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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Has anything meaningful ever come out of a Kickstarter?

DevilRising on 31 May 2013

The OP can't honestly be that serious. Most of the kickstarter funds you heard about are for games that JUST recently got funded and could in no WAY be finished yet. THAT'S why they "haven't seen the light of day".

It isn't just video games. It's indie films, music (the band Ra just funded their upcoming album with it), comic books, art projects, games, etc. etc. And it's a nice alternative to trying to find corporate or private backing, where you are more often than not beholding to the whims of whoever gave you money. In this case, the artist/creator gets all the money AND all the control, because he got the money from fans who WANT him to have full control.

I think it's a great thing, and a lot of games and other projects wouldn't be happening without it. IndieGoGo is another similar site, and the Angry Video Game Nerd Movie, which is mostly done filming at this point and is now in editing and post production, would not have happened at all, perhaps, without fan funding.



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the2real4mafol on 31 May 2013

I'm not sure but it is a good idea for people to come up with some new ideas and make them marketable, however crazy they are



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foodfather on 31 May 2013

Veronica Mars was a dream come true.

Also looking forward to Shadowrun Returns.

http://phandroid.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Shadowrun-Returns-gameplay.png



Soleron on 31 May 2013
Slimebeast said:
Soleron said:
It's an investment bubble. Any project who got in early gets the money, because they can promise the Earth. When delivery happens and the very small budgets and limited experience of the teams show, future money will not be forthcoming.

You mean "future money" as in revenue from game sales when the game is actually released?

No, as in future projects started after the first wave of games delivered. As in, the failure of let's say Double Fine Adventure will lead to people dismissing anything interesting by a completely different team using Kickstarter.

Yes, that's interesting. I think a lot of the KS games will release without anybody expect the backers knowing about it.

That too. If they based their financial projections on significant post-launch sales as well they're going to be in trouble.

The guy who is making that new Wing Commander game (forgot the name), Chris Roberts, said he believes the sales potential of games typically is 20 times the number of KS backers. I think that's highly unrealistic, even for the big budget games.

Yep. If he used those numbers to justify VC funding or something, that's bad.

We don't have any data! How can he say typically when this is brand new. And it's not reasonable to expect 20x the word of mouth you already got during the campaign, unless your game exceeds expectations by far.

KS only needs to sell you on a promise with some big names attached

A game needs to sell you on its entire content

Anyway, KS is not a shortcut for talent, hard work, good project management, not actually having a demographic to sell your game to, etc, etc.



VGhippy on 31 May 2013
osed125 said:

Today I made my fist pledge ever, this one: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonaskaerlev/a-hat-in-time-3d-collect-a-thon-platformer

I did it because I see a lot of potential in the game, and I love collect-a-thons like Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. I also love the artstyle. And I imagine a lot of gamers did the same. Indie games are becoming more popular, so we are starting to see bigger projects (like Shadow of the Eternals), but never expect something that will match a AAA game in terms of fanbase.


OMG thanks for posting this, the game looks great! Think I will be pledging too

They've finished the pledge now but I'm following this one http://dreadout.com/ as I'm a huge horror fan. The team seems very focused with constant updates and they released a demo, lot's of video and got greenlighted before starting the pledge.

I'm really loving Steam Greenlight!



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Slimebeast on 31 May 2013
Soleron said:
Slimebeast said:
Soleron said:
It's an investment bubble. Any project who got in early gets the money, because they can promise the Earth. When delivery happens and the very small budgets and limited experience of the teams show, future money will not be forthcoming.

You mean "future money" as in revenue from game sales when the game is actually released?

No, as in future projects started after the first wave of games delivered. As in, the failure of let's say Double Fine Adventure will lead to people dismissing anything interesting by a completely different team using Kickstarter.

Yes, that's interesting. I think a lot of the KS games will release without anybody expect the backers knowing about it.

That too. If they based their financial projections on significant post-launch sales as well they're going to be in trouble.

The guy who is making that new Wing Commander game (forgot the name), Chris Roberts, said he believes the sales potential of games typically is 20 times the number of KS backers. I think that's highly unrealistic, even for the big budget games.

Yep. If he used those numbers to justify VC funding or something, that's bad.

We don't have any data! How can he say typically when this is brand new. And it's not reasonable to expect 20x the word of mouth you already got during the campaign, unless your game exceeds expectations by far.

KS only needs to sell you on a promise with some big names attached

A game needs to sell you on its entire content

Anyway, KS is not a shortcut for talent, hard work, good project management, not actually having a demographic to sell your game to, etc, etc.

Oh yeah, you meant investment bubble in that type of way. Yes, I have thought about it a lot. When people, potential backers, start to realize how poor the results are from all that money invested, it will become hard for future KS projects to convince gamers to invest in their wishes and promises. The day when KS will be seen as a fad.

I'm afraid of that.

Because I like KS, I like the idea of creative developers becoming independent from publishers and that small very niche games can get a chance to become reality.



Soleron on 31 May 2013
Slimebeast said:
...

...

Because I like KS, I like the idea of creative developers becoming independent from publishers and that small very niche games can get a chance to become reality.

I like that idea as well.  It just seems TOO easy right now. Get any random studio, say you're making a spiritual successor to INSERT LOVED GAME HERE, put 1-2 names who were formerly attached to the game to endorse it on video, shiny trailer video, and that's it. You don't need to prove your team has what it takes, or that your product will stand up to being the sequel people think they're buying. And right now anything like that gets tons of free marketing on forums and news sites, which will decline when the novelty wears off.

There is also an imbalance of risk. If the team fails, all the people who "invested" get absolutely nothing. If they succeed beyond expectations, all the backers get is the game. No share in the success. One of those things has to change, otherwise KS pledges have a huge hidden cost from risk.

My best scenario is that it settles down into deserving projects get funded for a reasonable amount, plus some kind of partial refund on failure.



zarx on 31 May 2013
Slimebeast said:

The guy who is making that new Wing Commander game (forgot the name), Chris Roberts, said he believes the sales potential of games typically is 20 times the number of KS backers. I think that's highly unrealistic, even for the big budget games.


He said 10x and that really isn't that unreasonable. Star Citizen (keep in mind that they still have their site open to new backers, so when he said that the total would have been lower) has 181,223 backers currently 1.8m players for a AAA social focused game that is meant to have constant support over many years doesn't seem that outlandish. The Double Fine Adventure has 87k backers and 800k sales for an adventure game may be a bit high but not unreachable considering the buzz and plenty of Steam sales. Project Eternity has 73k, Wasteland 2 60k, Torment: Tides of Numenera 74k sub million sales doesn't sound that unreasonable ether.



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blublibla on 31 May 2013

Oh it's just completely redefinining the game economy and industry, but no otherwise nothing meaningful



sethnintendo on 31 May 2013

Road Redemption and I believe 90s Arcade Racer