Kickstarter Huh?

[son_of_montfort]

Absent of any assurance of the project being completed, I suppose it's a degree of faith. But I think you're being unnecessarily cynical on not knowing if the developers are who they say they are on the site.

Donors win with the bigger projects on getting a completed game that would not have been completed otherwise, i.e., blocked by traditional publishers.

I have yet to get burned, and I wonder from where this cynicism stems. Are people aware of a project that defrauded its backers? With the notable exception of Steve Jackson's Ogre, I haven't given enough money to one project to get overly burned anyway (and I know Steve Jackson will deliver).

Please note, GMT Games and other war game publishers have been doing this for years, calling it P500.

[jomni]

P500 is different. They won't charge your card until the game is finished and in the printers.  there is no loss when they cancel a project.

There are many failed projects in Kickstarter if you google it.

[Keunert]

some of the successfully funded projects are done by pro's and well known names: Wasteland, Ogre, Tim Schafer, Shadowrun.
their renome is at stake here. if they do not deliever they will get hell from the gamers. i think that's no small cost for a
developer. same thing happened for years by the way of pre purchasing. and there were some fails too.

i love the idea, that's one of the great things that the net makes possible. i am also sure some projects will fail badly and
there's also already one case of fraud documented on the rock paper shotgun site. but i guess in a year or two we will see
a lot of good stuff coming only because there was public funding.

i would also expect that our niche hobby could profit by this kind of funding. monster turn based historical games aren't done
by large firms anymore. Kickstarter would fans allow to support small niche producers.

[airboy]

Appreciate the discussion.  I have a better understanding of why people who contribute to Kickstarter for PC game development.

[Steelgrave]

I put money into Wasteland 2 because I believe its a sure thing down the road and a must have game for me. I will put money into Dead State because I love the concept and think they have a shot at making it work. Dead State may never see the light of day and I accept that, so it's a bit of a gamble, but without something like Kickstarter it may have no chance. I like the concept of Kickstarter, but like anything I put my money into, I make choices and try hard to make them informed choices.

[LongBlade]

Appreciate the discussion.  I have a better understanding of why people who contribute to Kickstarter for PC game development.

In accounting terms, I believe it's called "goodwill."

The value of a brand, if you will.

Kickstarter seems to do something remarkable: establish the faith in a brand before the product exists. It creates goodwill before the product.

IMHO that's a bit of an extraordinary development in marketing.

[son_of_montfort]

P500 is different. They won't charge your card until the game is finished and in the printers.  there is no loss when they cancel a project.

There are many failed projects in Kickstarter if you google it.

Jomni, I wasn't talking about failed projects. If a project fails to make its goal in Kickstarter, the donors are never charged (you are only charged at the end, if the project is successfully funded, fairly similar to P500). We were talking about projects where people paid, but that the developer "ran off" with the donors' money or the project was untenable. I haven't personally heard of any of those.

So note, there is no loss if the project gets cancelled or fails to meet its funding goal.

IMHO, LB, it is more than that - it allows for small level investment to be made at the fan level. This is NOT selling a pre-order, i.e. not wholly a marketing thing - rather it is courting grassroots support for a proposal similar to charity or political fundraising. In a way, this lets consumers "vote with their wallet" for what will be developed.

[LongBlade]

Yeah, that's part of it, too SoM.

It's a release of sorts for what is called "pent up demand."

[Gusington]

^That's the best part of it, really. To have in-demand projects born and see the light of day that would have otherwise been tossed out by big publishers.

[Onion]

There was a excellent interview with one of the founders of Kickstarter on Marketplace just last night (if you are interested you can download the podcast).

[Gusington]

Speaking of Kickstarter fraud:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/01/kickstopped-the-strange-case-of-mythic-gods-men/#more-106454

Not good.

[son_of_montfort]

Speaking of Kickstarter fraud:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/01/kickstopped-the-strange-case-of-mythic-gods-men/#more-106454

Not good.

Of course that popped up right after I made my statement.  ::)

The good news is that nobody was charged, since Kickstarter does not charge until the project is over. This gives around a month for people to see through clear fraud (which is exactly what happened here). Some comments at RPS rightfully pointed out that, if trying to commit fraud, doing a PC game Kickstarter is a poor choice, given fan awareness.

