Slashdot Mirror
Will Kickstarter Launch a Gaming Renaissance?
jfruh writes "Most gamers probably know that legendary game designer Tim Schafer turned to Kickstarter to help raise money a new adventure game; aiming for $400,000, he managed to raise more than $3 million. But you might not know that a host of other game projects are doing well on the crowdfunding site, with creators ranging from industry famous to unknown. By bypassing corporate funding and appealing directly to their audience, these developers are sparking a renaissance in quirky, personal games that probably wouldn't be backed by a big label looking for a sure-fire hit."
I personally am really looking forward to see what comes out of the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter.
There is a war going on for your mind.
But going straight down as soon as somes start to use it for shitty projects and still get the money.
Just like present day.
I surely hope so..... at least i backed 4 projects in two weeks :-)
P.S. I recommend a look here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mercenary-games/vigrior-maneuver-warfare
As somebody who put in money for Wasteland 2, I'm negative about Kickstarter. I'll even join the official backlash team.
Let's wait until a single good game has been released under this model. Or really, a single good game has been released from somebody who doesn't already have a large fanbase and nostalgia helping him get attention.
Furthermore, there's really no accountability under this whole scheme. What if the game released is totally amateurish? What if the developers just pocket half the money? What if the money ends up not being enough and the game is only half completed? What recourse do the "donators" have?
System seems ripe for being abused...Leisure Suit Larry's kickstarter suggests the money is needed to make the game, glossing over that the game has already been under production for at least half a year. Presumably they already had the money, it doesn't mention where the donation's going.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
The independent developer thing has been on a roll for a good while now. All the titles we've seen from the Humble Indie Bundles, Minecraft, Machinarium, etc. have been proving for years now that our games don't have to come from EA and Activision.
The real question is, are indie developers going to find themselves genuinely at-odds with the gaming industry, where, for instance, the console market is increasingly taking a combative approach to its customers.
buy a consumer product. If you want to make an investment, make an investment.
Kickstarter is not a store, nor is it a brokerage. It is a place to donate and support things you'd like to see happen. Don't send any money their way if you're hoping for some sort of guaranteed return. It's a kind of participation, activism, or expression, not a kind of transaction.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
In other discussions I've seen, the assumption seems to be that the first game that betrays expectations will doom the whole system.
I don't think that's true - this isn't an investment cycle, but more a method of pre-purchasing that cuts the last link that was tying small game makers to publishers - seen money for projects.
Collapse isn't inevitable - but I do see some interesting circumstances occurring as Kickstarter is forced to pull funding from some projects, or resulting in empty demo games with no plans for completion.
The idea is still critical though - a mechanism for the potential audience of an entertainment product to freely contribute to the seed money for that product. It will certainly be some rocky challenges ahead - but the core idea will survive, and I think will result in a lot of positive alternatives to insular corporate planning.
It's also a great alternative to the centralized planned culture of nations like France, so intent on protecting an elusive cultural ideal, they approach stagnation at times.
It's a great third way - a way with its own problems, but much to add compared to the extremes of strict corporate planning and liberal cultural protectionism.
Ryan Fenton
Being able to play the game you've invested in.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
You know what, if you click on the funny underlined bits (they're called "links" by the nerds), you can go and read other pages published by a different internet publisher (each independant entity is called a "web-site"). Then you could find out the answer for yourself. This magic way of moving around is called "surfing" (by the nerds, again), and the technology is for some reason called "hyper-text".
Who said "invest"?
From the Kickstarter FAQ: "A new form of commerce and patronage. This is not about investment or lending. Project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work. Instead, they offer products and experiences that are unique to each project."
Adventure game (Jane Jensen), Wasteland 2, Larry 1 (Al Lowe)..Kickstarter is great and I guess more to come! :-) Games comes to Windows, Linux, OS X, iOS, Android. Great times!
No,it won't in general.
The two big prominent projects now were started by people who did already have a name, who are famous gurus of the past two or three decades of computer games. They announced something people wanted for years, namely Wasteland 2 and "some adventure made by one of the adventure-gods".
This is not the average situation of a upcoming project.
I did give money to both of the projects, but I would never, ever give money to people who do not already have a good track record in the industry with projects I really like - which means, some publisher has to stand at the beginning again.
No.
Kikstarter lets people who already have a name get funding for their pet project.
