That is what you get when no publisher is around. People always complained about publishers pushing devs and deadlines killing good game design. So what is it going to be? People need to make up their mind. Do you want your toys now like KOTOR 2 was delivered, or do you want to give the devs the time they need. For me, the whole point was to make the devs free of artificial boundaries created by publishers. (That being said, a little publisher oversight wouldn't be to bad for some projects

Most people unhappy with Kickstarter simply fail to grasp the concept. Kickstarter is not a store. It is not a place where you can preorder games. Heck, you don't even invest in games, you invest in People and their ideas. It's a leap of faith.

As a general rule of thumb, I do not judge games I haven't played, as even the most boring prospect of a game can be immensely satisfying to play. Therefore no bummers for me so far. Also the physical products I backed where exactly what I expected them to be. (However, during the actual Kickstarter run I was very unhappy about Project Eternity, as the devs pandered way to much to the community. But It is shaping up very interesting).

I missed a few Kickstarters, which are so far, the only regrets I have. Luckily, thanks to a few very good people, I usually get a heads up on anything interesting.

dont forget to check this thread on that SRR topic

the limitations will be on user created mission, after the first DLC after berlin (up til then will be drm-free) everything after Steam exclusive (with DRM - contractually obligated 'by microsoft')

any missions using assets from those other DLCs will not work on the DRM-free version short of some real hackers making an easy job of it, who knows how complicated it will be.

the problems wont ensue until new DLCs after berlin, DRM-free SRR vs Steam-DRMed SRR.

Well, It's more that paying people is very expensive. I don't know what the incidental wage costs are in the US, but in Germany you pretty much pay twice the amount the employee receives before taxes. That means a devs earning 45.000$ a year (before taxes) probably costs the company around 70.000$ ( but I have no clue what devs are earning, so this might be a tad off). Now, take then people to make a game. Add costs for rent, computers, proper licenses, and you could that million dollar ceiling rather quickly. Not to mention the longer this thing runs, the bigger the costs get.

Especially if they are new to all this and don't have a good accountant, you are missing out a lot of benefits that can help you trim costs.

That's true of course, but also people in these jobs often tend to work pretty slowly. They surf the net, prototype and plan, go to endless meetings. The same stuff they do in corporate offices I bet they do in some of these smaller developer offices.

A lot of people need a boss to get them working. A lot of indie games have poverty urging them to work. A smaller dev group fully funded on kickstarter... I bet a lot of them sit around and take it slow, at least for a while. Not insulting them, I think it's just human nature.

What the fuck do I know though, honestly. Nuthin.

There were a few projects that I wanted to back, but couldn't due to lack of funds. Everything that I have backed seems to shaping up just nicely. It's a shame to see the devs on the Shadowrun game break all our their promises.

Kickstarter gives us the people a small taste of what it's like to be a publisher/producer/the man. Idea guys with no money want to make a thing. "The Man" has business sense but no creativity. He gambles by deciding who to put money behind. he loses often. Even when he wins, he often loses, because he has had to fight with creative guy thereby diminishing his own reputation. Sometimes he screws over creative guy, true. This is the one part of Kickstarting the people do not get to do.

Only backed two projects: Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen.

Both are progressing EXTREMELY well. It helps that both parties have significant industry experience. Both are giving a rather hefty amount of information, and I am very confident my money is being utilized properly and will result in two fantastic gaming experiences.

Which is pretty ironic in the case of Shadowrun Returns because Microsoft prevented them from making a DRM-Free version commercially available.

As for me, I can't regret what I haven't done. I avoid preorders in general and this is worse than a preorder. (Mainly because your money gets taken away long before they send you the game.)

Hubby and I have only backed a few projects:
Fate Core
The "physical" book they were making got bigger and bigger during the successful kickstarter. Which is great. More content - yay! But now they have problems financing the shipping to Europe.
Let's see how they solve this.
The product seems to be great though.

Divinity: Original Sin
I really like Divine Divinity, the game concept of Original Sin appealed to me and the game looked to be as least partly finished (meaning they have a game engine and whatnot).
I like that they give us lots of updates and so far everything seems to run smoothly.

Pocketmoneky
Arrived late which was really annoying as it was meant to be a Christmas present. :K
But product was as promised.



We decided not to back Shadowrun Returns, Torment Tides of Numenera and Shroud of the Avatar.
In all these cases we didn't have a good gut feeling about the projects. Time will tell if that feeling is right. Especially in the case of TToN I hope the feeling is wrong.

