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How Long Before the Kickstarter Bubble Bursts?
An opinion piece at Gamasutra takes a look at the recent success of Kickstarter campaigns for video game projects — Double Fine's adventure game and a sequel to Wasteland each raised around $3 million. Hundreds of other projects have sprung up, hoping to replicate that success — but will it last? From the article:
"I am convinced that Tim Schafer and his team at Double Fine know how to deliver a game (mostly) on time and (mostly) on budget. Brian Fargo too. Is that true for all 314 of the current Kickstarter projects? What about the projects which get started but never finished? If publishers like LucasArts can cancel games that are almost finished or like Codemasters can pay for a game it never saw, what certainty do pledgers have that the game that they have paid for will ever see the light of day? We are still in the early days of our Kickstarter relationship, the early days of falling in love. Everything our partner does is wonderful. We gloss over the risks, we ignore the downsides, because the glory of falling in love is everything. I think we have about six months left of that period. Towards the end of this year, some Kickstarter projects are going to start slipping. Some will see their teams collapse amidst bicker recriminations. Some pledgers are going to start getting very angry."
Might see a drop off, and a leveling off, but a bubble burst?
That implies there's a bubble. Direct financing of projects is the future, not a fad.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
history tells us that some sort of trigger is needed to start the panic. One glitch in Facebooks share price could cause another dot com style crash.
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
One of the things that makes this sort of funding different is that a vast majority of pledgers are contributing very modest sums of money. Can you really get pissed off if you lose $50 in a venture? For a lot of people this sort of funding gives them the chance to participate in something they would otherwise have never got an opportunity to be involved in. I think that what we will see is a refinement of the system and people maybe being a little more selective and those who are seeking funding becoming more professional. I do believe that in some form or another it is here to stay.
Does anyone want to start a Kickstarter project to replace Kickstarter?
Kickstarter would never lie to us. Kickstarter wouldn't hit us or cheat. Kickstarter is complex and brooding, and sometimes it has trouble expressing it's emotions is all...
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to ice this bruise. I accidentally fell into the door.
Insist on Free Projects Developed in the Open
That way, if things don't quite pan out, the assets may still be useful or someone else may be able to finish things up.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Kickstarter backers will mature, but it's not a bubble, there will not be a burst, but the project vetting process will improve as revenue increases for Kickstarter, as well as the maturity of the backers. It's an evolution, not a bubble. Saturation? Maybe.
"The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly" - Touchstone,Shakespeare's "As You Like It"
All, Please invest in my kick starter project to determine when the kick starter bubble will burst. There is no timeline and no deliverables. Budget is $10 million. First 100 people to invest get an autographed copy of the report. Thanks.
right now kickstarter is in the idealistic phase. you give money to people you don't know with great expectations. it doesn't take many silver tongued con artists to put a dent in those expectations. then the cynicism kicks in (no pun intended)
don't get me wrong, i love kickstarter, but this is the romance period, and after awhile people might become more jaded
i hope not, really, i hope not. and maybe eventually we can invent extra trust building methodologies to give people more confidence when they give
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seems Kickstarter is more like business used to be... create an idea, shop it around to get capitol to market said idea. This is just a way to show your idea to the entire internet at once, and get small (but numerous) bits of capitol instead of a lot from one (or a few) investors. It'll work great for some, and not for others - the main thing it changes is the chance to get financial backing directly from people interested, instead of having to go through a large publisher like EA.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
A while ago I started developing an indie Elite-like game (yes, it runs on Linux...). I'm funding it out of my personal savings (scary...) but I've had Kickstarter recommended to me by a number of people as a funding alternative. I know very little about it. The indie oriented spirit of the place looked nice enough. I've seen other projects in the genre I'm developing that aren't as far along as mine raise significant funding on Kickstarter, but I've held off because of a few things that are unclear to me. For one, if I funded the development of my project in this way, what happens if something prevents the project from being completed? The Kickstarter info says there is no guarantee that a finished product will be produced, so nominally "nothing happens", but there are large risks involved with developing an indie game with its own custom engine from scratch. Many start, few succeed. I think I would find it quite ethically difficult to live with if I accepted people's money to make something, and for whatever reason wasn't able to complete the project to my or their satisfaction. Even if it is only a small amount from each person, I'd end up feeling pretty miserable if they paid it expecting a finished project which never came to pass. I was never able to find any info about whether a mechanism exists to return funding if projects cannot be completed.
I agree that it is not a bubble. The author may be correct that Kickstarter is not a sustainable model, but it will not "pop". If the author is correct, Kickstarter will just fade away, not burst.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
But it all depends on how big the failed projects are and how big the failure is.
