Kickstarter - The Thread.

[shiznitz]

I hope that your point is that those look identical.

edit: after going to the actual link, now I get it.

[Malakili]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/petroglyphgames/victory-1

Petroglyph got booted off of End of Nations - and now seem to be trying to make another version of it on the cheap.

[UnSub]

I hope that your point is that those look identical.

edit: after going to the actual link, now I get it.

I thought it was clever:

Emperor's New Clothes is an experimental product. As noted in the "Eye of the Beholder" section above, the game incorporates unconventional printing techniques and will appear blank to both non-gamers and a small subset of gamers. There is a risk that a backer will receive what appears to them to be a box of blank components. Accordingly, we advise all backers to watch the videos, look at the print-and-play, and follow the updates to ensure that they are able to see the ROOS before pledging.

[Sky]

Ok, to be slightly more serious than I have been...

If you missed Monday’s announcement by the good folks at InXile, Brian Fargo and crew announced their new Kickstarter project opening tomorrow called Torment: Tides of Numenera. That name may sound oddly familiar, yes! They are making a spiritual successor to the beloved Planescape: Torment. We seriously couldn’t control ourselves here guys, and had to make sure all of you knew about it too as fans of the genre!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera

I normally dislike video game KS....but...

[Fabricated]

Holy shitballs, $300,000+ and it's barely been open like, what, 2 hours?

[sickrubik]

As a reminder, we have a thread over here about it.

[schild]

The only thing nice about Kickstarting Video Games is they have to put a fake release date. I now know I will either be playing a Planescape followup in December 2014 or afterwards or a bunch of people are going to get scammed, me not being one of them.

[Fabricated]

$460,000. I know Planescape Torment is hailed as having "the best writing in a vidja game ever" or whatever but I didn't expect it to have that many fans left. Guess it would be a generation at an age old enough to have disposable income though.

[sickrubik]

$460,000. I know Planescape Torment is hailed as having "the best writing in a vidja game ever" or whatever but I didn't expect it to have that many fans left. Guess it would be a generation at an age old enough to have disposable income though.

The $95 tier sold out long before the $20 tier did, so yeah.

Plus, buzz. The fact that the page updates the amount collected and how many left of the certain levels adds in an urgency that I'm sure fuels a certain amount of PANIC BUYING.

[shiznitz]

These kickstarters just show how screwed up the gaming industry is.  They are evidence that there are many people who will pay north of $100 for a great game, a price that should be more than economically compelling.  Yet the big guys turn out drek after drek, worrying more about how some gamers might pirate the drek as opposed to actually delivering a good game.

Just imagine a kickstarter pitch for the new SimCity that told the truth.  Not a dime would be advanced.  Now, of course, a lot of those funding game kickstarters are doing so with the "perfect" game in their heads which is a standard doomed to disappointment.  Still, the evidence that many people will pay more than adequate prices for quality games is right in front of the industry but all the big guys ignore it.

[HaemishM]

Still, the evidence that many people will pay more than adequate prices for quality games is right in front of the industry but all the big guys ignore it.

You can't quantify quality on a spreadsheet unless you put in a field for the Metacritic score.

[Phred]

Still, the evidence that many people will pay more than adequate prices for quality games is right in front of the industry but all the big guys ignore it.

You can't quantify quality on a spreadsheet unless you put in a field for the Metacritic score.

I don't know if the video was up when all this discussion was going on (edit: Doh just noticed this is all dated today. Strange I didnt find it searching the front page)
I just saw the video and it is funny and really puts the company perspective on kickstarters into perspective. I just hope they don't mess it up too badly because otherwise it's a great way around the requirement to deep throat  publishers. It's over a million now btw.

[MahrinSkel]

It's at $1.15M now, having hit the goal in less than a day.  So, reports of the death of Kickstarter as a funding source for video games have been greatly exagerated.

--Dave

[Phred]

The poster on the wall was  cool too. Where can I contribute to save the tree octopii.

[pxib]

These kickstarters just show how screwed up the gaming industry is.  They are evidence that there are many people who will pay north of $100 for a great game, a price that should be more than economically compelling.  Yet the big guys turn out drek after drek, worrying more about how some gamers might pirate the drek as opposed to actually delivering a good game.

A million dollars is not a lot of money in publisher terms, so the idea of a few thousand people shelling out $100 is not enticing. Alternately, it's too much money to throw away, and there's no guarantee that lightning will strike twice on outdated, niche products like this. Even if it does and the project ultimately triples or quadruples its production costs, a few million dollars is a small profit.

Kickstarter isn't either frightening or exciting publishers: It doesn't compete with them. It's another market entirely.

... and Sim City will make more money than this game by an order of magnitude.

[Paelos]

It's at $1.15M now, having hit the goal in less than a day.  So, reports of the death of Kickstarter as a funding source for video games have been greatly exagerated.

--Dave

It's not how they start, it's how they finish.

[UnSub]

These kickstarters just show how screwed up the gaming industry is. 

I agree, but for different reasons.

Fans are throwing money at a product that isn't anywhere near finished based on nostalgia and hype. All based on a short pitch by the developers that puts their plans in the kindest, softest light.

