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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.
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
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
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.
... 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.
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
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.)
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.
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.
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.
Some people do not ascribe a monetary value to every action they make. For instance, the other day I gave money to a charity. My ROI is 0%, but I still enjoyed doing it.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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,
If it's Steve Jackson games, why do they need Kickstarter...they're Steeve Jackson Games. I'm beginning to think that Kickstarter is just for those who've already hit the "big time" but want to make some kind of ultra-niche vanity project that appeals to their hardcore fanbase and thusly wouldn't actually SELL in todays market, without spending their own capital.
Relaunching OGRE, it seems that Slashdot current editors dont thing the biggest Geek game of all time is news.
OGRE? The biggest geek game of all time? OGRE? You have got to be kidding. Even in the glory days of tabletop gaming, which are loooong gone, OGRE was a niche game. The biggest Geek game of all time is obviously D&D, which not only still survives in tabletop form and can still be bought in any bookstore, but inspired games on computers and consoles, has had a TV show AND movies, based on it.
Hell, even Battletech is bigger than OGRE.
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.
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