[LongBlade]

Speaking of Kickstarter fraud:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/01/kickstopped-the-strange-case-of-mythic-gods-men/#more-106454

Not good.

Of course that popped up right after I made my statement.  ::)

The good news is that nobody was charged, since Kickstarter does not charge until the project is over. This gives around a month for people to see through clear fraud (which is exactly what happened here). Some comments at RPS rightfully pointed out that, if trying to commit fraud, doing a PC game Kickstarter is a poor choice, given fan awareness.

Don't worry about it. Kickstarter has so many things going on that it's unlikely that anyone knows every one. Numerically speaking it is inevitable that something wouldn't be right.

The wonder is why a gaggle of fraudsters hasn't ruined the whole thing yet.

[Arctic Blast]

I suspect the bigger problem is going to be (and already is, in a few cases) totally inexperienced developers who have never had to figure costs or logistics before. There are Kickstarted board games totally printed and ready in China, but the people behind it are only now realizing they have no idea how to get them to the rest of the world. Or you have board and computer game devs promising dozens of freebies, only to later realize that those freebies cost A LOT of money, and make the item more expensive to ship.

Arctic Blast, do you have examples of this? I haven't seen this happening. I have seen board game developers have unforeseen problems with printing delays in China, but largely these people are getting the product to their supporters. Can you back this up or did you mean this as supposition? I also don't see a lot of problem with the freebies (which aren't actually free, given you pay higher levels to get more stuff). I follow the major projects and all-in-all people have been pleased over at Board Game Geek (and they are a tough bunch to please).

The Glory to Rome Black Box Edition is a pretty good example. The game is done. They've already missed two earlier promised ship dates, despite the fact the game was done for the second one of those as well. But the games are all sitting in China, because they haven't been able to ship them out. Now they say somewhere between June - August. Well, THEY don't...all of the publisher guys seem to have vanished and are too busy to respond on BGG, but the guy who works for them on a volunteer basis gets to face the firing squad. Lucky him. Will it ship? Of course. But my point is that it has been held up for a minimum of half a year because the game designers don't know how to finish the project.

Logistics and shipping is something a lot of people don't really understand the insane complexity of, simply because they don't have to deal with it on a regular basis. That's going to include game designers, many of whom have never dealt with actually sending out a finished product before. It's not easy, particularly when you're talking about mass quantities (which is something I thankfully only have to deal with on rare occasions) moving from one international location to many others. Now, some of the people promising physical extras are computer game devs, and not industry veteran types either. Do you really think they've all considered the fact that they now need to ship a physical product? Or that every time they add another little trinket to that product, they've increased their packaging and shipping costs for potentially thousands of boxes?

And while I have no problem with Kickstarter itself, it's NOT really comparable to a P500 program for one important reason.

-If I pledge money to a Kickstarter project, my money is taken once it reaches it's FUNDING goal by the end date of it's funding period. Development doesn't even have to have started on it.

-If I pledge money to a P500 game, my money is taken once the game is finished, or nearly finished. Development is pretty much done, and the product's release is imminent.

Finally, I have to question the legitimacy of some of the funding for bad projects that pops up from time to time. There was an MMO project (I wish I had bookmarked it, because I don't even remember the name) that was a complete disaster. The guy behind it described himself as someone who has played a lot of games and is an idea man. Nobody involved seemed to have any development background. They had all of these videos with the idea man promising this grandiose vision that sounded like an un-programmable nightmare. No level caps, but the game would somehow continue to offer challenge to players of every level. Plenty of quests developed for characters on a customized basis by the system itself. All kinds of nonsense. Now, it failed. It didn't come anywhere NEAR success. The guy wanted $1 million, and he got about $25,000.

But $20,000 of that came from a pair of $10,000 backing bids. Either his parents are quite well off and threw some serious pity money at junior's dream, or those two 'bids' were complete fiction designed to make it look like there might be interest, because I can't imagine ANYONE promising that kind of money for that mess.

AHA! Found it! Apparently it still has 42 hours to go. It has a total of $31,300 in funding, most of that from THREE $10,000 bids.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120873716/your-world

[Gusington]

^Good post. I was going to post that my money has been already taken from my account for Wasteland 2, while development has barely started yet. Important distinction.