Kickstarting and Screaming

So I poked my head back into the Unsung Story Kickstarter to see if they’d admitted defeat yet. Nope!

People maaaaaaaaaad. I fortunately am in a spot where I can laugh off $20 thrown down the well, but man. Nerds are not happy with this continued nonsense.

From the Torment: Tides of Numenera thread:

Specifically inXile have quietly dropped some of their funded stretch goals in the final game.

Well, they tried to do it quietly. They got caught.

Well I don’t know the details of that aspect, but yes I agreed, it is completely unacceptable to bait and switch your backers like that.

And it’s surprising that a company with crowd funding experience would do such a stupid thing. I feel that when you ask people to fund your project you have invited them inside your team to some extent, and now have an obligation to frank and full communication about aspects of the process that they would care about.

They must have know some of this was being cut a while ago, and to only talk about it now is unforgivable.

I continue to be amused by the emotion that gamers attach to the messy realities of software development that come from trusting software engineers.

Maybe crowd funders just need milestones for a proper publisher-developer relationship. Hey, there’s a goofy proposal for that!

I don’t know if that’s necessary (although maybe it is for something like fig where you can be an investor in the game). I guess software developers of projects that have basically not started have to make clear to anyone ‘pre-ordering’ the game through a crowd funding site; that they just have to trust them to find the best game they can with the starting concept and budget they have, and that no specific thing is guaranteed.

I assumed the problem for many of those angry about Torment is that they do not believe the developer acted in good faith. The bad messaging just serving to confirm this view.

In the past, gamers were more or less shielded from most of this process by a mixture of publisher interventionism (more or less killing entire projects wholesale before they ever saw the light of day–take that Darth Maul N64 game that recently resurfaced) and general lack of access (there wasn’t this creepy 24/7 access to every iota of the development process like we get nowadays). Think of all the times publishers probably saved us from Tim Schafer’s bullshit over the decades, for instance, before he unleashed himself on unsuspecting civilians.


Look man, I get it. Shit changes during the dev process, delays occur, whole companies go under. . . cept now, they’re not playing with EA’s money on a tightly controlled contract. It’s on the fans’ dime, with nothing but Kickstarter’s flimsy regulations to separate them from the rough touch of software dev reality.

Yeah if a developer promises a 100 features and drops it to 50 right before they release the game and I decide to pay for it… fine. If they do the same thing after they took everyone’s money, that’s different.

If a developer goes KS or FIG or indiegoggo or even EA route, they’re asking the gamers to be a part of the dirty, raw and sometimes unfiltered process. There’s a cost with that. If they’re not willing to pay it, don’t go that route.

But if they explicitly say that they’re not guaranteeing any particular feature, then there’s no problem, right?

I think there’s a difference between:

#GAME PITCH A
OH HOLY FUCK MOTHERFUCKERS WE GOT 400 GUNS, 600 ENEMIES, AND GODDAMN TITTIES FLYING AT YOU AT ALL TIMES HOLY SHIIIIIIT JUST DROP LIKE $4,000,000 ON THIS SHIT N IT’S GONNA BE FIRE WHAT DID ANYONE EVEN SAY ANYTHING ABOUT HOW THIS GAME’S GONNA JERK YOU OFF OMFGGGGGG (KS terms and conditions apply)

#GAME PITCH B
Okay guys, if everyone just pitches in real hard here at the end–and I know you guys have already given so much, and gosh, we’re just so thankful!!–then we can work together and produce the bestest daggum game there ever was, golly gee! Sure it might not all work out in the end, but with your $4,000,000, our final stretch goals (wow! 400 guns! 600 enemies! hot girls! I really think we could do it all!!) will finally be sight, and from there, it’s just a short trip to launch! Donate today!

and

#GAME PITCH C
[Appropriate greeting–vet with legal]. Before the fundraising drive’s conclusion, it is mathematically feasible to reach the final $4,000,000 UNGUARANTEED STRETCH GOAL of [400 guns, 600 enemies, erotic enjoyments]. While doing so is in no way a declaration of intent for service or completion of service on our part, it is an admirable goal which we have posted for you to read and be moved by potentially, while knowing it represents no sort of legally binding contract nor statement of work. Thank you for reading. --Management

insofar as one of them seems a lot more likely to get funded to me!

Where did they say that in their Kicstarter Campaign.

I see this

We’re putting every dollar raised into Torment’s development (and reward fulfillment), while holding true to the pillars we’ve described. Improvements go beyond what is easily explained in Stretch Goals, but here are some specific ways we’ll enhance the game.

I see this:

Our experience with crowd funding has been wonderfully positive for us at inXile and has opened our eyes to the power of a direct relationship with the gamers. We want to create RPGs in a fashion and style that helped to make the true classics. And along these lines we’ve abandoned the typical developer/publisher model and placed our future in the hands of RPG gamers. We’ve embraced the crowd in every aspect. YOU are our publisher…and you are the best publisher we’ve ever worked with!

