I’m also going to be very interested in what happens with this, but of course, just because a bunch of projects do get Kickstarter funding doesn’t mean that every indie developer will go that route and pander to the mob. In particular, I think developers without either a big recognizable name on board, or else a compelling prototype, will still be going the basement/ramen route out of necessity.
How many first time, no-name developers are going to score $250,000 off of Kickstarter without having put some significant work into the game already? I could see maybe $1000-2000 for that kind of thing but Kickstarter seems to reward proven concepts and big names more than a guy in his parent’s basement with an idea.
To me Kickstarter is for games / genres people bitched for years for a spiritual or real successor.
Now they are offered by our heroes and we are asked to pitch in to create a chance for them to become reality.
Indie games are by new / unknown designers / studios. Their biggest merrit is to surprise us with quirky new ideas / art styles etc.
I would never pitch in $100 for an indie game but for a Wasteland 2 and new Double Fine Adventure by Tim I simply had to.
(On the fence concerning Jen as it sounds a bit nebolous for now. I would like to have her design docs in pdf though so maybe I will break down later and spend some money). The new Larry sounds lame as we already have the game in VGA.
I also am a bit hesitant to spend even more money before the first project is finished and I have a real result in my hands.
As someone else said those projects should be a bit more spaced out.
Basically, yes, it’s funding a year of the studio. That’s why they compare it to the subscription farm model. For a certain amount of money, you get a certain amount of produce each week. So for the studio, at a certain level, you get everything they make that year. There’s a lower level that can choose one of the games done that year, and so forth.
Someone (Kieron, I think) described it as being like reunion tours for old bands. They’re cashing in their credibility for cash. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Reunion tours aren’t viable fund raising models for new bands either.
That’s pretty much the scenario I see. People are excited about Kickstarter right now, what happens after a couple of projects they’ve shoveled 20 bucks into go belly-up without producing anything?
My problem with Jane Jensen’s Kickstarter is that it’s $16 for one game, guaranteed, and $50 for the possibility of two. That’s just an odd distribution of cost. There has to be a better way to do it.
Moar kickstarting
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hlogas/ill-make-the-world-you-shape-the-story-lets-b?ref=live
This seems to have been a scam, maybe the first game kickstarter to not deliver anything?
I’m not sure I see this as a scam. I don’t get them impression that the woman just took the money and ran, so to speak. It seems much more like someone who either vastly underestimated the amount of work that goes into making her own game or vastly overestimated her own abilities to deliver. It seems like that sort of thing is bound to happen, especially with kickstarters with unproven developers.
It will be interesting to see what happens if she just doesn’t deliver though.
Funny how people are saying in the comments that they want something back for their ‘investment’; I thought this was more of a charity where there’s a chance of getting a product back but no guarantee.
I don’t think I would personally consider throwing Kickstarter money at a project like that, simply for the reasons you mention. People should be very aware of the risk they are taking in those situations. At least with a project backed by actual industry veterans or where something has already been produced you can see that they are capable of something and not just vaporware.
The other thing that seems obvious to me to look at is whether the amount of money being asked for seems realistic. For example, this particular project was only asking for $8500 and that was only going to fund two months of work by the one person involved. That isn’t anywhere near enough, as was proven. Details are also important, because if you read the updates its clear she didn’t even start designing the game until she was funded - that seems like a big mistake on her part. The initial funding ask for the Shadowrun game was something I wondered about too, for the same reasons.
Well I can see why people funded it, the idea seems to be pretty cool.
Two months to finish a text based game someone who is supposedly an industry professional has been working on “since grad school” does not really seem too outlandish, it’s not one of these “I’m going to make the best MMO ever in my basement” pitches.
Honestly, I probably would have funded it at the $7 level. That level is just low enough for me to not really give a shit whether I see the game or not.
If I had given $95 or more (which a surprising number of people seem to have done), I’d probably be feeling pretty sore right now.
I think where new developers can take advantage of Kickstarter is if they have a gameplay-complete game and are looking for funding to hire individuals for graphics / music / sound work to improve the presentation.
Without an established track record I think anything less than proving that there is already a solid game that just needs a little spit and polish would be difficult.
I think I could get the game completed if I just had two months to work solidly on it and nothing else. So I need to take a two month vacation from my contracting work to just focus and get this game made! The funds I am asking for will support my family for two months while I pour all my time into making this game a reality. During these two months, I will also be providing daily updates to those who are interested and engaging with the community. I think we’ll have a good time working together!
Yeah, that didn’t pan out so well.
Kicked into a couple new games I found today:
BIONITE: Origins - a spiritual successor to Battlezone and its ilk (like the superior Uprising). I love FPS/RTS hybrids like this:
Vigrior : Maneuver Warfare - Tactical spaceship combat, what else do I need? ;)
Surely the tide will turn soon. This is almost like a housing bubble. Except no one will make money off their ‘investments’. Most returns will be an inadequate or half-completed project by some punter who had his hands out for free dosh.
It is bizarre.
I disagree. I think this will mark the beginning of a new era of gaming where fans can directly vote with their dollars on what games they want to purchase.
We already do that when we buy a game.
People are pre-purchasing the game that is in their heads, not what is actually made. So the market will correct at some stage, and there will be some rude shocks which will no doubt be quite entertaining to watch in a year or so.
I think it is a really good model for pro developers with a reputation, who can’t get a game funded traditionally because the publishers don’t believe the market is there, or want to pursue something with a higher return. But that’s a relatively small niche to fill.
This reminds me a lot of when some clown over at OO got people to buy his game in return for playing a role in the development of it. Naturally, it was a disaster and some gullible people got burnt.
I’m not saying all these kickstarter projects will be like that, but some of them you just look at it and think, all right buddy, finish it and bring it to market and see what it is really worth. But why do that if you can sell it on the basis of what it could be? I know what I would do.