Kickstarter Games: Where They Are Now
We keep hearing success stories of indie video game projects that found funding through Kickstarter. Some have simply met their goals, while others have far exceeded the money they original asked for. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has provided updates on the progress of a huge list of funded projects. Many projects turned out to have unrealistic release dates. For example, Double Fine Adventure missed its August timeframe because it's getting a new engine. The new Leisure Suit Larry missed its October plans and hasn't been terribly open about a new one. However, most projects are humming along nicely, and some, like FTL: Faster Than Light have been completed and well received. The article exhorts all developers working on these games to make communication a priority, since the users are the ones who put up the cash, and deserve to know what's going on.
BlindSide was an early Kickstarter success, raising only 200% of our goal, about $14,000, but we released our beta on time, as promised.
:-)
Granted, it was the last day of the month and we stayed up 36 hours straight doing it, but we did it.
Maybe it's time for a little "how to manage slipped release dates" guide. I think it would look like this:
1) Communicate
2) Communicate
3) Communicate
Sure. Here's a google docs spreadsheet of it that I keep fairly up-to-date (maybe not to-the-minute, but I update it maybe weekly or more).
I might write an article some day about it or something, but other than that, I have no particular "claim" to the work, so people are welcome to use it however it may be of interest to them.
http://goo.gl/AiGW2