The idea of Kickstarter is great, unfortunately I don't think its going to work as you might imagine. Here is what I can tell so far: 1. Information and media for games is cherry picked for maximum donations, often leaving out important information like the engine being used and the limitations of the developer and the engine. (For example try to imagine building World of Warcraft in the Source engine) 2. Anyone who pays more then the average game cost and is then very disappointed by the game will likely never do it again. Judging by a lot of the video game projects I think this is guaranteed to happen. Even with Electronic Arts we have some sort of standard because of QA staff and managers etc. 3. A lot of the projects are clearly money driven, There are game developers allowing a single customer to change certain things the game if you donate a certain amount. Its going to get to a point where people will lose interest and pay or pirate the game when its released. 99% of games can be built to a small scale exactly how the developer wants it, they can then use that game to fund the game to the scale they want. People donating money to developers with little or no history is asking for trouble.
Oil running out, rampant corruption and government abuse in so-called "first world" countries, corporations buying the best laws they can, lobbyists, but what we really need is a *game* renaissance. No wonder the powers that be are not afraid, you're a bunch of children.
Multi tasking. A concept familiar to all life forms above flatworms and politicians.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Depends on what one means by "renaissance". Will Kickstarter see a large boost for unknowns making new games for the first time? Maybe, it will help get some ideas done that otherwise never would have seen the day, (see Diaspora), but I doubt it will cause a huge increase in such. What I think we will be, and are, seeing is a large influx of established games and designers creating new work that otherwise wouldn't have ever seen the light of day. With the one and a quarter of a million that The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive made, I think we are already seeing this in the table top gaming community. Now other games companies are pulling out old favorites and using Kickstarter to judge interest and essentially get pre-sales for a product. We are seeing the same thing with the Shadowrun Returns game by the original designers. I'm hearing the same sort of things from friends who are comic book fans about new and old comic book projects. For what are essentially cottage industries with fans, I think it will help a great deal as one can essentially take a lot of risk out of guessing if something will sale enough to make the money back.
Personally, I'm beginning to really get into Kickstarter. New creative projects that I can not only look at getting, but if I really like it could even pay more for extras or even for things like getting myself added as a character in the video game. Some of the projects are small endevors that I want, but the larger demand just isn't there for. If I had to rely on brick and mortar stores or even the internet for such products to get produced, I'd probably never get them. With Kickstarter, a project can get the funding for it to fill what demand there is even if it's not enough to be sustainable for wide distribution.
Priorities. A concept familiar to intelligent beings who realize that resources and time are limited, and that indeed, evils *do* multitask while you slobber away at a child's game.
There must be a way for the copyright maffia to mess this up. But which way?
Do you sleep? Eat? shit? Shower? Read a book? Post on slashdot? Well fuck you too for failing to combat evil every moment of every day for every year you live.
You don't see a level of priority there? Sleeping? Eating? Shitting? Pretty ... necessary, no? Adults playing games while Rome burns? Dunno about that.
Publishers big & small have long been blamed for failures when an otherwise reputable ("creative") developer "should have" succeeded with a game.
Kickstarter phenomenon is good in the sense that it is going to teach the common gamer (especially those who put money in) how things really work in the industry. For those who want the lesson early, here are some helpful pointers.
1. Publishing is a statistical business. In OWS terms, 1% of developers are responsible for nearly all profits. The other 99% of developers, whose names you may not even recognize but who still cost the publisher money to support all the same, are worthless crap.
2. Corollary to the above, it is not the publishers who leech success from good developers. It's other developers who leech success from good developers.
3. All developers, especially the ones who are actually good, have the choice to self-fund and self-publish, with a budget accordingly. A good question to ask is why some "successful" developers are unwilling to take a risk on themselves. Why are they only comfortable with spending someone else's money? (i.e. yours if Kickstarting) And guarantee only themselves a paycheck? Kickstarter doesn't even give funders an ownership stake, and therefore no accountability.
Now follows a list of common developer excuses, translated into English. Anyone who is giving money to developers via Kickstarter should prepare themselves to hear all of these from their favorite "indie" project soon.
1. Devspeak: "The publisher forced us to ship on a deadline." English: "We didn't meet the deadline that we contractually agreed upon and were not willing to offer concessions to extend it."
