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Gaming Legends Discuss Using Kickstarter For Their Next Projects
Nerval's Lobster writes "Just as the Internet fundamentally altered the way games are distributed from publishers to players, crowdfunding has upended the traditional models of raising money for gaming development, and some of the most storied people in the industry are taking notice. Chris Roberts, who created the well-known Wing Commander series in 1990, managed to raise millions of dollars on Kickstarter last fall for his upcoming Star Citizen, eventually collecting so much money from individual backers that he could return the budget he'd taken from "formal" investment firms. "Even nice investors, they want a return at some point. They have a slightly diff agenda than I do," Roberts told Slashdot. "My agenda is to build the coolest game possible." He's not the only famed developer getting into the crowdfunding game: Wasteland director Brian Fargo spent years wanting to make a sequel to his popular role-playing game, eventually accomplishing that goal via Kickstarter. And for every famous game creator who uses the power of crowds to produce a new masterwork, dozens of talented amateurs are also financing their first games via Kickstarter and similar services. But that doesn't mean there are occasional high-profile implosions, like CLANG."
Getting money from a different source that leads to a more open development process=excessive greed?
Sometimes you should explain your opinions.
I like the idea of Kickstarter, but I think a lot of people have co-opted it and it's becoming much less useful for finding really nifty projects. Too many corporate "we're too lazy to handle our own preorders" stuff on it these days.
Maybe that's a feature, not a bug, to the Kickstarter people but it's turned me off from browsing. Finding the diamonds in the rough is a lot harder with the corporate invaders adding so much more rough.
Getting money from a different source that leads to a more open development process=excessive greed?
Sometimes you should explain your opinions.
I think his point, and I don't know if I agree or disagree, is that more and more wealthy people are using kickstarter as a way of starting projects. These are people unwilling to risk their own fortunes and instead wish to use yours and mine. If they believed in their project so much they would use their own money to back it, but they don't.
I don't know if this is one of those situations but if these people are "gaming legends" as the article implies then one would assume, rightly or wrongly, that they are wealthy but unwilling to back their own project.
I believe kickstarter should be used for the up and comers, the idealists who are just getting started. When I see a wealthy person using kickstarter I just see greed and a complete lack of dedication to their own ideas and abilities.
I read TFA (don't judge) and all I could see is feature creep and delays written all over the project. EA's death marches to release should be avoided at all costs, but polar opposite is not any better.
More likely they simply want more assurance that they can succeed. Kickstarter lets them know their are paying customers lined up for a product.
I will not spend money on kickstarter for the up and comers as they are quite likely to just run off with the money as we have seen so many times.
Indeed, it is following the same path as Ebay, which was once an awesome place to find and sell older stuff, but these days it's populated at 98% by Ebay Stores with set prices, and lost it's usefullness as an auction site. Kickstarter is going that way too, it started as a great place for new, small projects, but is being overrun now by corps who uses it as a launch platform for their next product.
At the rate Star Citizen is raising money, it's going to have an AAA budget before it comes out. It happened to hit the sweet spot of a known creator with a proven track record, good timing, and a genre with a lot of fans starved for a game. It's been marketed well, and the early previews have been good to wet the appetite (there's no meat available yet).
The sheer amount of money they've got (almost $20 million) makes it so unusual that it doesn't make a good example. Even if the game is a resounding success (and I sure hope it is) it's not a good example to follow because so few crowdfunded projects can get even close to that in funding.
What other projects CAN learn from them is to not stop fundraising just because your Kickstarter is over. Beyond that, it's just too weird to draw any kind of conclusions from.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Although Kickstarter and its ilk have plenty of flaws (for instance, that you probably will never see any returns on your investments), I see crowdfunding as having an important place in the information age. It takes the money and power from the big publishers, and gives it back to the developers and customers, respectively. And it allows the existence of niche projects which most companies would deem as "too risky".
I see the same kind of thing happening with music as well, with sites like bandcamp. As I recall, Radiohead made much more money selling pay-what-you-want copies of "In Rainbows" than they did with all their previous albums put together. Realistically, I don't see the recording industry dying any time soon, but at least we now have financially viable alternatives. It allows things to exist that simply could not have existed otherwise.
If they believed in their project so much they would use their own money to back it, but they don't.
With the tiny big difference that if they invest their fortune, once the project is finished they have to sell the product.
Kickstarter "only" guarantees buyers. It doesn't matter how amazingly rich you are, knowing that you've got buyers is always good.
For example, Microsoft could have kickstarted their surface 2 to check if there's still enough... clients.
