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pokoko on 26 May 2015
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padib said:
pokoko said:

If this were funded by something like Kickstarter, your point would probably be much more clear, but I'm honestly not sure how this translates with the whole investment approach.  Isn't everyone going to get their money back?  I will admit, I really need to know more about it before forming a concrete opinion.

As for crowdfunding itself, I think it's both good and bad.  The bad, which we're seeing now, is how developers have to limit themselves to goals and promises made in PRE-PLANNING, which is really crazy when you think about it.  If Project CARS had been funded in the traditional way, we probably never would have heard about a Wii U version to begin with.  It certainly isn't a perfect solution from the developer perspective.

That's always a good way to go about it, knowledge is power.

About crowdfunding, in the case of Project Cars, honestly were it not for crowdfunding I doubt this would have taken off at all. Also I remember early figures showing how important the project was for WiiU owners, proportionately speaking (I think it had to do with the fact that Sony has GT and MS has Forza, while Ninty has nothing for that racing simulator genre).

I understand that it probably wouldn't have been made but ... well, let me frame this a bit better.  We all know the big positive about crowdfunding; namely, that games publishers don't want to invest in can still have a chance at being released.  This is awesome, especially in a time when some of the largest publishers are only interested in potential blockbusters.

The big negative, though, as I see it, is that developers have to put up a plan in the very early stages of development that they cannot easily change without making people angry, even when changing plans is a very organic part of game development.  Imagine an author posting an outline for a new book, before they start writing, that they aren't allowed to deviate from, even if the story in their head leaps and grows beyond the original conception.

This is the very reason why more and more publishers and developers are waiting until close to release to announce anything.  Look at Borderlands, a game that completely changed its art-style during development.  If it had been crowdfunded, I have no doubt that some people would have been angry at such a drastic departure from the original vision.  Then there was that Renegade Kid kickstarter, where they realized that the game they wanted to make would not work on the DS.

It's not like these people want to lie, they just find a direction, over the course of time, that they think will result in a superior game.  With Project CARS, for example, the thing that really killed the Wii U version is the cancelation of the PS3/360 versions.  That made the Wii U version, by default, the "worst version".  

Changing plans is natural.  The way crowdfunding from very early in development can limit change, I'm sure is a restriction that a lot of developers have to see as a very unfortunate trade-off.