Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

KickStarter Fig - a new equity-based crowdfunding platform - shut down, RIP

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Swen Vincke did that too though. +M
 

28.8bps Modem

Prophet
Joined
Jan 15, 2014
Messages
302
Location
The Internet, Circa 1993
The goal of Fig seems to be to extend the (presumed) funding ceiling of Kickstarter.

I guess Feargus really has his heart set on that episodic Skyrim thing.

It seems to me that that could be achieved far better by just going to a commercial bank and having them set up and manage a unit trust for you or something like that. It doesn't need a venture captial funded website. Fig is so curated that it's not just filtering for quality, it's basically just picking projects and saying "this is what you'll be investing in."

The part of fig that's a clone of kickstarter is obviously an epic failure, far fewer people have turned up to support a fairly high quality offering than would have supported something of lower quality or even outright vapourware on Kickstarter proper. Certainly part of that is crowdfunding fatigue, a poor choice of initial offering and a terrible pitch, but mostly it's just that people have accounts and billing set up on Kickstarter already so why should they bother with another site. Indiegogo suffers from the same problem.

At the end of the day, I simply don't believe that there are hordes of people with big pools of cash sitting around wanting to invest it games. Certainly we've never seen any venture capitalist having a punt. It's just too risky and the returns are too small. Crowdfunding worked because people were willing to throw small sums of money at doubtful endeavours if it meant they might get to play the types of games they love, but that publishers are neglecting. When it comes to more serious sums of money and cold calculation of what you're actually going to get in return, games just aren't going to make the cut as investment opportunities.
 

Xor

Arcane
Joined
Jan 21, 2008
Messages
9,345
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
I guess I really shouldn't be surprised that there are investors willing to throw money into something like this. Their big concern, though, should be making a profit with their first game. If it doesn't break even and they can't refund the investors' money, I'd think they'd be less likely to back future projects. Which makes me wonder why they're starting with such a mediocre game. I get that they want to test the waters, but surely they could've picked something more interesting.

I'm still incredibly skeptical of this project. Obsidian has nearly gone bankrupt more than once under Feargus's leadership, Fargo let Interplay be taken over and destroyed and Wasteland 2 didn't exactly have a smooth development cycle, and Shafer seems almost proud of his ability to waste money.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Obsidian has nearly gone bankrupt more than once under Feargus's leadership,
Feargus is running an independent, middle sized RPG studio for 12 years, on a market where these kind of studios are either going bankrupt in a few years, or are bought out by big publishers. They had layoffs, cancelled projects, being fucked over by publishers, they were given shitty QA, unfair press, and they are still kicking and making good RPGs. Feargus is doing a hell good of a job running this company.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I'd say we've been extraordinary lucky with how well the RPG Kickstarters have been run. It could have been worse, oh so much worse. Look at the adventure games. Look at strategy games like Planetary Annihilation. Feargus and Brian are doing a good job.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I think it'll be as successful as the games that are crowdfunded on it are popular.

Platform doesn't matter as much as some people here think. Two words: Ubuntu Edge.
 
Unwanted
Douchebag! Shitposter
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
3,059
I'd say we've been extraordinary lucky with how well the RPG Kickstarters have been run. It could have been worse, oh so much worse. Look at the adventure games. Look at strategy games like Planetary Annihilation. Feargus and Brian are doing a good job.


And instead it turned out to be mediocre games that are no better than what we've been getting before. How lucky we are.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
EA is running for longer... just saying. Maybe that thing of "Living long enough to become the villain." it's true. :troll:
Read the whole sentence. I was saying that he is running a studio which by all account should have go bust a long time ago in this market enviroment. He is doing a good job.
 

Immortal

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
Messages
5,062
Location
Safe Space - Don't Bulli
He is doing a good job.

armored-warfare.jpg
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Codexers who have played it think Armored Warfare is pretty decent.
 

Immortal

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
Messages
5,062
Location
Safe Space - Don't Bulli
Well regardless of what you think of it as a game, it's a damn good contract. Keeping over a hundred people employed and all.

I would be extremely depressed joining one of the best RPG making companies in the world only to work on Russian Shovel Ware.
That and the constant fear of my job security every Q4.

EDIT:
I really felt bad when I saw the fun they were having on those Behind the scenes stand up meetings for PoE.
I bet if you asked 99% of that company if they wanted to work on the 10 man team of PoE, they would be unplugging their computer to swap cubicles before you even finished your sentence.
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium II

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jun 21, 2015
Messages
1,866,227
Location
Third World
Well you could always ask to be moved to a CRPG project if you ask. I'd be happy enough that the company I work at is getting loads of money from russian mafia investors, specially after the tough times Obs went through.

Also job security in the games industry :D
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
At the end of the day, I simply don't believe that there are hordes of people with big pools of cash sitting around wanting to invest it games. Certainly we've never seen any venture capitalist having a punt. It's just too risky and the returns are too small. Crowdfunding worked because people were willing to throw small sums of money at doubtful endeavours if it meant they might get to play the types of games they love, but that publishers are neglecting. When it comes to more serious sums of money and cold calculation of what you're actually going to get in return, games just aren't going to make the cut as investment opportunities.

Games, especially AAA (and presumably iii) is a hit driven industry which benefits larger entities like publishers who are part of and understand the market. You don't see many film funds anymore after changes to the German tax code dried up the supply of stupid German money for those (which thrived more on the tax benefits than the actual returns), so it seems to me that game funds aren't the way to go either.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
I would be extremely depressed joining one of the best RPG making companies in the world only to work on Russian Shovel Ware.
Except that AW is not shovelware and it is shaping up to be a nice tank MMO.

But of course you follow the usual Codex train of logic: I don't like the game = it is shit.
 

Immortal

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Sep 13, 2014
Messages
5,062
Location
Safe Space - Don't Bulli
Well, if -you- seriously doubt it... I mean shit, what else do we need?

Can we get a front page for all this insider info that's trickling through?

What project would they work on.. Over half the company is on the tank game.. PoE has a budget for a team of 12.
You don't have to be so edgy.. just use your head.

Also, I said I doubt it.. Of course anything is possible, I just doubt it considering I've worked at Mid-sized software companies and saw teams who got shafted with shitty projects and there was no way to move side ways to other projects for a multitude of reasons - the biggest being budget / timing concerns and the overhead of moving people around in the software world, there's a huge cost to bring people "up to speed".
 

Renegen

Arcane
Joined
Jun 5, 2011
Messages
4,062
I wouldn't have too many problems with Fig if it wasn't for the fact that they're jewing it up like crazy (5% of ALL FUTURE SALES) and have Tim Scammer on their board and the founder used to work at Double Fine. They seem much less trustworthy after this.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom