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The Dangers of Beating Your Kickstarter Goal
jfruh writes "In March of 2012 legendary game designers Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert ran a Kickstarter to design a new adventure game, asked for $400,000, and came away with more than $3.3 million. Their promised delivery date was October 2012. Now it's July 2013, and the project still needs cash, which they plan to raise by selling an 'early release' version on Steam in January 2014. One possible lesson: radically overshooting your crowdfunding goal can cause you to wildly expand your ambitions, leading to a project that can't be tamed."
Surely you mean "The Dangers of Overextending the Scope of Your Project Beyond What Resource Allocations Allows".
I guess that's not scary enough though.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
pebble anyone?
Project costs way more than expected. News at 11.
Either they utterly under-estimated the cost, or blew all the money in Bahamas!
Only buy a finished product unless you have money to burn.
'It's a bad plan that can't be changed' – Publilius Syrus c.100 BC
Release the core game as it was intended on time and add the extras (in game, ports to other platforms, whatever...) later.
This needs to be planned for Kickstarters from, well, before the start. Because you might get more money than anticipated, but not more time.
Like not taking into account the Crowdfunding site share, Paypal transfer tax (depending on where you live and what site you did use), country, state and city taxes. If you are opening a business there are costs for that too. To properly employ someone is very expensive in some countries (guess what: taxes, social security and so on).
People will eventually learn how to calculate all this, but indies went too eager to the crowndfunding bubble and did not consult their accountants to see how much game development actually costs. Ow yes... accountants also cost money.
You could say that Tim was victim of his own success, but I say he was victim to his own creativity combined with over-excitement.
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
..could use a lesson from some famous entrepreneurs: use what you got first, then, if you need capital, ask for it. Judging by the length of time, it's not unheard of in the industry to spend a few years on the big, blockbuster games.
But, even the big boys know to release smaller games, to keep the funding going. I hear they have an App for that.
Actually, there is a problem with goals here-- specifically, that there wasn't one set in the first place. The Doublefine Kickstarter was an experiment that asked for money to finance the creation of a game, and a documentary film of the whole thing. Nobody knew what it was at first, certainly nobody expected it to get out of hand, and then Tim decided to make something Totally Amazingly New and proceeded to torpedo the budget.
What he has now is a fantastic idea, but it's the kind of fantastic idea that wants a whole lot more money than the KS brought in, because it's going to require a lot of artists working their hands down to the wrists.
Which is why you should stick to well defined objectives. Do the planned release. If you got more money than you expected then you release an expansion pack later for free.
in "The Producers".
For another example look at the Pebble watch.
Originally wanted $100,000 in funding, wound up getting over $10 million. That changed the size of their problem from making 1000 watches, to making 100,000 watches. So now they had to scale their manufacturing by a factor of 100, which is a totally different set of problems to solve.
There has been a lot of angst (some anger) at the delivery delays, most of the "investors" have been reasonably patient, some have been downright ignorant. One of the most popular forum topics is something like "I funded it on [date], why haven't I got my watch", where [date] was only a small number of days after the kickstarter campaign began, but in reality was when they were at over $5 million going up.
Disclaimer: I'm still waiting (patiently) on my two watches. I should have just ordered black, or changed to black when they made the option available. sigh!
EOM
The key is to stick to your original stated goals, and not to expand them just because you get a bunch more money.
People knew what they were buying with the KS, so there was no reason to radically up-scope the mission, especially to the point that the mission became unobtainable.
When you've got a "creative type" in charge of managing a project, you get "creative project management".
Where I work, if a 6-month project ended up taking 3 years, people would be fired. Or overthrown. Or lynched by a mob.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Take the lead from Ben (Throttle) Reuben and race in The Corley Motors Smash-A-Torium Amateur Driver Ultimate Destruction Maximum Carnage Marathon.
Good luck and don't lick the dumpster.
The same thing happened to Duke Nukem Forever. After the success of Duke Nukem Forever, they were given as much money and freedom as they wanted. Without any deadlines or boundaries, well, you know the rest of the story.
I really won't get how having excess money for a project should be a problem. Just proceed as originally planned, except richer.
While developers like to hate on publishers, and often with good reason, one thing they usually do is have some business and accounting sense to keep projects on track. Developers can have a "just another couple months and it'll be great!" mentality whereas a publisher understands that time is money, a lot of it. Every month you spend on a project has a big cost. Hence it can be important to release earlier, even if it does mean cutting back.
Shadowbane and Duke Nukem Forever are two great examples of developers just running away with the "we'll just work on it until it is whatever our vision is," sort of thing and failing massively.
The problem with the Doublefine thing is that it seems to be a creative person at the helm, and that can mean bad business decisions. It's a nice sentiment to say "Let creativity run wild," but in the real world, you have to consider business concerns.
I'm more optimistic on Wasteland 2 because Brian Fargo is at the helm and he's a business person. He seems to well understand the need for getting things out the door and working on doing what you can with the resources you have, even if it is less than you want to do.