Chris Roberts, who created the well-known Wing Commander series in 1990, managed to raise millions of dollars on Kickstarter last fall for his upcoming Star Citizen, eventually collecting so much money from individual backers that he could return the budget he'd taken from "formal" investment firms. "Even nice investors, they want a return at some point. They have a slightly diff agenda than I do," Roberts told Slashdot. "My agenda is to build the coolest game possible."
Herein lies the difference. Kickstarter backers are not seen as actual investors in the project by the project owners, but rather as a way to informally fund games that the developers want to work on without feeling like there is any real obligation to those who funded it. To paraphrase what Chris Roberts stated, he couldn't care less if it ever makes any money as long as he gets to build the "coolest game possible". Without the incentive/pressure of investors looking for a return however, there will always be "just one or two more things" to finish up and the game will never actually get released.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
What you're complaining about is the inability to find the projects that are interesting to you and I have the same complaint about kickstarter. Several times I've heard about a project that didn't reach it's funding goal I would have loved to have backed but for whatever reason I didn't discover it until it was too late.
Every digital marketplace has this problem to some extent. The good ones seem to have a good recommendation engine like amazon and netflix or they're heavily curated like steam and Xbox Arcade. Then there are places like kickstarter and iOS where they highlight the best 40 or so and let the rest remain obscure.
Discover-ability is a real problem that is only going to get worse as digital markets get more popular and larger. And I'm guessing that any company that can solve that problem will be the next tech service monopoly.
Ergo, creative control. He never acted as if it was outrageous that investors want something for their money, that's an interesting bit of fantasy on your part. He merely noted that this does create constraints that can interfere with making a good game (there's a few dozen examples you can hear about if you actually follow the discussions among the game developers -- CR tends to be vague, but some of his employees that worked with him at Digital Anvil and other previous projects can be quite specific and biting at times about the interference they've gotten from publishers in the past).
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Max: The two cardinal rules of producing. One: Never put your own money in the show.
Leo: And two?
Max: NEVER PUT YOUR OWN MONEY IN THE SHOW!
The problem is when people who DON'T need kickstarter clog the pipe up. Spoiled brat kids of overpaid, undertalented music acts "kickstarting" their 2nd or 3rd album for instance. James Franco wanting people to "kickstart" his vanity-movie project.
Shit like this clutters up the site and makes it impossible to find the people who have interesting projects that actually need the help.
Umm, no. That's not his point at all. His point was this: he wants to make a video game. One that is well-made, fun, and follows his vision. The investors simply want money. The means of getting that money are irrelevant (so long as it's legal... well, most investors care about that. Well, the nice ones do, anyways). When you follow the former, you end up with games that are original, interesting, and usually quite fun (Braid, Bastion, Portal, etc.). Sometimes these make money, sometimes they don't. When you follow the latter, you end up with Call of Duty: 2013. This often makes you a lot of money, but it also makes for rather terrible games and stagnation in the industry. Hence, the massive amounts of re-hashed expensive shit that gets shoved out by most of the AAA studios while the actually interesting and novel ideas are relegated to being made on a shoe-string budget in someones garage (usually: not always).
Anyways, Roberts does give the community something, namely, the game. Not money, but what they (and he) actually want. When everyone involved in the project actually wants the same thing, you can focus on that. If he had investors, he'd need to focus at least somewhat on making a game that could earn money. As it stands, even if the game sells zero copies after release, it doesn't matter so long as the gameplay satisfies the crowdfunders.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
That's an interesting perspective, and one I had not considered. It's not unlike trying to get a small business loan for a start-up. No traditional model lending institution is going to loan you money if you aren't willing to risk any of your own. Gambling with house money can cause people to take risks that they otherwise may not, thus increasing the chances of a poor return on investment. Conversely, few success stories ever come out of people playing it safe, and Kickstarter may afford a designer or developer the option to take a risk that could be the difference maker in success...although that cuts both ways.
As a board gamer, I know that even successful game designers aren't usually wealthy, but they do have contacts and access that fledglings do not have. I don't know if that should keep them from starting a crowd funding project or not.
I certainly agree though that Kickstarter has been co-opted by larger companies and bigger names away from the garage inventors, hobbyists, and tinkerers; and that is kind of sad. Backing a project is now much more like shopping, than a quasi-philanthropic gesture of belief in a person or product. Part of me thinks Kickstarter should be open to all, and the public can decide what they will back. That would be the truest form of the democratization of funding. But it would probably be naive to think smaller operators wouldn't be marginalized.