I just saw some short clips of Broken Age on the latest backer update, and I'm very excited. So forget regrets, Kickstarter rules. :)

Regarding people sometimes working slowly, I can easily understand it (being that I waste time at my job posting at GOG.com), but I usually think of it more as writers block. You work well when you have an idea blazing in your mind and you're prototyping and advancing quickly, but when you get to a point when you're not sure what to do, or you hit some snag, or it just becomes too much drudgery, suddenly vacuuming the cat becomes an attractive proposition.

But I think that's often less of a problem (especially with established developers) and more a problem of feature creep and perfectionism. At least when it comes to the latter point, most backers tend to tell developers that they're willing to wait and have the game the best it can be.

I think this is about negative Kickstarter experiences.
As for me, ive backed about 30 kickstarters. Most have either finished (ieGiana/Strike Suit Zero) and turned out fine. Or under progress (ie Project Eternity/Wasteland 2/Tides of Numenera etc). There is a few crappy ones though.

Ouya - made millions over what they wanted. Delays. Severe lack of communication to backers. Real Shit. I got my Ouya but the experience gave me a bad taste in mouth and selling my ouya without opening the parcel

Star (FUCKING) Command - not sure if any of you back this, but this one is the biggest regret so far with kickstarters
Their first kickstarter was for iOS/Android version which is ok.
Second kickstarter for Mac/PC. And this without the iOS/android one even close to being finished after the 2nd kickstarter closed.
Some backers feel they pumped money from 2nd KS to finish the iOS one - they have yet to even start on the PC/Mac one and this finished like late last year. Holyfuckingshit. Plus the lack of communication (3 man dev team ) wont cut it because they are small. Plenty of KS projects provide great communication for even minor things. People say "Yeah just take your time". Says those who are smiling because iOS backers get access to PC/Mac beta for FREE. While the reverse does not happen for PC/Mac backers.
They only released the final iOS version a few weeks ago. Yeah great. Way behind schedule.

Banner Saga - game funded with 8 x the final goal. Way behind schedule. They released a multiplayer part of game for free while working on single player. Albeit this is a minor gripe, they should be concentrating on what is really a single player game, but oh no they must push out the multi aspect to test the combat mechanics (to all a great fanfare) fuckit. You got 8 x the money. Pump all the time into the singleplayer and stop pimping something which is a side show.

Sorry to vent.

Anyway, above are the only ones ive had issues with out of all the ones i backed.

The one i really missed was Divinity original sin. Just didnt have the funds at the time :(

The Wasteland 2 videos give me great confidence in Numera.

Here's what I've backed so far:
Project Eternity
Xenonauts
Dead State: The Zombie Survival RPG
Haunts: The Manse Macabre
Carmageddon: Reincarnation
Make Leisure Suit Larry come again!
Wasteland 2

What I've gotten so far:
- Xenonauts has gone to Steam Early Access, and they provided a code. However, the game's still missing content I consider crucial, so I haven't activated the code yet. The game development is going steadily forward so I don't mind waiting a little bit longer though.

- The developer of Haunts has said many months ago that the game will probably never see the light of day. The development faced a serious issue when they ran out of money, the main programmer took a hike, and because the platform they're developing on is apparently super-confusing and not even volunteering backers have been able to make any sense of the code, this one is completely busted and the guy in charge has apologized for this many times. No updates for I don't know, three, four months? Well, I only pledged $5 so not a big deal.

- Carmageddon's going steadily forward apparently (out of the projects I've backed, this one seems to be getting the largest amount of updates). I got a "free" code for Carmageddon 1 once it hit GOG shelves 'cause I pledged the "I'm AGOG" level amount of $25, so I guess that was the first concrete thing I've gotten from my pledges.

- Larry was supposed to be released last month, but they had to move the release date the last minute, so that should arrive by the end of this month. We will see.

The rest are still miles away from finishing, but they're super-interesting, especially Dead State and Wasteland 2, which are supposed to be released before the end of the year. I've got my doubts, but at least I'll be positively surprised if they do. I won't mind if they don't though, I'm sure both will be completed at some point since progress has been steady and assuring.

So, I guess the only KS I've pledged that has miserably failed, was Haunts. And since it only cost me five bucks, I don't really care it did. Of course, if the rest of the games I've pledged turn out to be utter shit, that'll be a different story. But as it is, everything looks pretty great.

My only small problem with Kickstarter is with the Anita sar.......... That person... I'm all for keeping an open mind, equality, blah blah blah but seriously why? Off Topic but that's my only issue I've had with Kickstarter. Maybe they do need some sort of oversite/review of the different kickstarters. I didn't support that kickstarter, I just whole heartily disagree with her, and no I'm not trying to start a discussion.