Game News Kickstarter Drama: Conquistador, Shadowrun and Eisenwald

[Davaris]

As a matter of fact, they sound like bad programmers.

Either that, or they were told not to do it right from the start.

 

[Mangoose]

Makes me happy that I have been risk averse when it comes to backing kickstarters. So far I've only backed the safest bets from established developers like Obsidian and inXile. If I had backed SRR I would be super pissed right now. I've always thought that backers have been way too trusting and have treated their donation too much like a pre-order. It's more like being a venture capitalist than buying a game. It's a gamble. Making a computer game is non-trivial and it takes some management skills to pull off, especially with a fixed budget. I think this is only the beginning. We will see a lot more promises broken and trust betrayed in the next few years.

Some people aren't pussies and don't mind taking risks and taking losses.

 

[Zeriel]

I think the controversy's just another teapot tempest.

Oh god, I'm agreeing with Roguey. Sweet jesus, make it stop.

Don't see the big deal with SRR. Presumedly if you want to do lots of online, custom player modules, you're okay with being... you know... online. There's the offline version for everyone else. The only real hang-up here is just that Steam is another clunky app you've got to have on your computer, but weighed next to the possibility of bad or no mod support (were we really expecting a tiny outfit with no $ to fund their own powerful multiplayer network?) it seems tolerable to me.

And yes, Kickstarter is an investment platform. People should expect failures or things going slightly haywire on the way to delivery. The only thing that's a bit weird about Kickstarter as an investment platform is if it succeeds, you don't really get a payoff (other than the product). So I guess I can see why some people want a 100% success rate, it's not like they get a big wad of cash if a risky investment does well.

 

[Tolknaz]

I backed two of these projects (Shadowrun and Expeditions: Conquistador). That said, i really can't see any drama here. Shadowrun guys will give out both a Steam key and a DRM free copy to everyone who wants it.
Logic Artists situation sucks a bit more, mainly because they didn't keep their backers updated, but finding a publisher could actually increase their chances to release another game after this one, so i don't really care, that they pushed their release date a bit. I got a kickstarter beta, but i haven't even tried it, because i planned to wait for a few patches to iron out the kinks before playing the game anyway. Frankly, i don't have time to be a beta tester. The delay means among other things, that the game will be in much better shape when it's released.

 

[Black]

Makes me happy that I have been risk averse when it comes to backing kickstarters. So far I've only backed the safest bets from established developers like Obsidian and inXile. If I had backed SRR I would be super pissed right now. I've always thought that backers have been way too trusting and have treated their donation too much like a pre-order. It's more like being a venture capitalist than buying a game. It's a gamble. Making a computer game is non-trivial and it takes some management skills to pull off, especially with a fixed budget. I think this is only the beginning. We will see a lot more promises broken and trust betrayed in the next few years.

Some people aren't pussies and don't mind taking risks and taking losses.

That's what I told you all about me buying diablo 3!

 

[Zeriel]

Makes me happy that I have been risk averse when it comes to backing kickstarters. So far I've only backed the safest bets from established developers like Obsidian and inXile. If I had backed SRR I would be super pissed right now. I've always thought that backers have been way too trusting and have treated their donation too much like a pre-order. It's more like being a venture capitalist than buying a game. It's a gamble. Making a computer game is non-trivial and it takes some management skills to pull off, especially with a fixed budget. I think this is only the beginning. We will see a lot more promises broken and trust betrayed in the next few years.

Some people aren't pussies and don't mind taking risks and taking losses.

That's what I told you all about me buying diablo 3!

Diablo 3 has better investment -> profit payoff than all Kickstarters. Problem?

 

[l3loodAngel]

And yes, Kickstarter is an investment platform. People should expect failures or things going slightly haywire on the way to delivery. The only thing that's a bit weird about Kickstarter as an investment platform is if it succeeds, you don't really get a payoff (other than the product).

People who buy unfinished games and think that it's an "INVESTMENT" deserve to be robed...

 

[Brzęczyszczykiewicz]

I didn't back any of these 3 projects.

 

[Black]

Yeah, instead you backed something that relies on nostalgia of inbred engine games and rtwp

 

[Shannow]

Standard version of SR only available via malware :declining:
Very disappointing. The only thing more disguting in this thread is all the smug anal probe fetishists.
Well, I know what company I'll never support again. Not that it matters. I'm sure they'll be well enough supported by the STEAM crowd. *shrug*

 

[SwiftCrack]

Standard version of SR only available via malware :declining:
Very disappointing. The only thing more disguting in this thread is all the smug anal probe fetishists.
Well, I know what company I'll never support again. Not that it matters. I'm sure they'll be well enough supported by the STEAM crowd. *shrug*

 

[ceics]

To me a lot of these games seem overly ambitious, with their fancy 3d graphics and paid artists. $83,000 doesn't go very far when you have a full team of paid employees. Well, maybe it does in Belarus. But they kind of need those fancy graphics to set them apart from the sea of shit games, otherwise they may not get any funding at all.

I had hoped that kickstarter would be helpful to fund less ambitious games with 2d tile based graphics, designed by mad geniuses working solo and surviving on ramen noodles. But those games probably just get lost in a sea of shit games and get no funding. I know I've been too lazy to look for them.

Xenonauts. Asked for $ 50k on KS. They didn't seem to run out of money yet (though as far as I understand they're just a handful of people working remotely.

Hopefully they won't prove me wrong soon, either. But yes, it can be done - there's your noodle survivalists.