1a (variant). Devspeak: "We were not given enough time to complete and polish the game, despite working 14-hour days." English: "We made no effort to finish the game during the first year of development and spent most of our workdays out at lunch. But we did go into crunch mode during the last 6 months in a futile attempt to make up for our lack of discipline. We delivered the final alpha, the beta, and the gold master within a space of 3 months. Unfortunately, writing game code is not like writing a college term paper."
2. Devspeak: "The game has a lot of bugs because they weren't found in QA." English: "All known bugs were reported by QA, and we were unable to fix them due to a lack of competence, or time (see 1.), or discipline (see 1a.) and we were unwilling to provide concessions in order to secure extra time to sort these problems out."
3. Devspeak: "The game is being constantly delayed in order to add more polish." English: "Either the game is so incomplete as to be unmarketable, forcing the publisher to allow extra development time, or we as developers actually were conscientious enough to sacrifice our own pay benefits to secure this extra time that we need to finish the game. If the latter, we are probably a good enough developer to self-fund or self-publish, so we essentially are the publisher."
4. Devspeak: "The game contains invasive DRM because the publisher forced us to put it in." English: "We contractually agreed to put in invasive DRM rather than accept a smaller contract from a DRM-free publisher."
4a (variant). Devspeak: "The game is DRM-free because we wanted to ensure a good experience for our customers." English: "Our contract doesn't include royalties. We get paid the same regardless of how few or how many copies the game sells. Under the circumstances, DRM is just more work for us, and our bottom line isn't dependent on sales or piracy. If we had to self-publish, this shit would be loaded with StarForce or require online connections for offline play."
5. Devspeak: "We would like to maintain ownership of our IP, all revenue from sales, take all the credit for the game from the fanbase, and not have to risk a dime of our own money." English: "Put it on Kickstarter."
I see these recent wave of kickstarts as the ultimate pre-order. As a backer, I get a lower price and maybe some extras for my investment, and the knowledge that I am helping with the creation of a game that I want to play but wouldn't have got backing otherwise. As a developer, you get your funding in advance, and anything sold after the release is profit since your expenses have already been covered.
I backed Wasteland 2. I would love to see another post apocalyptic turn based RPG, since Fallout 3 went in a completely different direction in regards to game play as it's predecessors.
Eventually one of these projects will fail, or not live up to expectations, but I hope that is the rare exception.
This would have been great back when Mare Crisium was in development of Stars! Supernova. Would have loved for that to have made it to market! The game play of Stars! with great modern graphics and expanded tech and opporunity in all directions in the game! Still Pull out the Stars! disk every once in a while and play the single player version!
But trolling /. is somehow different?
Keep up the important work ACs! The world needs you!
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
1. Release a free version on iPhone or Android or Steam.
2. Get name recognition.
3. Go to Kickstarter and pitch your new game (or improved version of your original game).
4. "Upgrade" your free game with quick ads pointing to your Kickstarter project.
I don't ask for other people's money while I do it. You don't see a whole new level of social indifference here? Not only are *you* not doing anything, but now you take money from a whole bunch of people too, money which can't be used for good anymore. Just more techno-opiates while you get rooked.
Oil running out, rampant corruption and government abuse in so-called "first world" countries, corporations buying the best laws they can, lobbyists, but what we really need is a *game* renaissance. No wonder the powers that be are not afraid, you're a bunch of children.
Don't forget, that before the *game* renaissance, we've seen a *documentary* renaissance on Kickstarter. Hopefully, some of the people who got attracted to games on Kickstarter, will allso donate money to serious documentary movies about what's really going on in the world.
... of the modern videogame industry while I'm also pessimistic about kickstarter I'd rather throw money at people who love and care about games then just watch every game become an MMO and chained to online DRM (Starcraft 2, diablo 3).
Kickstarter is really tapping into a lot of negative gamer sentiment, especially if you grew up in the 80's and 90's and watched PC game quality dive off cliff after the early 2000's. The last decade has been probably one of the worst decades for gamers and gamers rights on the whole. Map editors, tools to mod games? Sorry we'd rather sell you bonus weapons and extra maps as DLC at inflated prices.
Most newer generation gamers didn't grow up playing Doom, Duke3D, Quake and many other early PC games so they have no f'n clue how bad games have become.
Kickstarter is a huge gamble for everyone - in traditional publishing the publisher takes the risk and if a project falls flat they write it off. Big deal, they know that half of their investments are not going to fly, quarter will get their money back, 12,5% will make a decent profit and rest will be a success. But with kickstarter you have thousands of contributors for a project, and if, and eventually some project will, turn out to be a pancake on the floor there will be thousands complaining.