Todd Howard had some good points on this during his keynote about this kind of thing: "Your ideas are not as important as your execution," and "We can do anything, we just can't do everything." Both are very true. You have to decide what is going to be in and what isn't, because you haven't the time or resources to implement it all, and what you do implement needs to be good because the grandest ideas are blunted in an unplayable game.
and game designers and developers are probably some of the most optimistic of the lot, in terms of thinking of how the idea that one of them thought up during the morning's commute, which was then embellished by a "jam" with co-workers in the conference room, is guaranteed to revolutionize the entire industry, and shake up existing establishments and conventions in digital art, and concepts of work and play, and Western Civilization.
Meanwhile hard-headed management that knows something about game development and what gamers are really interested in, is in short supply.
Some of the games that have come on KS have had a pretty good business plan behind them. They know what they want to make, the basics of the world, the story, the scope, all that kind of thing. They then can determine based on funding what sorts of things they'll be able to put in the final project. I mean this goes on with any game project, you will have more ideas than you've ability to implement, so you decide what to keep and what to cut.
However the Doublefine Adventure really didn't seem to have that. It was basically "Let's make a point and click adventure game!" Ok, cool, but that is pretty broad. I mean they don't even have enough to have a title, just kinda a place holder. A whole lot could fall in their potential scope. Hence, a bit harder to know how to budget for it and so on.
They really would have been better off having a more solid plan first and then been able to do some budgeting on it.
Consider you can raise under a million on kickstarter to create a movie using well-known A-list actors.
The Dangers of Bad Project Management
The Dangers of Scope Creep
The Dangers of your eyes being bigger than your stomach.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
... but nobody considers the possibility that Double Fine wants to make the best possible game, and that takes time, no matter how much money (or fans) you have.
Isn't "I have too large a budget" the ultimate first world problem? Hell it is probably a zeroth world problem.
I just don't understand why the scope was expanded at all.
If I need $X to do W, and then find myself with $X+Y, I spend $X to do W, then keep $Y for a later Z.
More specifically, he said "I want to make this game, and need $400,000". Once he got $3.3 million, he should have created and released the original game he had planned, and reserved the other $2.9 million for the next game.
What kind of fucking idiot decides to spend all the money he has simply because he has it?
Unregulated securities. Been there, done that. Surely, it will be different this time.
Scope creep has always been capable of consuming even the most generous of budgets.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The issues described are as old as business. Crowd funding complies with the same laws of risk and fear as any other form of finance. People tend to think that money can solve everything and that more money is always better. What they don't realize is that expectations grow exponentially. Even large companies (banks for instance) suffer from shareholder syndrome. Shareholders that fund a company expect ever bigger profits which attracts more shareholders that expect even bigger profits etc. etc. The more funding a company attracts, the higher the expectations. If the returns on investment isn't dividend and a rising share price but products (as is the case with Kickstarter) expectations can completely derail what was originally a viable project. And that is just for companies that mean well. There is a growing number of companies that see Kickstarter as just a funding source that guarantees sales before any product has even been made. They will promise the moon and have no problem underdelivering when it suits them.
Statement titled "A Note from Tim"
As a side note, it appears that a majority of the backers (or at least, those who identify themselves as backers online) are fine with expanding the scope of the game. And also, that those who complain the loudest against it do not appear to have put any money into the project (like parent poster).
The issue comes from backers believing they're preordering a product.
This is not what is going on here. What is going on is more akin to the Medieval practice of being a patron to an artist.
We hand our collective money to an artist who says "I want to make something like this... And the more you provide me in funding the bigger and more grand a statue I can make."
We as a group come together and pool our money and hand it to the artist saying "We like your vision. Here is a bucket of gold coins, go forth and create awesomeness".
This makes more sense when you consider that the high end rewards are usually something like "A copy of the widget, plus lunch with the widget visionary"
Noone pays 1000$ for a game. People pay 1000$ for artistic vision and being a part of seeing the vision realized.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
To get rid of 3.3 million dollars in less than a year? I don't care how much feature creep you have- that's ridiculous.
The "Bronycon Documentary" kickstarter did this. They raised like $350k of a target of $60k. They then wildly expanded their scope and ended up losing money. I had a good laugh. They thought they'd be able to sell digital downloads of it for $13, after already cannibalizing their base of support to fund the thing. It's like people can't take ten seconds to think their business plans through.
The only thing you have to understand about it: there is never enough.
IMHO, kickstarter should reclaim the money as they clearly didn't deliver when they said, even overshot it by a large margin..
I just wonder where all the money went now, and IMHO they should show a records of where every penny went..
... thank the backers for the gratuitous funding, come up with a reasonable scope for the game, and promise to use the rest of the money for funding the next game and/or for unforseen expenses that pop up during development?
Every day, i look at Kickstarter games.
Each day passes with a new Concept/idea, but, very rarely do i actually see any product.
Its great to have an idea, or, a concept. But most of these "games" are just that, and, rely on "cheating" the people who fund the idea into a possible product.
