Takedown: Red Sabre, aka "Hardcore Tactical Shooter"

[Zed]

http://kotaku.com/5896568/i-messed-up-my-video-game-kickstarter-now-im-fixing-it

Now featuring a very dramatized pitch video.

So what did we do wrong?
There are three primary points (based on feedback from the internets), that we screwed up on. First, I lack the instant name recognition that Tim Schafer or Brian Fargo has, and we weren't clear of the experience of the other team members. Next, our video was not exciting enough and the quality wasn't up to the standard it should have been. Lastly, we were too vague about the details of the project, lacked assets to show, and didn't properly differentiate our concept from other shooters on the market today. Oh, and the name SUCKED.
So what are we doing about it?
Kickstarter is a crazy ride; you have your good days and your bad days. It would be easy to close our eyes, hope for the best, and slink away if we didn't make it. But that's not how we roll. We have redoubled our efforts over the past week, partnering with a local video production company to make what we hope is a kick-ass video. We commissioned AWESOME concept art from Charles Guan, and partnered with actor Matt Corboy and composer Rich Douglas to help promote the project. And we named the damn thing, holding a fan concept to create a logo splash image. TAKEDOWN is born.

Uhm, so, they have 6 days to go.

I loved RS: Rogue Spear. Still not pledging.

They gave it a working name, Takedown. Probably so people wouldn't have to go "hey have you heard about Hardcore Tactical Shooter?" because that sounds silly.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/355932838/crowdsourced-hardcore-tactical-shooter

 

[Ulminati]

Reasons I won't pledge one cent to this game.

1) Genre doesn't interest me personally (but let's regard this for a moment)
2) Funding won't finish the game. Just "convince private investors that there is a market". Huh? What's th epoint of going kickstarter if it doesn't break you free of th epublisher model?
3) Arrogant-as-fuck/clueless dev. "Hurr durr I'm not as well known as Tim Schafer, but my fans have guns!"
4) No work whatsoever sunk into sketching out what the game is going to be like. Brian fargo has spent 20 years working on a design doc, the FTL guys had a playable demo, the banner saga guys had a ton of concept art, a short video showing gameplay and some sweet swag. These people have a random picture of some guns and talk about sending people berettas if they pledge enough money.
5) Stupid-as-fuck reward tiers. Conference calls to express your ideas for $1k? The privilege of submitting (apparently unpaid) content for $100? Should we do a fundraiser for Prosper on this?
6) I paticularly liked this part:

TAKEDOWN plans a single player campaign, co-op play, and competitive multiplayer. First Person view is planned on PC, with PS3 going Third Person. Xbox 360 view is to be determined based on feedback from the 360 community

Oh, ok. So are you developing 2 entirely seperate games for my money or just hoping that what works for first person will work in third and vice versa without any large changes? What if I don't care about or own a PS3? Why the fuck do you think the XBOX crowd wouldn't want hte exact same thing as the PS3 crowd since it's exactly the same demographic?

I'm not convinced that - even if we gave them a million jewgoldz - this project has a bigger chance of ever releasing any product whatsoever than Grimoire.

 

[Ulminati]

No, seriously. If they re-launch this or whatever with the same dumb reward tiers, should we scrounge up $1k to let Prosper submit content to their game and get on conference calls with the devs to express his ideas?

Tactical turd elementals, anyone?

 

[Stabwound]

I just noticed something fucking hilarious. Look at the "screenshots" he posted on the kickstarter. Looks pretty cool, but a little surprising that he has screenshots to show when the game is not even in production, right? Well, look what I found:

Sweet game screenshots, bro!

 

[Ulminati]

Oh man, that's comedy gold right there. Shame I have to pledge jewgoldz to be allowed to post that in their comments section.

 

[Zed]

^HAHAHA, what the fuck. I know people use reference photos and shit but damn. That's just a 5 minute photoshop.

I'll just let private investors, like Ulminati pointed out, back this game. No point in basically placing a pre-order. Not gonna pledge money to have it be used as an indicator for publishers.