 

[St. Toxic]

Good, good. One by one the KS projects will turn back to the greedy publishers. One by one they'll make compromises to their design in order to sell their product again; turnbased for realtime, 2D for 3D, substance for style, difficulty for accessibility. Eventually a KS will be just like a pre-order of any AAA game, the difference being optional tiers, up there in the realm of hundreds and thousands of dollars. Hey, pay 10 grand and get a dubious invitation to the release party, where you can dance the night away with a bunch of EA executives.

By gamers, for gamers.

 

[Metro]

Standard version of SR only available via malware :declining:
Very disappointing. The only thing more disguting in this thread is all the smug anal probe fetishists.
Well, I know what company I'll never support again. Not that it matters. I'm sure they'll be well enough supported by the STEAM crowd. *shrug*

Actually there's one other thing that's more disgusting: your constant anti-Steam posturing. Get over it, son, it's a fucking vidya game launcher. Stop acting like Jesus on the fucking cross.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Actually there's one other thing that's more disgusting: your constant anti-Steam posturing. Get over it, son, it's a fucking vidya game launcher. Stop acting like Jesus on the fucking cross.

HBS and Consumer according to Kickstarter pitch.

HBS , Steam and Consumer

 

[Commissar Draco]

Hope is the first step on a road to disappointment. I am not happy with all those deals with Demons and Warp Steam access but sure do hope the games won't be shit.

 

[PorkaMorka]

To me a lot of these games seem overly ambitious, with their fancy 3d graphics and paid artists. $83,000 doesn't go very far when you have a full team of paid employees. Well, maybe it does in Belarus. But they kind of need those fancy graphics to set them apart from the sea of shit games, otherwise they may not get any funding at all.

I had hoped that kickstarter would be helpful to fund less ambitious games with 2d tile based graphics, designed by mad geniuses working solo and surviving on ramen noodles. But those games probably just get lost in a sea of shit games and get no funding. I know I've been too lazy to look for them.

Xenonauts. Asked for $ 50k on KS. They didn't seem to run out of money yet (though as far as I understand they're just a handful of people working remotely.

Hopefully they won't prove me wrong soon, either. But yes, it can be done - there's your noodle survivalists.

True. That game existed for years before the kickstarter though, so perhaps KS works best as a cash infusion to help finish/polish in progress indie games, rather than to enable the creation of them from whole cloth.

 

[commie]

Awesome. I baked all three of those games.

Awesome.

Baked? Looks like they baked you.

You're better than that DU. We all saw it, and all of us thought it was beneath our dignity to point out. Except you.

And, there is precedent for baking games here on the codex.

Why the monocle when the faggot obviously bought the game in the first place?


AS for KS, I must be a bitch cause I'm still backing many projects even when not a single game has been released yet and all the ones that are supposedly coming along are becoming more and more compromised. Seems that the KS revolution is a mirage and the only 'old school' we are going to get is from Ubisoft.

 

[ceics]

Actually, you know what WOULD be good communication? Them IMMEDIATELY doing a video update right now addressing the worries related to save game system and showing it in action (it does this, works like this, see - nothing to worry about, won't affect the gameplay etc) or the loot system (ok, it is implemented in a certain way - what the fuck specifically is that way? I want to see it, so show it to me). And throw in some character creation frames while you're at it, to reassure us backers.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Why the monocle when the faggot obviously bought the game in the first place?

Lecter, says Clarice, eats people “to show his contempt for those who exasperate him.

Here, we consume that which exasperates us.

 

[commie]

Why the monocle when the faggot obviously bought the game in the first place?

Lecter, says Clarice, eats people “to show his contempt for those who exasperate him.

Here, we consume that which exasperates us.

So did you have it with fava beans and a nice Chianti?

 

[made]

reassure us backers.

Why? They already have your money.

 

[Mangoose]

And yes, Kickstarter is an investment platform. People should expect failures or things going slightly haywire on the way to delivery. The only thing that's a bit weird about Kickstarter as an investment platform is if it succeeds, you don't really get a payoff (other than the product).

People who buy unfinished games and think that it's an "INVESTMENT" deserve to be robed...

You don't invest in finished products, you buy them. Unless said product is the type to grow in resale value over time, you're not doing any investing. Moron.

But yes there isn't much payoff except getting the product. Although I'm pretty sure most pledges are getting a discount on the full copy of the game compared to what the game will be priced at launch.

The way I see it, Kickstarter is a complete uncertainty right now. So 50/50 chance a game will succeed. Well, I really don't care how many failures occur. It's more important to me that more good games are made, even if that means more bad games are supported also. I feel like the market would react similarly, in that maximizing the number of good games would result in better momentum than minimizing the number of bad products. But it's all theory.

 

[janjetina]

In principle, I have no problem with delays (as long as the developer communicates about them promptly and is unambigous about the circumstances) , but fact is that they translate directly to increased development costs, since at least programmers have to be kept on the payroll for an extended time. At that point the team either has contingency funds allocated from the start (planning for the worst case scenario and not underestimating it) or they need to burn through their own savings or have to find an investor.

The problem is when the team has no project management experience, they probably underestimate the contingencies factoring into development time, specifically pertaining to the programming part (i.e. the QA and debugging portion which is inseparable from it).

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Yeah, yeah. I noticed that awhile after I made the post but your awesome editing limitations made it impossible to fix.

So thanks for that.

You're not in the edits rights group. I'm sure we had a reason for that. Probably related to brofist harvesting.

Such are the unforeseen consequences of your actions. Scum like you needs to be more careful in the future so that problems like this don't happen.