I image they are legally obliged to deliver so I imagine all/most failed projects will deliver something, if what they deliver is worth anything that will be the question.
And of course KS could be used to scam, we have no way of kn ow if the developer has any intention of delivering.
That is why in my opinion KS is best for known developers wanting to do bigger then normal projects, have more freedom, or to fund project that publishers will not; And is not a great new way for ambitious new developers to get into the field.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
... projects were successful to begin with. There is a lot of negative gamer sentiment that many beloved older games and genre's stopped being produced by big publishers because the publishers deemed they were 'dead' or they just wouldn't yield the kinds of profits they want to keep shareholders happy.
It doesn't help that many modern games have been butchered (in terms of functionality, LAN, etc) or chained to DRM and always online connections.
Kickstarter backers will mature, but it's not a bubble, there will not be a burst, but the project vetting process will improve as revenue increases for Kickstarter, as well as the maturity of the backers. It's an evolution, not a bubble. Saturation? Maybe.
I would assume Kickstarter would start doing some kind of background check and creating a scoring algorithm to be a decent indicator of risk. For example, the more money involved, the greater the risk. The more successful projects a group has completed, the lower the risk. The less experience someone has at the type of project he is advocating, the greater the risk. At that point, people can support a project without going in blind.
Like all such concepts, it's bound to follow the hype cycle. We're still approaching the "peak of inflated expectations".
Yes and No
Since the money will already have been spent, most developers would not want to throw more money after bad even if it were right.
But I imagine that the KSs might be able to sue the developer for damages over his breaking of the contract.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Do you know the definition of a economic bubble? Because it is a perfectly reasonable to theorise and probably correct to say that KS is in a bubble.
If it will burst or just level out is the only real question here.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The general funding model has been successful for at least a bit longer than Kickstarter in particular has been around, so it's not a completely new thing. Therefore I have a little more confidence in its longevity, though it could always still turn out to be a slightly longer flash in the pan, of course.
One early proposal was John Kelsey and Bruce Schneier's Street Performer Protocol (1998), describing basically the same collect-funds-until-threshold model.
One successful effort I know of from ten years ago was Einstürzende Neubauten, a cult-popular German industrial/avant-garde band, which left their label and focused on crowdfunding starting in 2001. In 2002, they raised around $70,000 to record an album despite using a pretty unorganized system, and repeated that several times. There have been some others since then as well before Kickstarter centralized them, such as David Lynch's effort.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Sure there have not been any spectacular failures yet. But there are ZERO guarantee's you will get your rewards. That is pretty clear. And it will become clearer the more failures there are.
I don't personally know of any actually failures -
Noted point on risk MusOpen, 621% funding based on slashdot exposure.
Funded Sept 2010 - Still has not delivered.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/Musopen/record-and-release-free-music-without-copyrights?ref=live
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/09/12/1350202/orchestra-to-turn-copyright-free-classical-scores-into-copyright-free-music
It does seem to be slowly progressing and actually about to release the recordings. So it seems it will deliver in the end.
Kickstarter will hit mainstream when there are numerous failed projects or several high-profile scams. The fact that most of these are weeded out by proper feedback and loop-inclusion will likely reduce the number and keep the entire crowd-funding mechanism feasible.
Also keep an eye out for high-profile competitors run by or funded by major companies as happened to Groupon (ie, Google Offers, LivingSocial, Amazon Deals, etc). When this happens, the likelyhood for the negative events increases - that can be associated with the mechanism can reflect poorly on the canonical brand as well.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Future vs. fad is irrelevant. You can't have a bubble burst because Kickstarter sponsorships aren't a tradeable commodity, so people turning off of the Kickstarter model won't burst anything. There's no market for there to be a bubble in.
If people stop sponsoring through Kickstarter, you'll just have a reversion to people actually having to take a business plan to people who will most likely demand debt or equity stakes in the business to raise capital to launch a new consumer product business (or to expand an existing business to a new consumer product using funds other than the profit of the existing business.)
Having seen more than my fair share of software projects, its kind of insane to invest money into new start software. On the odd occasion you might make a lot of money, but most times, kiss your money goodbye. And in Kickstart you don't even have the possibility of making a lot of money, do you? All you get is a free copy of the game isn't it? That is real insanity.
First, don't build a game engine.
Second, the ethics is this: You have to make a good faith effort to achieve the goal you are getting contributions for. You have to use the contributions on things that will materially contribute to the project at hand. If you try and fail, you're ethical. If you spend the money on unrelated things or are extremely incompetent with spending ("Hey guys, I used all of your money to buy some magic beans!") then you're unethical.
