Kickstarter's Problem: You Have To Make the Game Before You Ask For Money

An anonymous reader writes with this piece about Digital Knights, the studio behind the Kickstarter campaign project Sienna Storm, which was cancelled this week after the team raised only 10% of their $180,000 target, despite a compelling concept (a card based espionage game) and a reputable team including the writer of the original Deus Ex, Sheldon Pacotti. The team is now seeking alternative funding before reaching out to publishers, but in an interview given this week, Knights CEO Sergei Filipov highlights what he sees as a recent and growing problem with crowdfunding games: an expectation to see a working prototype. "It seems at least 50 or 60 percent of the game needs to be completed before one launches a campaign on Kickstarter," he says. It's a chicken and egg cycle some indie developers will struggle to break out of, and shows just how far we've come since Tim Schafer's Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter burst the doors open two years ago.

Comments

Kickstarter's Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You get nothing, and are owed nothing, from the people you give money to.

Actually a good thing.

[BarbaraHudson]

This requires would-be developers to have significant skin already in the game (pardon the pun) in terms of time and resources invested. Better than "I have an idea, now give me money and I'll eventually build it for ya." Or all those similar-talking losers on Shark Tank and Dragons Den who think and idea with nothing else is worth big bucks.

Re:Actually a good thing.

[Mr D from 63]

Exactly. Prove that you know what you are doing and you are capable of accomplishing something greater than just hatching an idea before asking for money.

Re:Actually a good thing.

[BarbaraHudson]

There are ways out of this. The first is to find one or more partners who have the necessary skills to develop the prototype with him, in return for equity. Not willing to give up equity? Then too bad? Can't convince devs that your idea is not that great/unique/compelling (because we've ALL heard variants of this "my idea is SO great - all you have to do is code it and we'll be rich" bullsh*t)? Again, too bad.

The real "way out of this" is to realize that, since he doesn't have the necessary skills, he either has to acquire them or give up. Not willing to take the years necessary to acquire them? Like the old saying goes, "The will to succeed isn't as important as the will to plan to succeed." Not having a plan that takes the obvious potential obstacles such as the ones you cited into account is a pretty good indicator that you're not the one to invest in. After all, ultimately, people invest in people, not products. The product won't complete itself. You can't hold an incomplete product accountable. You hold the people behind it accountable.

Because 95% of software game kickstarters....

[Anonymous Coward]

Have ruined it for the other 5%. Constantly pushed back deadlines, incomplete/inferior projects being shipped, or else nothing at all being completed. I wouldn't invest a dime in a kickstarter project at this point after being burned several times. I'll just wait for the finished project which usually costs the same or 5-10% more with no risk involved

Yeah, so?

[realmolo]

You *should* have a working prototype before you expect to get money.

Yes, it's difficult to build a prototype when you don't have funds. Welcome to the Real World, asshole. It's not easy to produce/market a new product. Kickstarter has made it *easier*, but it's not a magic bullet. It briefly *was* a magic bullet before people got smart and realized that giving money away for something that has almost no chance of ever being a real product was silly.

How about you risk your own money instead...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps people are wise to the Kickstarter business model of "heads we win and take all the profit when we sell out, tails you lose and cover our losses if it flops" and are unwilling to provide handouts for these people to use to run off and make their (in some cases, additional) fortune.

Ya well

[Sycraft-fu]

If you aren't a known developer, people want to see some evidence that you have the ability to make good on your plans. Game development isn't simple, and many people are not prepared for what they are going to have to do to bring a successful game to market.

So Doublefine or inXile can get a good bit of funding with nothing but a design doc for a game because people have faith they'll be able to deliver since they are experienced game devs. New crews are going to have to show something to get people to trust them.

Particularly in light of past KS failures in that regard. I've backed a number of games on KS and two of them I knew were fairly high risk: They were being done by an individual who hadn't done a game before, and there wasn't any sort of demo up front, just some basic concepts. I decided to take a risk on it, but fully understood that failure was likely.

Sure enough, both are floundering/failing. One hasn't had any updates in months, the other does update periodically but it is still extremely rudimentary, despite being way past the planned launch date, and it is pretty clear the dev just doesn't have a good idea how to proceed from here.

On the flip side, the games by established studios have either delivered or are well on track (Shadowrun Returns was brilliant, Wasteland 2 ships next Friday, Pillars of Eternity is in beta, etc). Likewise the indy titles that had a demo and were a good bit along with development have delivered, like FTL.

So no surprise many people aren't willing to take the risk. They want a better chance of return so they stick with established devs or with things that have some proof.