It's a tough call.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
"Dude had the funding, but he didn't want to share his profits with the people that were giving him money. Ergo, excessive greed."
At this point, many of us old gamers could give less of a fuck. Publishers have single handledly:
-Dumbed down games
-Stopped making many genre's that used to exist in the past
Gamers are throwing money at projects because we know nothing will get made otherwise. We know some projects will fail, some will take our money, etc. But how's that different from publishers, DRM, Steam, etc? These people have taken our money and fucked us anyway with DRM and all sorts of onerous bullshit rules.
At this point we could care less, the whole gaming world is just once giant exploitation circle jerk with MMO's, F2P and DRM.
When games like wow and diablo 3 are selling virtual items, and Diablo 3 has single player lag... just how exactly are we not getting fucked six ways to sunday?
I didn't buy any of these games, but kids, illiterates and dumbasses who feed corporations aren't going to stop. So what choice to gamers who want games not being made have?
I think Kickstarter is having a negative effect on game developers, and it's certainly not doing any favors for gamers.
When it becomes easier to collect money for promising a game than it does to do the hard work and actually produce and release a good game, you'll see what's happening now: a regression in PC gaming.
Over the past several years, there has been something of a renaissance in PC gaming. Skyrim, Far Cry 3, Dishonored, etc. Big games that deliver plenty of value to the consumer. Games, like Skyrim and Far Cry 3 that you can easily put 50-100 hours (or more) and still enjoy. Games that fire up a whole community.
2013 has been an awful year for PC gaming. Look at the list of GOTY candidates from a year ago, and ask yourself if there are any games that have been released this year that are nearly as good, or will provide such good value. I believe, though I don't really have any hard data, that the rise of Kickstarter has convinced a lot of AAA developers to just put out their dream game on Kickstarter and start collecting money. It's a hell of a lot easier than dealing with a big game company and all the hassles, plus when you go that route, the company actually expects you to release something.
Instead, we have a list of promises. Trailers. Trailers announcing the release of a new trailer. Where are the AAA sim racing games this year? Where is the big blockbuster like GTA V for PC this year. Everything is "later". Has there ever been a Kickstarted game that released on schedule?
At least when you give your money to a game company, you get a game, not a promise. If the Kickstarter campaign doesn't produce a game, what do you get besides a new item on your credit card?
If you're going to give somebody money up front, you need to get more than a promise. We have a very well-known system for doing that, it's called "investing". If I'm going to give somebody my money up front so they can make a game, I want a share, however small, of the profits. Besides the novelty, there is absolutely no incentive to donate to a Kickstarted game. Zero. If the game's worth making, then do the work and find backing. But not donations...real backing. You can do it using crowd-funding, but give people real value for the risk they're taking, not just a promise that they'll get a copy of an alpha release when and if the game ever comes out.
I liked Kickstarter for games at first. Thought it was innovative and could produce games that could never be made otherwise. Because there is no accountability, that hasn't happened.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Having those close to the "investors" setting parameter on technical/gameplay details has them tied to highest-possible financial returns instead of product quality.
In the case of certain big gaming studios, a bad release doesn't even seem a setback any more as they'll just buy out the (smaller) competing shops leaving you with no other choice.
You can create a great game that makes a good/great profit. The problem is that when you start involving those close to the "investors" they want to cut the razors edge between not-fun-enough-to-sell VS crap-that-makes-more-money. Instead of profits based on game sales, you end up with "features" that increase profit but detract from game value such as:
a) Rushed release with poor testing (particularly common when a "big shop" buys out a successful small shop, cuts staff, and imposes sequelitis)
b) 0-day DLC (a.k.a cutting content to sell more as "premium" add-ons)
c) Internet-required/Always-on-DRM
d) Sequelitis (a.k.a interesting, original ideas are too risky and thus do not materialize)
e) In-game ads, including content-updates/downloads that exist just to update advertising
f) Paid DLC/items/levelling/etc
g) Multiplayer-required (good single-player games are becoming increasingly rare)
h) Analytics and personal-information scraping (getting particularly bad on mobile games etc asking for unreasonable permissions)
i) Console/mobile targeted games (may exist on PC but is controls are obviously intended for console)
Except that in the case of Star Citizen, you get the game with a pledge of $35+. That isn't a bad deal considering that AAA games go for $60 now when they first come out.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Even the "nice" investors still want a _monetary_ return, and if that means watering down the game's ambitions so they can pump up the ROI a few points, they're going to push for that.
Which is different from getting your funding from the players, who would be delighted to push for the complete opposite, because they want an _entertainment_ return.