But I imagine that the KSs might be able to sue the developer for damages over his breaking of the contract.
I was pondering it more in a voluntary sense. Say for example that I, as a game developer, due to circumstances beyond my control am unable to finish the project I started. This happens quite often even with the best of initial intentions ... even on well funded commercial projects, let alone tiny-scaled single-developer indie games. If this happens, is there some established mechanism for me to return funds to the people who were kind enough to support the project, without anybody having to sue anybody?
I suppose in many cases the money is simply gone, but for me the alternative to my game project is finding a "real job", in which case I think I'd feel somewhat morally compelled to attempt to return people's hard earned money for a project that never came to pass.
This is not a case of random people putting money into a company they know nothing about. These 2 companies used as examples are well known quantities with known talent. People put money in because of that. If you get a sketchy company pitching an idea that doesn't hold water, then its not like they'll have the support that these 2 projects have. Yes, its inevitable that some large project will fail to deliver as promised. But that's why its important to not throw your money at just anything...know your developers!
In most cases the actual contract is for bumper stickers and the like.
It's going to get replaced by competitors if they don't open up to other countries.
I hope it doesn't go anywhere because it is a great idea.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847271320/ogre-designers-edition
Kickstarter allows the developer to get in direct contact with the people who are willing to commit to his/her project. Which is GREAT in cases like the above example. Things that were abandoned long ago can be revived without having to secure millions of dollars of investment cash.
I was pondering it more in a voluntary sense. Say for example that I, as a game developer, due to circumstances beyond my control am unable to finish the project I started.[...] If this happens, is there some established mechanism for me to return funds to the people who were kind enough to support the project, without anybody having to sue anybody?
Kickstarter itself doesn't provide any.
I suppose in many cases the money is simply gone, but for me the alternative to my game project is finding a "real job", in which case I think I'd feel somewhat morally compelled to attempt to return people's hard earned money for a project that never came to pass.
If you don't have a "real" job besides the Kickstarter project, how are you paying your rent/food/equipment/etc? If you use the Kickstarter money for that, it's gone by the time you know you have failed.
If you do have a job besides the Kickstarter project, it might go on forever, since there is no extrinsic motivation for you finishing it on time. This has already happend with game projects on Kickstarter, and the backers were not amused. I researched one of these events, and the developer specifically said in an update "I had multiple projects going with a deadline, and the Kickstarter one was the only one where slipping the date wouldn't mean having to pay for a contract violation." That was two years ago, and he still hasn't delivered.
Considering that they seem to do very very little, if any due dilligence, i wouldnt be surprised if a lawsuit or the government shuts them down first.
Seems like a great way to fund a diabolical plot under the guise of 'contributing to free software' .
anyone investing in anything should know there are risks involved. Anyone who knows anything about video game development knows that the completion, let alone success, of a video game is highly unpredictable. Knowing this, most people won't get that angry or upset at a project failing although there will certainly be lots of disappointment. We also aren't talking about the kind of investment where people are dumping their life savings into it or banking their retirement on a financial return on their investment. Sure, some idiots who didn't understand what they were investing in will get pissed off and never invest again but I think that will be the exception rather than the rule. Maybe I'm too optimistic (wow, don't get to say that often) but I doubt it.
The Order of The Stick reprint drive.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/599092525/the-order-of-the-stick-reprint-drive/posts
This may also be the first instance of the project developer (Rich Burlew) being so completely involved with the supporters as the project exceeded the initial goal.
Flip through the updates notifications to see what he added as enticements to get to each new level. And what his progress has been on delivering on those commitments.
100% transparency and thousands of fans eagerly awaiting delivery.
First, don't build a game engine.
Oh, I'm absolutely certain that Torval, van Rossum and Matz were all told the same thing.
First, don't build an OS...
First, don't build a computer language...
Well, duh... What do you care if I find that it's interesting to do so?
"Well, duh... What do you care if I find that it's interesting to do so?" That's a fine sentiment for a hobby project. But for a project with an expected deliverable within a set time frame most of the time pragmatism beats idealism.
Lots of troll answers here...
Serious answer, so that you can fulfill your promise: add a clause about the game saying "I promise to release this game to the public if funded OR if I can't for some unforseen circumstance, release all assets including source code and art into [public domain or CC or your license you want here]"
I got my game initially crowd funded. If you are worried about something happening to you and being unable to finish a project, that just says to me: "I am not really committed". If this game is your love and your passion, the money is to help you concentrate on this passion, and you will finish it. If it is just something you like doing, it is not really enough. If your worry is about being hit by a bus, shit happens, deal with it.