I wish all the best for the model, but it is risky as hell - it only needs one colossal failure and people will not donate again.
I just want to mention that Kickstarter is also getting board games off the ground as well. I actually only first heard about Kickstarter after playing Alien Frontiers a couple months ago. It is an enjoyable and well received board game that is the result of a Kickstarter project. There are many board games in development because of Kickstarter as well.
All they do is suck the fun of the games and add crap DRM and DLC.
You could be doing something good with your time (clearly multi-tasking is impossible)! Stop posting on Slashdot and do something noteworthy! Whether or not you're asking for money is irrelevant. You could be aiding people for free!
So if we're not spending _all_ our free time and money trying to correct the injustices of the world, then we're "not doing anything"? It's not good enough to spend some time doing important things and some time having fun?
So as long as there are any problems in the world (and by the way, there will always be problems in the world) no one should ever have any fun. All effort should be devoted to righting wrongs and correcting injustices. No time to spend with loved ones. No time to create or enjoy art. No time to do any science unless that science is entirely directed at solving some existing crisis somewhere. We should all just be mindless cogs in the great machine, working in the sweatshop of freedom.
So wait, why is it that we want to do this? What's the point of even being alive if all you do is eat and sleep and work? Who would want to fight for the "freedom" to do nothing but fight for freedom the entire rest of your life?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Don't wait, it won't be that long until this method of funding is abused, people quit helping and it's ruined for everyone.
I've joined a few kickstarts, but I do think it has one big problem. It's based on promises, where have I seen that before? ah, yes... politics! Basically, they can promise a lot of things, and then realize they can't add everything they said. This is normal in most games, the difference here is that you have people that already put money on this because of those promises, so it's not the same for a self-funded developer company to say "we decided to scratch such and such system" as it is for a developer that has already received money.
The term 'renaissance' connotates the exploration of new ideas. None of these projects are exploring new ideas, they are all sequels to established games or franchises.
When you pay for something before your receive the goods, you take a risk. You may never get them, they may not be what you want, etc. If you aren't ok with that risk that's totally fine, don't do it. However don't cry about it. Some people are fine with the risk.
Same shit with stocks vs CDs or the like in investing. If you have no risk tolerance, you place your money in savings accounts, CDs, and other instruments that have guarantees of value. They are as safe as you can get. However if you have more risk tolerance, maybe you buy stocks. Yes, with a stock you can lose all your money, however you stand to make more returns too. It is higher risk. It is up to you to decide if the risk is acceptable.
So if you are a person who is totally risk averse, don't use Kickstarter. I 100% respect that decision. However don't then bitch and cry about it as though everyone should be as risk averse as you. Those of us who use it know what we are getting in to. I decide how much to go in for in part based on how much I'm willing to lose. I know I could be out that money, so I make sure it is an amount I'm ok with.
Also you'd better not preorder other games, because if you are ok with that but not Kickstarter, then you are being silly. Kickstarter is just preordering on a longer timescale. You can preorder a regular game and get nice n' screwed too. Like Brink. Man what a piece of shit. I'd like my $50 back and the time I wasted on it. I preordered it based on the materials they put out. I thought it looked like a really cool idea and a group of my friends were getting it so we could all play together. It didn't live up to its promise though, in any way shape or form.
However, nothing that can be done. I spent the money, that is life. I took a risk, and it didn't pay off. So it goes. It was a risk I could afford though, so no big deal. That $50 wasn't $50 I took out of my mortgage payment or something, it was $50 for entertainment. I didn't get a good ROI, but there you go.
Same shit with Kickstarter. You look at a project, decide if you'd like to see that developed, and then see if you think the people behind it have what it takes. If so, you decide how much you can put towards it, understanding the money may be sunk, and then go for it (or don't, if you decide it isn't worth it).
Omestes trolled and got his ass kicked for it here -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2772023&cid=39612033 where Omestes tried to 1st play "wannabe english professor" and make bigger mistakes than those he 'critiqued' (pot calling the kettle black FOOL that Omestes is, lol: The hypocrite burnt himself on the very grounds he tried criticizing others on).
Here is a game on Rockethub that allows players to purchase a business within the game and when players pay to use that business in the game the business owner earns real revenue. So that is where players can earn money, like an investment.
