Poll: Kickstarter!

[ElPatron]

I am against it for some reasons:
- It has become a fad. People will burn out soon like what happened to Kony 2012.

Hating it because it's popular. A pretty terrible reason. A fan of niche genres like old school RPGs is not going to "burn out" on Kickstarter if it has led to him getting to play the kind of games he likes.

"HURR HURR HATING BECAUSE ITS POPULAR"

By this point I know you will ignore any of my attempts to address this issue. It's like the "entitled" or "you just don't get it because it's art" argument.

1. I never claimed I hated Kickstarter (I didn't even vote because the poll only gives extreme options) - I simply think it won't work and therefore I don't like this way of doing business.

2. "Burn out". Do you know what that means? People were making a big fuzz about Kony because everyone wanted to look like activists and shit. What happened? Time passed by, the creator of the video dun goof'ed and people just didn't care anyone.

In which case they probably won't succeed in their funding. And if it does succeed, then it doesn't really affect you.

No. What I mean is that thousands of "Johnathan Blows" will try to half-ass with the funding aspect because Kickstarter gave them the illusion they can succeed.

Deal with it? This is a pretty small issue.

Yeah, maybe when you get to become a writer you'll deal with it. It's hard enough to swim around hundreds of emails a week, many writers receive that everyday.

Both Jim Sterling and Jonathan Holmes said they were sick of getting the same emails all over again.

Then they are far too easily-offended.

Being offended isn't the same thing as being asked money.

If you really have a problem with the second thing, then you might as well have a problem with every single preview or advertisement for any game.

I don't have a problem with the second thing. Why?

- Because it was posted on YouTube, I doubt that Tim personally spammed inboxes himself.
- Psychonauts 2 has been asked for years. It is something WE wanted in the first place.
- Tim Schaffer actually has credibility and he isn't some kind of pretentious d-bag wanting to make a revolution in "artsy games".

I have a problem with
- Please take a look at my game! (URGENT) - Pretentious Productions
- Job offer - Escapist Magazine
- Hey have you heard about my game? - Pretentious Productions
- Please take a look at my game! - Pretentious Productions
- Evolved Limitation of Despair: please feature our game in your site - Pretentious Productions
- PS4 details leaked - J. Parsons
- Kickstarter: Evolved Limitation of Despair - Pretentious Productions

 

[Serving UpSmiles]

I want to see a well experienced developer start a kickstarter,

I'm looking at you bungie

 

[Yopaz]

Bored of kickstarter already, so far all it has done is stick a lot of cash in a few developers pockets and resulted in nothing.

Actually, there has been a few Kickstarter sponsored releases, so it does have results. Also games take time to make and without the funds required to start the production they can't start the production.

OT: I think it's OK. It gives small developers a chance to release games without having to sell their IP to a publisher who then refuses to release new games. It also let's them run things that are too risky for a publisher to bet on because there's not really a financial loss when customers pay for the game before it's released. The downside is that there's a possibility tht they just take off with the money and it's risky to back a game you can't know anything about except for roughly the outline of it.

 

[Lugi]

I love kickstarter, and I already pitched in, but I have a bad feeling about the direction is going.
So many people making kickstarter projects, scams, devs not doing what they say they will, then the average consumer will stop believing and everything will fall apart.
I hope i'm wrong

 

[Darknacht]

I want to see a well experienced developer start a kickstarter

There have been several.

 

[Laughing Man]

Maybe I am missing something but the concept is as follows.

You pay us to make the game before their is even a game to judge.

The general business model has been you see the game being made in previews, the game gets released you read the review and buy based on the finished product. The simple concept is that to make people buy you have to at least provide a half decent game to get them at least interested.

If you flip the process, you pay us for the game before we even make the game then they have your cash, have no one to answer too on the development direction or schedule and since they already have your cash what does it matter what the final product is like?

Kickstart won't result in a wealth of low budget quality games it will result in an increase in half finished, half arsed poor quality games.

 

[Darknacht]

If you flip the process, you pay us for the game before we even make the game then they have your cash, have no one to answer too on the developement direction or schedule and since they already have your cash what does it matter what the final product is like?

This is only true if you never want to make another game, or if your fans are so dumb that they can't remember your past games and its not like everyone who will buy the game is preordering on kickstarter, so it still needs to be good enough to sell. Also look at all of the people that preorder games before they are finished, they have no idea if the game will be good, but no one complains that allowing preorders is a bad idea. And its not like you can ever know that you will definitely enjoy a game before you play it so you are typically not buying a game based on the finished product but by your expectation of what the finished product is. There is always uncertainty when you buy a game and while with kickstarter there may be more uncertainty it is also at a lower price than if you waited and bought the game new.

There will probably be lots of half finished games that get released by devs that have no idea what they are doing, but there will also be really good games that would not have been able to be made any other way and its not like having publisher funding in anyway ensures that a game will be good, most games that most publishers release are crap, many even end up half finished, half arsed poor quality games, and there are many games funded by publishers that never even get finished.

In many ways this is a better business model then the publisher funded one because you accurately know whether or not there is a market for the game you want to make, creators get to keep their creations, creator directly benefit from the game being good, rather than a flat payment whether its good or bad, you cut out the waste that a publisher introduces, and you remove the tampering that happens because most big publishers don't understand target markets. The only benefits the publisher funded model currently has is that a lot of money can be put into development without direct contribution from the end users.

In the end what really matters is that for some people there is no chance of getting the kind of quality games that they want under the current business model and they are willing to pay, some times large amounts of money, just to have a chance to get the kind of games that they enjoy playing.