http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.390047-Free-Radical-Co-Founder-Cautions-Against-Kickstarter

Thoughts?

As for me, I always wondered what game is out now that was funded by kickstarter?

I never seen one.

FTL.

My mistake sorry.

The Cthulhu Saves the World PC port was funded by Kickstarter, I think.

You did.
edit: ninja'd

Metagame

edit - different link

At first, I thought developers were asking for donations (as in what you give to charities and non-profit organizations) to make a game and sell it so I thought the practice was selfish.

Then, I noticed they gave away a copy of the game for a certain donation and then I figured it made more sense, because then it was more like pre-ordering.

I guess it's more risky then conventional pre-order, because the game might not make it, but on the other hand, it opens some interesting possibilities as a development model:

1) People, rather than investors and top execs, supporting the games they want to see made which makes the game development process more democratic

2) Developers recouping their costs from the start, which would make them more amenable to a DRM-free model

3) Eliminates the "free money" model that characterizes big money financing (where they essentially take the lion share of profits as well as complete control and leave the crumbs to people who come up with the ideas and actually do the work).

Overall, it might be an improvement over past financing models, though quality control (more specifically, separating genuine developers from scammers) is still an issue to some extent.

An industry personality has reservations about a funding methodology? *Gasp* I never saw it coming!

The product in Kickstarter are niche, which would be difficult to finance in conventional methods, as there's too little proft margin for big companies. A game that costs a million to do and makes 2 million in sales is not worth a while for big companies while a small company makes a hefty proft.

As for disappointments, well big company financed games have the same, or even bigger, change of ending up sucking as smaller indie titles. God knows actually good games are rare no matter the budget.


It's more of a point of view question.

The closest comparison would be patronage. You like what somebody is doing and you give him money to do more of it. Investment doesn't really fit, as you don't get anything back. The "rewards" are just compensation in a way.

I like Kickstarter. So far it worked very well for me.

It's not really anything new, even though I suspect a lot of backers might not be aware of it, 400'000$ or even 3'000'000$ is nothing but some small pocket change for a "professional" game.

You have to keep that in mind and don't expect a AAA game out of a Kickstarter campaign unless the devs adds several millions out of their own pockets or manage to find devs, artist, voice actors, etc... accepting to work for free.

Retrovirus was (partially) funded by Kickstarter.

It's an AWESOME game btw :)

I think it's probably incredibly easy to say that when you actually have a development studio, a fanbase, and a publisher. For those who haven't already made a name in the business, Kickstarter is one of the best ways to get a project off the ground. Short of maxing out a bunch of credit cards or taking out a second mortgage.

That said, I think there's a possibility of the thing imploding after awhile, when enough projects fail that people start being scared that they'll lose money if they fund someone they aren't familiar with.

With the ninja-ing out of the way:

Kickstarter is for projects with a significant startup cost. Games are a natural fit for it: the first copy costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to make if not millions, while each subsequent copy is literally free.

Before Double Fine, we haven't seen games actually *funded* by kickstarter. I remember times when $2k was huge. Obviously, the games didn't get made on 2k, they were made on unpaid programmer time, kickstarter money was a bonus. While some of these games got made and are highly awesome, I don't think it's fair to consider them proof that games can be funded through Kickstarter.

FTL is a better example, because the money the devs got is actually enough to hire people or be self-employed. However - and this is important - the game wasn't made from scratch after the campaign, it was *improved*. The devs could have spent all the money on hookers and blow and still have a finished product to present to backers. There was no risk.

The mega-projects with mega-people on board will need to pay salaries. While celebrities themselves, once signed up, can work for free and serve as additional insurance against the project running out of funding (because a celebrity wouldn't want to lose face), the grunts will want money or they're out. However, big names will know how to manage funds better than noobs (who forget to count business expenses and get pwn'd by the IRS).

What I don't like (already posted in the neighboring thread, but whatever) is that we see celebrities cashing in on their name without presenting anything. In 2009, potential backers judged a project on its own merits. This is not to say that this particular subset is more risky (on one hand, a fresh project has a greater chance of crashing; on the other hand, involved celebrities will be highly interested in rescuing it), I just don't like it.