I bolded where they bolded.

more “user hack” here":

This product is participating in Brian Fargo’s Kicking It Forward initiative, promising to pledge 5% of its post-release profit to other Kickstarter projects. We are proud to join the over 200 successfully funded Kickstarter projects whose founders share Brian’s vision of supporting the independent efforts of others.

and here is their entire risk statement:

Risks and challenges

As you all know, we’re not making widgets—video games are complex projects (not that all widgets are simple). Fortunately, we collectively have more than 80 years of experience in managing them. Given our great progress in developing Wasteland 2, our experience with the technology, and our approach to Torment’s design and production, we are confident in our ability to provide our backers with a quality game deserving of the Torment name.

Torment’s schedule has been designed to maximize both planning (preproduction) and polishing. This extended preproduction period controls costs and increases quality because we’ll have a very well-defined product before production begins. Our target release date of December 2014 allows us 14 months for production and finalization. (In comparison, Wasteland 2 had 12 months, and Mask of the Betrayer had nine.) Furthermore, various systems and tools developed for Wasteland 2 will be used or adapted for Torment, saving development time and budget.

With a longer schedule, you might wonder how we’ll be able to create Torment if it receives less funding than Wasteland 2 did. First, Torment’s story is being designed to be highly modular and scalable. This approach not only lets us increase game reactivity and replayability, but it also let us keep the game’s scope flexible. At our target funding, we’ll be able to deliver a complete and satisfying game and as funding increases above the target, Torment will continue to grow in depth and size. But, as resources allow – if Wasteland 2 is a commercial success, for example – we are ready to expand the modular story.

Also, inXile has established secondary revenue streams that will bolster Torment’s development budget. For example, last September, The Bard’s Tale was released on Android, winning many awards and selling hundreds of thousands of copies in just a few months. While this doesn’t provide enough money to create a game like Torment, it lets us invest in Wasteland 2 and Torment to improve their quality. Although Torment would not be possible without your support, we are self-funding a portion of the game as well. Just like you, we want Torment to be the best it can be.

I don’t think everyone knows that, guys. I really don’t.

Software engineers mean well, but you gotta keep an eye on them.

I think a lot of us do. I don’t actually take a lot of issues with developers that need to cut features and communicate that. I take serious issue with the idea that because it’s a stretch goal somehow that makes them less obligated to do their best to do or that it’s a throw away features they can just, well throw away.

The biggest issues here is clearly a lack of communication and not taking the stretch goals as serious as every other feature they sold.

This line is irritating, instead of making a dumb joke they should have explicitly said that they couldn’t guarantee any particular feature would be in scope, or make sense in the final game. I see no such disclaimer in the Kickstarter page.

That said, I think anyone backing these things is responsible for doing their own due diligence and learning enough about games/software development to realise this is a universal truth.

TB combat with a real-time layer on top, like Xcom. Doesn’t seem to be doing super-great but looks pretty good. Shame iOS can’t be supported in the campaign (but would be available at launch.

Frankly, the words “tactical RPG” and “inspired by the work of HP Lovecraft” are contradictory.

Every game ends with everyone dead or insane right? Like an even more unfair version of Darkest Dungeon.

Wow that looks really nice.

There is something about some of those screenshots that totally reminds me of Crack the Case, the board game.

Oh hey, we got an update from Jeremy Soule for his Northerner symphony Kickstarter.

[quote]
This update is long overdue, and for that, I apologize.

When I started this project back in early 2013, I had an idea in mind and a timeline in which to accomplish it, but as I began the work, it grew bigger and more complex. I realized that technology didn’t exist for some of the music I was writing, and that the project would take longer due to these limitations, and its increased length.

The symphony as it stands is more than 6 times the scale of what I initially envisioned, and simply put, that will take at least 6 times as long to complete. I have also had to take out time to create the necessary technology for the project.

I have not abandoned this, and the thought that my backers feel this way hurts. I have hurt you and I have let you down, but I will NOT fail you. The Northerner is still my priority, and my ventures in Roland are toward this end.

I am truly thankful for all of you who have stood with me through this extended project, and appreciate all the comments, whether support or criticism.

I have been hard at work, and have failed to give timely updates, and I am very sorry for that. Going forward, I will be giving monthly updates, no matter how big or small my achievements in that time.

The technology is nearly done, and recording has begun in the US and Iceland. I can’t give an exact date yet, but we’re approaching the final stages.

Thank you again for sticking with me, and it is my greatest hope that The Northerner will be worth the wait, however long that may be.[/quote]

At this point, I can’t even imagine what the music would have to be to make the wait worth it.