Next up, if you are serious about crowd funding, and want to get a large amount of money (i.e enough to live on for a year or 2, hire some contractors for work outside your skill set). My 2 bits of simple advice are, build a community. Crowd funding is about getting the community to help you make a game that they want (both you and your community should be wanting the same game). Don't just put it on kickstarter I hope they come. You need a community first. My second bit of advice, is if you are an unproven games developer, build some sort of vertical slice of the game, to a high standard. (E.g. a demo of just ship to ship combat, nothing more.). This is to show case you and your team (if applicable) skills, to help build trust that you can produce this game.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
First, don't build a game engine.
I personally don't have an issue with him building a game engine, but it should be the only project there :)
If there start to be more projects that fail. Projects can fail for a large variety of reasons - I work in the games industry, and I've seen a lot of college-age people try to get game projects started only to have them unravel because of conflicts within the group, or someone got too busy with school or their girlfriend or underestimated the amount of work required to create their ambitious project, etc.
The second major reason is that there might be an increase in fraud - people setting up projects that are designed purely to take people's money and disappear. Kickstarter says they don't police what people are doing with the money (which makes sense, since it'd take a lot of effort to do that). Take, for example, this fraudulent project which fortunately ended up getting outed before they reached their goal (which means they got no money in the end):
The "Mythic" game was *super* ambitious, but they only asked for $80,000. It was so ridiculous it just screamed "fraud", so I'm not surprised they got found-out. A more capable fraudster could do a lot better job about not putting up red-flags.
that I know of. It's called Diaspora. It's a piece of social networking software with distributed servers, and the goal is for people to be able to share without having all of their data owned perpetually by some corporation. Their site has been running the software for a while now, and I was running a node too. It's open-sourced, so those people and companies who invested are free to continue the project if they wish. I suppose that's a bit different than just funding a game, because with Diaspora, the benefits are for everyone, and don't depend on some unknown release date. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr
If you don't have a "real" job besides the Kickstarter project, how are you paying your rent/food/equipment/etc?
It's my last few work years before retirement. I'm funding it out of my retirement savings, which is a dangerous thing to be doing, but I'd rather do something I enjoy doing even at some personal risk. I can do so for several years, but at the cost of living well below a poverty income level while I'm doing it. There are personal costs to that, such as forgoing even cheap vacations.
Kickstarter could (hypothetically) provide a safety margin. If some unexpected expense should appear, such as my (already old) car dies, it's quite possible the project could be completed with KS funding, but not without.
If you use the Kickstarter money for that, it's gone by the time you know you have failed.
Perhaps, but if my project fails I will find a few more years of a normal job, in which case there is a funding source again, some of which could be returned to the KS investors. It appears this doesn't fit into the model, which is fine. I just didn't know either way, before.
No, it isn't a bubble. A bubble does have a definition and in the context of economics it pretty much has to be some sort of investment.
When you buy in on a KS and give the money at the end, you're buying something specific. It might be a name on a list or a cool board game, but you're buying something. Now, individual projects may fail, but if you get people scrambling for the exits all that happens is that KS fails and the projects fail. Nobody loses money in KS unless an individual project fails or the project gives out too much swag for the requested funds.
That's idealistic, but it would probably make people a lot more comfortable with the prospects. The downside is that it communicates a lack of confidence in the ability to get things done.
If the project does happen to fail later on, you can always contact the people that backed it about donating it to the PD, CC or some other way of making it free to all.
All you can get out of your "investment" is what they claim they will give you. If you only give them a token amount because you just think it's nice idea, you'll only get a thank you card, or perhaps a mention on their website. For greater amounts of money, you can get an actual thing, being a copy of the game, the bracket they are planning on making, etc. For even more money, all you get is more of the same, or perhaps a new choice of colors, feedback on creating a game level, etc.
Some new-fangled combination of bickering with bitter recriminations?
and want to get a large amount of money (i.e enough to live on for a year or 2, hire some contractors for work outside your skill set). My 2 bits of simple advice are, build a community. Crowd funding is about getting the community to help you make a game that they want (both you and your community should be wanting the same game).
