, most people have no idea what’s feasible in terms of game budgeting. Additionally, many Kickstarters involve the developer asking for investor funding during the crowd funding campaign period. Finally, some low dollar Kickstarters have actually produced very good games. (FTL for example.) I think it’s kind of unreasonable to put it all back on the funders. Caveat emptor and all that, so people should stay away from obvious scams and hilariously amateur projects with zero hope of release, but in this case, the Kickstarter wasn’t completely nuts.
Galadin
3793
Yes, and that is why I am thinking there is some kind of gap here that needs to be fulfilled if it can be monetized. A typical backer can’t be expected to know all this, but in any other investment situation, this would be all expected. I am looking at backing a brewery, and I can guarantee I have a lot of information about financials, growth rates and such. Now, this is a true investment unlike a kickstarter backing, but I somehow think this needs to be percolated to the backers.
Looks like the game was already designed when they launched the Kickstarter. They had to get plastic figures produced but that shouldn’t take that long. Why was it delayed so long?
From the link above: “Dev knew Kickstarter funds weren’t enough to finish Midora”
According to Kickstarter: “Projects must be honest and clearly presented. Our community is built on trust and communication. Projects can’t mislead people or misrepresent facts, and creators should be candid about what they plan to accomplish.”
Why stand up for someone like that? The dev was clearly dishonest in starting the Kickstarter in the first place and committed fraud in the second.
I can understand a project becoming underfunded due to delays or unexpected shifts or poor planning/budgeting or feature creep. Shit happens and projects fail, that’s fine. I can also understand projects using for less money than the costs because they have extra financing secured or they are willing to self-fund/delay payments to key team members or substitute them with equity.
Asking for less money than necessary without a deal in place is hardly defensible, though. I don’t know the full story, but it seems this was the third KS for the project, with two previously unsuccessful ones before the final one. Most KS failures are projects that grow too much due to funding, but this doesn’t look like that case, and it just seems they knowingly went into production and crowdfunding without the money secured to finish. It’s weird.
Because EVERYONE does this.
They all think the low price will fuel popularity.
You see the same stuff on eBay.
Meanwhile, campaigns that fully disclose their funding situation and ask for realistic amounts struggle to meet their goal, because “there’s no way video games cost that much to make, you guys are just greedy!” The Skullgirls DLC campaign is always a good example here; there, people complained about how much a single fighting game character supposedly costs to make, even after reps from fighting game publishers confirmed that Lab Zero were actually going to be doing it for way less than usual.
I wonder how much people would rage if, say, Activision disclosed the overall costs of having Marshawn Lynch play a character in the new Call of Duty game’s single-player campaign.
mono
3799
My friend Malcolm just launched an important project that we should all mobilize behind!
Friday the 13th video game. Tom Savini, Sean S Cunningham, and Kane Hodder involved. Adam Sessler is also in the project.
Jason vs the counselors at Camp Crystal Lake. Asymmetrical multiplayer.
I guess I’m weird, but I’m tempted to throw a few bucks into this one just because I love all those guys (well, I don’t know who Sean Cunningham is, but he’s probably real swell) even though I really don’t think I have any interest in this as a game.
LMN8R
3802
I wish them all the best, but that pitch could not appeal to me less :-X
Sean S. Cunningham is the director of the original Friday the 13th, as well as being the producer on a few of the sequels. In the Friday the 13th fandom, he’s a huge promoter of the franchise.
Ha, I’m an idiot! That’s awesome they got the original director on board.
hepcat
3805
Whoops, sorry…didn’t see this.
I think the game was initially being repped by a third party, but they screwed things up pretty badly. Then Martin stepped in with the hope he’d save it. But it sounds like a series of production issues just kept hitting them. From what I’ve read, he’s shutting down Treefrog games and is going to just concentrate on making games for other publishers. I’m guessing he was having trouble running a game company from New Zealand.
We played it last Friday night. It was pretty fun. It’s light-hearted monster smash 'em up, but with some decent decision making involved. It also comes with a set of two player rules that essentially make it an entirely different game (the game board flips over to represent a town instead of the world).
Daniel Solis–a card game design savant who is admirably open with his process of making and producing card games–has a family card game called Kodamaup on Kickstarter. Looks pretty, and the gameplay is definitely unique.