Plus they are paying $100 not just for the game, but for the reward levels. It's $100 for the supa-special collector's edition, plus P&H. Let's hope that the studio have accurately calculated how much it will cost to deliver all those extra rewards.

We've entered this weird phase where players are willing to effectively buy a game years in advance of its actual completion / release, but then baulk at buying any finished title for full price that doesn't score 8+ out of 10.

[sickrubik]

Plus they are paying $100 not just for the game, but for the reward levels. It's $100 for the supa-special collector's edition, plus P&H. Let's hope that the studio have accurately calculated how much it will cost to deliver all those extra rewards.

For every KS i've participated in, the idea is that the cost of the tier includes shipping/handling. That's why a lot of them run another tier that is slightly more with the same exact stuff for outside the US.

Edit: A lot of them seem to just be adding a note at the bottom that reads "Add X for shipping outside the US" these days.

[tgr]

A million dollars is not a lot of money in publisher terms, so the idea of a few thousand people shelling out $100 is not enticing. Alternately, it's too much money to throw away, and there's no guarantee that lightning will strike twice on outdated, niche products like this. Even if it does and the project ultimately triples or quadruples its production costs, a few million dollars is a small profit.

In my mind, the money provided by kickstarters is what's needed to make it a zero sum game to produce, i.e. any sales after the fact should in theory be pure profit. And this market should be bigger than the market already tapped by kickstarter.

Kickstarter isn't either frightening or exciting publishers: It doesn't compete with them. It's another market entirely.

And that's absolutely fine by me, since "publishers" seem to be increasingly insistent on alienating players like me, either through removing features I think should be in PC games, or adding features which I believe shouldn't be in PC games, or trying their hardest to fuck me over by requiring it be activated online on their servers (which literally almost always fails on launch day) or, in the case of sim city (which, incidentally I had hoped would be niche enough to be treated with actual respect ) an always-on requirement which doesn't work, requires you stick to the one server you've begun on or lose your progress and and and and.

I've helped kickstart 3 different games, and I was on course to kickstart a fourth, elite: dangerous. Turned out they were talking about making it into a semi-MMO (I have one space MMO I'm playing already, EVE, and I've also backed something which promises to be more of what I actually wanted, which was a new elite-like game, i.e. limit theory), at which point I pulled my backing because it wasn't what I was looking for. vOv

... and Sim City will make more money than this game by an order of magnitude.

And this saddens me.

[Fabricated]

I'm interested in seeing the results of the first big waves of kickstarters done by former notable devs from the industry just because it'll answer the question: Are these people really as good as we thought they were?

I mean even the hugest kickstarter is a small budget affair in the industry, but with complete creative control and well...pretty much complete unaccountability to the people who funded them (yeah their reps would be ruined if they failed to produce a game, but legally responsible? Nope.) we might get to see if their version of "teh vision" is really a pile of shit or not.

[Sky]

... and Sim City will make more money than this game by an order of magnitude.

For whom, though?

[pxib]

I'm not bagging on Kickstarter. I really like the idea behind it, and am watching it to determine how the risk/reward curve plots. It theoretically allows shoestring and small budget games to get made, and promises that money goes to developers rather than middlemen. It's one of those things that internet allows that could really change the business landscape.

It's just not going to solve the "why do big budget blockbuster games suck?" problem.

[sickrubik]

It's just not going to solve the "why do big budget blockbuster games suck?" problem.

That's not what it's there for.

[Malakili]

It's just not going to solve the "why do big budget blockbuster games suck?" problem.

I don't really care of big budget blockbuster games suck as long as high quality small budget niche games are being made.  It is that second group that was missing for a long time and has started making a comeback in the last 2-3 years.

[pxib]

I know. I was originally responding to a specific post by shiznitz.

[sickrubik]

Garriot was feeling left out.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0?ref=live

[Nebu]

Garriot was feeling left out.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0?ref=live

I hate myself for reading shit like this and thinking it will result in a fun game.  After all these years, I still fall for the hype machine.

[sickrubik]

His weird tiny hair braid rat tail thing turned me off. Plus the shirt undone to expose the CHAIN.

[Sky]

Using state-of-the-art tools and technology, the game will focus on what made his seminal Ultima Series great. Once players are introduced to the game, they will discover their own story woven into the immersive world and lore surrounding them. Players may choose to follow the life of the adventurer or, if they prefer, focus on exploration and discovery. Players may even choose the life of a homesteader; either nestled within the safety of the settled lands, or on the dangerous but potentially lucrative frontier.

Since when was 'what made his seminal Ultima Series great' anything about 'choose the life of a homesteader'? The fuck, Garriot? It's like he's the George Lucas of video games.

And I'm playing U7 right now so it's painful to have my nostalgia tugged at.  Also,

Multiplayer Online Game - which can also be played solo player / offline

No.

[Tebonas]

This doesn't fill me with hope he knows what made the old Ultimas good. I think this might be the CRPG Kickstarter I'll pass on.

[Sky]

Player housing will live in the persistent shared world, so real estate will have location value.

Oh, Richard.

[tgr]

Could someone tell him that maybe, just maybe, he should drop that part of it, unless he wants to make it a proper MMO?

[murdoc]

I'm done with game Kickstarters until I actually get to play one of the games that I have backed.

[Paelos]

Smart decision.

[Mrbloodworth]

I thought this was single player...