Thanks very much for the thoughts. I will set up a forum for a community at some point. I've struggled with this "make the game everybody wants" vs "make the game I want to make, and see who's interested" dichotomy, but am biased towards the latter. The direction popular gaming has gone in recent times does not interest me much. If I wanted to go where the market seem to be, for example, I'd make a $2.99 2D cell phone game, or FPS #90338932. I think I'd rather make something I want to make, though I know it to be a very small niche, and hope there will be enough people interested to support it. Just as you say, following one's passion. I'd rather make a little bit of money and do something I find cool, than the other way around.
demo of just ship to ship combat, nothing more
Ship to ship combat is in progress and coming along decently :). And it's designed for as much community expandability as I was able to manage.
Thanks for comments. I had a look at your page; looks pretty cool.
You could just build a webpage describing the project and ask for preorders (using paypal or Fastspring or whatever), then do some (free) social media advertising.
I was going to post something along these lines...
It's a combination of "I told you so!" and news sites just wanting to drive 'bad news' in general. Bad news gets more eyes. More comments. More facebook likes. More tweets. And, ultimately, more advertising money.
The way to build a community is to clearly express what it is that _you_ want out of the game and then attract other people who want the same thing. Do listen to any comments they might have of course because they might come up with something that inspires you, but as long as you're clear up front about what kind of game you're making you're not beholden to them to make any changes you don't want.
Minecraft didn't start out as a poll of "what do you guys want to see in a game?" Notch built the type of game he wanted to make and was lucky enough to build a huge community around it.
Of course there's always the chance that your ideas just won't appeal to enough people to build a self-supporting community, but given how large and diverse the gaming population is it would have to be a pretty extreme case for no one else to like it.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Bottom line is, Kickstarter isn't a storefront. If you're going to pledge money to a project, don't drop more on it than you're comfortable giving away to a school fundraiser, or a local charity.
Here is my friends project. Super smart bunch of people. If the kickstarter bubble bursts (through a sullied reputation or scamming or whatever), another one will come along to replace it that learns from the mistakes of the past. It's a clearly good idea. Allowing small niche markets to find and fund engineering and creative talent is something that will always be desirable.
Learn what an economic bubble is. When you give money to a Kickstarter project you want to support, it is a donation, not an investment. There can be no bubble, as there is no market to create an inflated value on anything.
If you want more detailed thoughts, comments, just drop me an email.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
This is exactly right. If you want to complete your first game, don't reinvent the wheel. Use an engine that other teams have spent years developing and debugging so you can concentrate on the game part.
Once you've demonstrated you can build games and have a few successful titles under your belt, then go ahead and use the money you've earned and, more importantly, the lessons you've learned to write your own engine if you still want to.
You may see some disappointment and realignment of expectations, but this the basic idea is such a good one that I can't see it just *pop*ing out of existence.
Look at Paypal - they treat their customers like shit on both sides (sellers and buyers) and will randomly seize accounts in hopes they can keep some of the money, yet almost everyone still uses them because it's too damn useful.
Perhaps people will finally realize that Kickstarter means what it says - you are GIVING money to fund a project, and any rewards are gifts the project is GIVING you but not directly for your funding (wink wink), because US law won't let you invest in anything for reward without crippling regulation.
A little more rigor in your Kickstarter project selection might be a good thing all around, but again, it's something we 'need', so the demand will be there on both sides. I've backed several projects and so far so good, but I take some care in selection and realize it's possible I'll get nothing in return. It's a donation, and anything you get back is surprise presents!
Who cares if it runs on Linux. The /. community is not your target market. Pick the platform that will net you the largest customer base.
...donate $10 to my project! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1630450133/crisscross-social-search-engine
Note that I did not say, "only on Linux"... In any case, there are factors beyond picking the "largest customer base" that enter into the picture.
Well, for one thing? I think most big investors are more demanding and meticulous with their spending/investing. They're not interested in making a big cash outlay into a Kickstarter project - because they're already funding similar things using a more time-tested, traditional model; venture capital firms. They want you to come to THEM with a solid business plan in hand, and sell them on it. They don't want to spend time on a web page, poring over all the little projects people proposed to work on.
Kickstarter is to VC what Prosper.com is to traditional bank loans. It's an alternative way to try to round up some money.
As for lawyers? This may upset/insult some of them to say it, but basically? Lawyers are parasites -- a necessary evil in a dishonest world, perhaps. But parasites nonetheless. Eventually, they get involved in pretty much *every* business or legal transaction individuals in society can conduct. So sure, there will be lawsuits someday related to Kickstarter projects. Will it destroy the whole concept though? I don't see why it should, any more than personal injury law destroyed businesses hiring workers to perform physical labor, or any more than divorce lawyers destroyed the concept of marriage?
Steve Jackson games, Relaunching OGRE, it seems that Slashdot current editors dont thing the biggest Geek game of all time is news.
