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

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.

Double Fine is a bad example.

[timrod]

With Double Fine, there's a lot of questions about how the money was spent - many of which have gone unanswered. For instance, Tim Schaefer initially said he would need $400,000 to make a full game. Granted, he arrived at that number using numbers from games he made in the early 90s, but then it spiralled out of control into a $3.3 million project. The numbers he HAS released show that he spent almost the entire initial amount - $400,000 - on "backer rewards".

The $3.3 million barely covered the first half of the game, and that was on top of another few million in crowdfunding that Schaefer did shortly before release date. They still don't have a released date set for the second half, other than "We're working on it and it might be out by the end of the year."

Re:Kickstarter's Problem

[halivar]

Not true. From the KS TOS:

Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.

And from the FAQ:

Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?
Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) This information can serve as a basis for legal recourse if a creator doesn't fulfill their promises. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.

Re:Kickstarter's Problem

[macdude22]

What kickstarter says and their actions are two different things. I'm having an issue where a company (a somwhat large board game company using kickstarter for preorderes) has not delivered the promised rewards or a refund. I reached out to kickstarter for clarification on these specific terms. After some back and forth where kickstarter kept dodging my questions they finally stated

Kickstarter Support (Kickstarter)
Aug 20 10:37
Alexander,
Thanks for writing in. Unfortunately I'm unable to comment further on our terms, as it is a standalone documentation of our policies.
Regards,
Alfie

I don't even know what that means. Short of it, kickstarter doesn't actually follow through with their terms and are unwilling to clarify any part of them.