FYI I am the sole game designer of this project and I chose Rockethub because I am Canadian and not eligible for kickstarter.
See http://www.rockethub.com/projects/6883-virtual-car-collector
.
I think it's doing ok, but I can't help get the feeling that it's a matter of time before it gets swamped with fake frat groups absorbing all the attention with credit they don't need, and already have.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whiteelephantmovie/white-elephant?ref=47rnfv is an example.
You can tell from their voices that they don't really need your money (croaky kind of rich indulgent people)
They just want to jet set off to Indonesia on your money and they have - fortunately it's probably all frat money that they were gonna get anyway, so they just got some free publicity but still..
I've been to Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam.. many others - all on my own money and savings with help from nobody, unlike these frat brats. and I don't need to make a movie about it to cheapen others' individual, prior, personal travel experience.
Maybe this would be a good way to get one of my favorite Looking Glass games, Terra Nova, remade?
At the moment, creating projects with Kickstarter is limited by Amazon Payments which is US Only (and the UK just recently I think).
Happy to let internationals donate but not create.
no one has really laid down the law and said there has to be a right or wrong way to do things.
That could also be a bad thing, as the control will get in the way for each new game that one learns to play. Having to learn a new control paradigm for each game, as opposed to good old "A to jump", could turn a potential customer off to buying a game.
Why would I buy a console when all the most thoughtfully designed games are happening on the PC?
You personally might not, seeing as you have expressed an interest in point-and-click adventure games, which do work best on a PC or on a tablet. But other people are fans of other genres that tend to be underrepresented on PCs. For example, perhaps there are multiple people in someone's house, either living together (often kids) or visiting for the evening, and one doesn't want to have to send them home to go get their PCs so that they can LAN up.
With video games, I don't see it kicking off a renaissance. Huge AAA games still take millions of dollars and that model likely won't change. What may change is the development of Indie games or games that have a history to them.
With board games I do think there is and will be a change. A lot of board games coming out are by indie designers. Before they had to pitch their ideas to a publisher to get published. Now they can pitch their idea to a small group of consumers, get the first run printed and start making a name for themselves. The fact that you are only aiming at thousands of dollars instead of millions makes this a model that will work
I'd be willing to support the long-awaited, much-anticipated sequel to Overseer in the Tex Murphy series.
What worries me a little about the kickstarters is that few of them actually have something to show for themselves, with The Banner Saga being a good exception. Nobody knows what Double Fine's adventure game will look like right now and I'm willing to bet that some fans of the classic pixel art games might get disappointed if they use a Psychonauts style art direction and vice versa. Having a middle-aged white guy with a classic game track record to show off is fine, but show some art, explain the basic game mechanics. Paint a picture for the potential customers.
Once people will find out that games are long term projects and satisfaction is required in short term kickstarter projects will gradually dissappear.
Wasteland will probably be made 2 years? Most people just give money under illusion that they will get something out of it right away.
Hey, moron, people do not solve world problems until they have solved their own problems. Like having a job. Specifically, having a job that gives them enough time and money for leisure activities.
You know what makes jobs? Having people attempt to purchase things from a company. At which point the company hires 'employees' to make those things and pays them money. This will cause those people to have the time and money to care about world problems.
In times of economic distress, you have to fix the economy first before individuals will worry about other problems, and investing in projects that then need to be built (As opposed to 'investing' via rent-seeking behavior, which is how the majority of 'investments' work.) is an excellent way to help fix the economy. Every dollar that isn't sitting unused in someone's bank account but is instead put into Kickstart is a dollar that someone else is paid via a job.
You are a complete idiot.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I have just one question, will we see Toys for Bob (i.e., Ford and Reiche) start a kickstarter effort for a true Star Control sequel? Star Control 2 was one of my favorite games of all time. Heck, I even enjoyed (although nowhere near as much) the non-Ford/Reiche produced Star Control 3 (I know, heresy...). If there is any game that screams out as good candidate, surely this is it. I'd be willing to put my money where my mouth is and help fund it through kick-starter. Anyone else with me?
let there be more games like Thief 3 Shadows mast awesome game, easily reproucable by indie studios
LMAO, talk about a "pot calling a kettle black" -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2772023&cid=39612033
Practice what U preached TROLL, lmao -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2772023&cid=39612033 Don't try to play "english professor" off topic & all, because ur troll bs failed you, and ur the "pot calling the kettle black" stupid.