Shadowrun as a video game under control of the guys that designed Shadowrun and not the morons that could not design a game if they wanted to at EA or SONY. Topped 2 million and will be released DRM free.
And a ton more.
Kickstarter is a way for people to get things made that the morons in executive board rooms refuse to make.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes, the total amount of virginity you currently have, which is a limit approaching infinity. Target Linux, that way it runs like every other free SDL shit game on Windows. However considering your lack of confidence in your own ability to finish a product, it's surely going to be pretty shitty regardless.
One year, four months.
What, is everything a bubble that has to burst?
Problem 1: The funding crowd does a poor job of sorting out wishful thinkers from people who can deliver. Just going by the projects where I have actually met the principals, the crowd often gets it wrong. I have seen people with no track record and who are clearly clueless about how to execute a major project raise huge amounts of funds, and yet people with track records and savvy who don't make the funding deadline. It's really sad to look at the disasters that have been funded and the stuff with great potential that didn't make it -- and I am just talking about projects where I have met the people and seen the prototypes.
Problem 2: Projects have no way to cap the upper end. I've seen a couple of "success disasters" -- people set out to raise X dollars to deliver Y premiums. They end up raising 10X or 15X or more and then are faced with how to fulfill 15Y premiums. This problem often seems to visit the clueless dreamers That is a recipe for a train wreck.
Kickstarter could solve problem #2 tomorrow by simply putting in an upper funding limit. Problem #1 is tougher -- it needs some kind of reputation system, but even then, their are enough dreamers on both the buying and selling side of impractical dreams to make it a perpetual peril.
Zombies, Run! hoped to raise $12,500 from Kickstarter; they ended up with over $72,000. They have already passed version 1.0 (which works nearly flawlessly) and are constantly adding new missions and features. I actually bought an iOS device just so I wouldn't have to wait for the Android version (which is due out late May/early June). The game is fantastic - excellent premise and a lot of fun (and I've already lost almost 5kg playing it!). It's a true Kickstarter success story.
How about a reverse kickstarter where companies would release source to their old games/programs if they get enough money?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1225737959/miskatonic-school-for-girls-deck-building-game
It funded, everyone involved got their copy of the game and it's available for purchase in the traditional manner now. A friend of mine bought it and we played this past weekend. It was a lot of fun, incidentally.
I'm pretty sure Kickstarter can do Rounds of funding, you could do it this way, update the goals for each round and not start a new round until you need further funds. With the right sort of rewards and the right sort of progress reports, you should be able to keep people interested and the project going without taking money for something you haven't done and/or won't do.
Eventually people will learn that throwing your money at devs before they even have a finished product ready is not a terribly good idea. My only wonder is how many Minecrafts and Project Zomboids it will take before people realise this. I would say things like these are threatening to do more harm to the gaming industry than some of the big company's like EA and their vicious day one DLC. Giving money to devs before seeing even a vague semblance of a finished product is NOT a good idea.
I sincerely hope this fad dies out and the bubble does burst so we can go back to giving money to indie devs AFTER all their hard work, lest we end up with more devs seemingly abandoning games after they feel they have made enough money from them.
This isn't to say that I don't support indie developers, because I absolutely do. I love the idea that you don't need to be a giant corporation to compete for sales in the video game industry. But I think things like kickstarter are absolutely not the right way to go about these things and I think they will end up ruining the indie game scene if taken too far.
Yeah, Musopen is late... but not shockingly so. Recording music takes time, especially when it's done on terms like these (an important reason for the delay was that the first orchestra backed out at the last minute).
If it turns out Aaron has been lying to us, and there are no master tapes, then we can talk about a scandal. But I don't think that will happen.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
the way it would burst "overnight" would be that the projects would need to start filing up like companies looking for investors.
now it's worded legally as if it's a donation that you may receive goods for though? it's loopholing in essence. for example if facebook would IPO like that they'd get smacked by the regulators soooooo baaaaaaad... "you may or may not receive stocks".
a lot of the successful kickstarter projects seem like they're just pre-orders with risk moved to the consumer - a regular consumer. if kickstarter type thing would provide a way out of warranty, CE etc responsibilities, we'd see apple moving to the model for their next iphone, obviously it wouldn't work like that though, they'd get smacked by regulators. so essentially a lot of the projects there are getting the free pass from consumer regulation simply because they're quite small.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
A nice Freudian slip!
"Some will see their teams collapse amidst bicker recriminations."