Throwing money at a idea is dangerous for both the company and the buyers, especially, if the company has no sense of direction or core game to work on.
Two problems:
- 1. The people who pay silly money for a "concept/idea".
- 2. The dev team who make a few renders, a few ideas, no actual real "gameplay" content. Then ask for funding goals which have just been thought up in 2 minutes.
I'am currently producing a game, its cost me £0 to make so far.
It may show up on KS one day, but, only when the "core gameplay/content" is solid enough.
I would be embarrassed to show a few concept art/renders and say "we need 1 million to make a game".
Every day, i look at Kickstarter games. Each day passes with a new Concept/idea, but, very rarely do i actually see any product. Its great to have an idea, or, a concept. But most of these "games" are just that, and, rely on "cheating" the people who fund the idea into a possible product. Throwing money at a idea is dangerous for both the company and the buyers, especially, if the company has no sense of direction or core game to work on. Two problems: - 1. The people who pay silly money for a "concept/idea". - 2. The dev team who make a few renders, a few ideas, no actual real "gameplay" content. Then ask for funding goals which have just been thought up in 2 minutes. I'am currently producing a game, its cost me £0 to make so far. It may show up on KS one day, but, only when the "core gameplay/content" is solid enough. I would be embarrassed to show a few concept art/renders and say "we need 1 million to make a game". The end rule, throwing money at a "idea" can actually do more harm than good. The more you have, the easier it is to spend, especially, when its been managed so badly. MWO is a prime example of this.
I think it is funny that everyone is bitching and whining about how much money they've taken to develop the game, how it was 8x what was originally asked for, and they still need more money. Guess what? You guys have just gotten a taste of what big game producers deal with every game - EA, Activision, Sega, Nintendo...you name it. So next time you are saying "oh company X sucks because they forced this out the door", think about this kickstarter and the whining about it going over budget and not delivering. It's endemic to the game industry.
I dont like kickstarters for for-profit businesses. They get free money without having to provide a financial return. When someone invests in you, they get equity. Here they just get cash.
There have been a couple of good roguelike Kickstarters (one of which is open source). The first I am happy with and the 2nd is so they can hire a developer to work on it full time.
Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM)
www.adom.de
This got funded to $90,000. You can play the old release up to 1.1.1 for free. It is very fun and very challenging. The developer has been punching out new features rapidly. However, the original free version is good. The developer built this for free for 10+ years. BTW, When the pre-releases are done, he is going to make the new version free. To warn you. This game has perma-death and its not fair. Its very hard.
Cataclysm DDA
http://en.cataclysmdda.com/
This is an open source zombie survival game. The code is on github and modders are encouraged. The core developers will work with you to role your code into the main game. It is very fun. The kickstarter here has raised about $7800. One of the main coders is going to quit his job and work on this for a few months. The pay he is taking is a fraction of what he will get working for someone. This game is also 100% free. You are not required to donate to play. I encourage anyone who likes to code in C/C++ to check it out and see if you want to join in on the modding. They do nightly builds. So far upwards of 100 people have contributed code to the game.
BTW, you can help out alot with suggestions. The guys who develop the game rely on peoples suggestions to give them new ideas.
As stated, NO ONE is making money off of this.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/schuyler/lockpicks-by-open-locksport/posts
Lockpicks by Schuyler Towne raised 87K of a 6K goal and apparently, he used the money to go on a bender / fund his personal needs (rent, car, etc) and created nothing. Friends are trying to repair the situation, but three years later, nothing.
"Because you might get more money than anticipated, but not more time." NONSENSE. When a deadline passes, what happens? Is the whole team actually dead? No? So they just keep woking and release it later? Anybody NOT notice this at your job? Unless its and actual life or death situation (Medical Emergency, war, natural disater, etc), deadlines are just a guestimate. It takes as long as it takes, regardless of how you stamp your little feet. Pressureing the team to "dance faster" just makes it worse.
how many times do we have to see the same article about how its hard to program if you have too much resources? we get it already i think
There is no accountability on Kickstarter. It's the "honor" system of capital investment.
If you earn more then 7 times your target and still need money, lets face it, you failed on all levels.
Chances are the 3 million was squandered on bullshit and when the money ran out they realized they still needed to make a product they promised. I mean you have 3 million thrown at you in a few months from a few hundred thousand basically anonymous dupes what would you do? Buy a car, house,rent out a nice office, kick ass computers for the staff, and then, maybe, make a game with the change left over because nobody is going to come knocking asking for their investment back if you fail. Oh and you print off a thousand T-shirts or other stupid swag to make the dupes feel good.
I think Kickstarter should stop the idea of allowing you to exceed your target. If you think $65K is enough to start your project then once you get $65K then donation button is disabled. If you still need more money then open up a second round of donations, but realize that you do this more then a few times and people will understand your idea and business strategy is bullshit and will move on.
Remember, this is to kick start your project, not fund your lifestyle.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.