No bickering please!
the world doesn't need a single game engine more that isn't coupled to a game. there's way too many of them already.
and imaginative games tend to need the engines customized to the moon anyways. it's a lot better usually if the game and the engine are built hand in hand. the world could need another good elite clone, but not a freelancer clone you could do with for example valve's engine(there really aren't that many engines that support planets in solar systems in galaxies like frontier first encounter..).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Investment implies risk. The potential rewards for investment are high (in this case, getting games more in line with your personal preference rather than dealing with the mass market junk of the big corporations) but so are the risks. This is nothing unique to Kickstarter.
the world doesn't need a single game engine more that isn't coupled to a game. there's way too many of them already.
I'm still looking for one that's Open Source and really usable. I had hopes about NeoAxis, but it turned out to be commercial as well.
I'm aware that building a game engine is hard and thus needs a lot of money, but somehow it worked out greatly for a certain graphics engine, even though it's the same problem in the same industry.
and imaginative games tend to need the engines customized to the moon anyways.
That's why you can get the source to nearly every engine (if you can pay for the super premium license).
there really aren't that many engines that support planets in solar systems in galaxies like frontier first encounter..
I don't know that game, but generally, with a bit of smoke & mirrors (clever LoD, static cubemaps, etc.) most engines can be used for space shooters.
Only idiots will get offended when a kickstarter project fails. Every sensible backer will know that there is a risk of that happening from the beginning. But since any individual backer is only putting small amounts of disposable income behind it (I said "sensible"), what does it matter? It's not like my pension is depending on it or anything.
This is the fourth or fifth opinion piece I have seen about the "dangers" of kickstarter. Give it a rest already!!!
when you can skip the big company markeing drones that have been getting things wrong and don't really know their market you care going to see a lot of talk that their is a Kickstarter Bubble. Even if projects fail, I would rather have the opportunity for passionate people to make something great than more of the same sad crap the big companies will continue to push. And as a bonus, successful games started with Kickstarter will influence the direction of gaming as a whole.
Kickstarter only seems to fund 'fun' projects, not anything that will make any real major difference in the world.
Tried to get a Kickstarter going for one of my projects aimed at providing a combo desalination/sea-salt fertilizer-production/multi-tiered hydroponics farm to help countries with lots of seawater access and very little freshwater access.
"We're sorry, but your project doesn't meet our guidelines (despite me having read them all,) for this category."
Kickstarter is just a fad.
Kickstarter isn't about success of the project. It is about funding the project so that it might succeed. Thus there is no bubble to burst on success of project activity.
If you want to have more assurance that the projects you back are going to succeed then make due diligence, just like when financially backing any project. Ask yourself some important questions:
1. Is it a good project / product that has a market?
2. Are the people doing the project experienced in doing this type of project?
3. And most of all, is the project something you want to back? Maybe your back because you want that type of project to succeed. More likely you back because you want the product produced by the project.
If the answers are yes to all three then there is a very good likelihood the project will succeed not just in funding (what Kickstarter is about) but to completion and production of the product (after Kickstarter and what you're really concerned with).
In the real world most businesses do NOT succeed. Those that get to the point of producing a product often don't last very long thereafter. It takes a lot more than just a good idea to last in the market place.
So, what's a good project? Take our project for example:
http://smf.me/
We are building an on-farm USDA inspected nano-scale slaughterhouse, butcher shop and smokehouse for our pastured pork.
1. There is need, a market for this project:
A. The number of meat processing facilities has declined.
B. There is a bottleneck in processing, especially in the fall.
C. Our farm alone justifies the cost of construction and operation of such a facility because we need reliable, secure, quality processing every week of the year.
+This is a project with a guaranteed market since we already pay for hired butchering. Bringing the butchering on-farm means that the 50% of our income that goes to an outside butcher will now stay on-farm. Vertical integration and Just-in-Time Farming.
2. We are experienced and reliable:
A. We have nearly a decade of experience raising pastured pigs.
B. We have 18 months apprenticing to learn the art of meat cutting.
C. We have decades of experience in construction and design.
D. We have decades of experience in business, marketing and farming.
E. We have a long time established weekly delivery route delivering high quality pork to long time customers year round.
F. We have a huge stack of letters of recommendation and testimonials from the above customers you can check out as well as in our Kickstarter Video.
+In other words, we're very experienced and reliable.
So this leaves you with question #3:
3. Is our project something you want to back?
A. You believe in improving local, small scale agriculture.
B. You like our Open Sourcing of our butcher shop, sharing the information so others can build their own in other communities.
C. You like pork and bacon!
So, go to our project (http://smf.me) and check out the video, read the description, see all the great rewards. We are already 122% funded. Money we bring in now goes towards the next stage of construction, the on-farm abattoir. And, you can get T-shirts, ivory tusks and best of all, our delicious pastured pork shipped right to your home.
If you don't feel a project meets those three criteria, don't back it. Of course, never back a project for more than you feel comfortable with.
Cheers,
-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/
Boardgamers are a perfect example for Kickstarter as they're already used to various pre-order systems. For example, I play Advanced Squad Leader. Printing a niche product for a is a big risk for a small company who have day jobs, so they have their where they state a minimum number of said product that needs to be sold to break even - once enough people pledge to buy that product goes into the production queue. Win-win situation for everybody, and I'm looking forward to seeing more successful projects from it.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
37 Saddest Failed Kickstarters
I've no connection with buzzfeed. I am a backer of the Pebble Watch on Kickstarter.
There are some Kickstarter horror stories, like the Hanfree iPad stand. The project raised $35K, and never delivered. My uninformed guess is that they spent too much money on research, material selection, etc. and realized they didn't have enough left to actually fill the orders they had taken. The comments on the project page are brutal.
It has already happened. Kickstarter isn't the first incarnation of the concept. Its ideological predecessor, fundable.org, went defunct due to credit card scammers using it to launder money / little success in wrapping people's heads around the concept (even though it was essentially the same as Kickstarter).
Kickstarter already burst, but the failed projects get no press. Great example: Disapora.
Someone actually called Diaspora a Facebook competitor way back in 2010. And..... nothing. 180,000 users as of November 2011, not exactly a facebook competitor. And Dispora received $200,000 in June 2010, over 20 times their $10,000 goal. That's a lot of money that could have gone to real startups with a real future, not some pie-in-the-sky facebook killer. If they couldn't get it done with $200,000, what would they have done with $10,000? Nothing at all? "Our Promise. We promise to you that Diaspora will be aGPL software which will released at the end of the summer."
And according to Kickstarter's TOS they're responsible for nothing. If the company you invested in uses the money for blow and hookers, you're out of luck.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Any of these would signal that the bloom was off the rose:
But I have "invested" in 3 kickstarts, all three for physical devices. Two have gotten funded. The first one delivered on schedule with the item performing within a reasonable margin of my expectations. While the second one has encountered delays, when I checked up on them, they seem to be doing some quality engineering, and that takes time, so I am not too worried. The third is still in the openfunding stage, so we'll see. Bottom line: I am still very optimistic about new kickstarts.
Social Credit would solve everything...
None. None at all. And that's the beauty of it. Kickstarter is the ultimate expression of capitalist society. All risk, unknown reward. If you want someone to pitch in for your idea, you have to return the favor. We weren't meant to all be worker drones, but rather to be free to make a living as our own entity. It takes a set of brass ones to stick yourself out there, and it lights a fire under your butt to get a response like "Hell yeah! Do it! I'll throw in $10 just to see you TRY."
I back projects that I both like, and will get something tangible from.
What will I do the first time one of these big projects never delivers? I don't know, but I'll probably be more wary about making large commitments.
What happens if Double Fine just skips town with the cash? Is there any actual legal obligation conferred by the Kickstarter project?
This kickstarter notion came a couple of years after I bought into the development of Natural Selection 2 - in that time it's gone from being a bit rough and ready, to really quite enjoyable and playable, even though some features are still under development prior to the game being fully released this summer. So, for the grand sum of $40, i've been playtesting and helping to bug squish for the sequel to the game that kept me absolutely hooked for over 9 years - the original game was a free mod, and for the enjoyment it gave me over such an extended period, I saw it more as a "thank you" to the developers, whether the new game ever got released or not. Unknown Worlds Entertainment (UWE) are a very small team, and their development has been very open, through forums, twitter, IRC, videos, and have solicited and used many ideas from the pre-orderers - many people who pre-ordered have done more than just buy into the game, they've actually written their own code to fix bugs / improve gameplay characteristics, submitted it to the UWE team, who have included it in the game.
right now kickstarter is in the idealistic phase. you give money to people you don't know with great expectations. it doesn't take many silver tongued con artists to put a dent in those expectations.
Not really. Every project is an independent venture for you to consider funding. If you get burned on one you might look a little harder at the next one, but overall for each project you are reflecting if (a) you want to support the goal they have, and (b) if you want to pay enough to get something back from it.
It works even if some projects fail because Kickstarter is not really the people you are giving money to (although it is technically).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeffbrodnax/be-a-part-of-new-jeff-brodnax-record-love-and-gree
Truly makes me sick when artist get so much funding then let the people down when i work so damn hard