 

[Ulminati]

Ok, fuck it. I'm pledging $1 just so I can post that image link in their comments section. The butthurt will be worth it.

 

[felipepepe]

Also this:

Next, our video was not exciting enough and the quality wasn't up to the standard it should have been.

Bullshit, it has nothing to do with videos, you fool! You just clearly burned some good money to have someone make that pro video for you, that's far from what Kickstarter concept is.

I'm now hoping that this project fails, or people will start thinking that was the pro video that saved them (since the concept is even dumber than before), and kickstarter will become more and more about high production videos and gimmicks than actual ideas.

 

[Zed]

Ok, fuck it. I'm pledging $1 just so I can post that image link in their comments section. The butthurt will be worth it.

@ Ulminati What's your point? It gets the concept across, no?

 

[Ulminati]

Ok, fuck it. I'm pledging $1 just so I can post that image link in their comments section. The butthurt will be worth it.

@ Ulminati What's your point? It gets the concept across, no?

Check out the awesome concept art for the game I'm working on!

What? It gets the concept across, no?

If the codex can raise $200k so I can convince private invesotrs people are dumb enough to fall for this, I will be able to start production.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

What Ulminati said, though the genre mildly interests me. The "Give us money so we can use it to get investors" angle is the worst, though. Part of the point of these GLORIOUS KICKSTARTER VIDEOGAMES is they're lower budget. FTL has mostly static 2D art. Doublefine Adventure is supposedly going to be point and click with static areas (Though IIRC they still aren't sure if they're going to do 2D or 3D, but the 3D will be static rooms as though it was 2D I believe). Wasteland 2 sounds as though it's going to be similar to Wasteland 1, so probably static/limited animation moving around on maps and text based combat. Banner Saga appears to be all 2D. They should've just asked for their $200,000 and got a cheap old engine (How much is Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 engine these days?) and made their game and focused on gameplay.

I suppose sitting in a forum thread and going GRAIFX SUCKS MAKE MORE BETTER GAMEPLAY is pretty useless, but I thought that was the point of these kickstarter shenanigans. Game developers focusing on specific subgenres for smaller groups of people with lower budget and ignoring expensive shit like graphics and voice acting. The sort of thing Vogel's been doing since time immemorial before it got cool, and who now seems to be raking in even more money due to crap like Steam bringing more attention to his games.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

What Ulminati said, though the genre mildly interests me. The "Give us money so we can use it to get investors" angle is the worst, though. Part of the point of these GLORIOUS KICKSTARTER VIDEOGAMES is they're lower budget. FTL has mostly static 2D art. Doublefine Adventure is supposedly going to be point and click with static areas (Though IIRC they still aren't sure if they're going to do 2D or 3D, but the 3D will be static rooms as though it was 2D I believe). Wasteland 2 sounds as though it's going to be similar to Wasteland 1, so probably static/limited animation moving around on maps and text based combat.

Wasteland 2 is being made for ToEEfags and Fallout fanboys. No chance for something similar to the original.

 

[Stabwound]

It's funny how many apologists are popping out of the woodwork after those images were posted on the kickstarter comments page. Well, I guess I'd be doing that too if I donated to this money grubbing idiot.

It will be a good thing if (when) this kickstarter fails. I actually don't even know how this is a legitimate kickstarter considering it's not even going to fund the game itself, just giving him money so he can pitch to investors. If this kickstarter was successfully funded I'd put my money on it being the first big one to be a massive failure in the end.

 

[Angthoron]

I just noticed something fucking hilarious. Look at the "screenshots" he posted on the kickstarter. Looks pretty cool, but a little surprising that he has screenshots to show when the game is not even in production, right? Well, look what I found:

Sweet game screenshots, bro!

BioWarean school of design!

 

[Gregz]

^

 

[attackfighter]

can't decide if that guys an idiot or a con

 

[sgc_meltdown]

why would I even back this when I can have ARMA 2 with the most hardcore tactics of all



now you tell me which one demonstrates a true quality product this video or a photoshopped swat team


also:
skip to 3:10

 

[RK47]

Please fail. We don't need another shooter to compete with Mass effect 4.

 

[felipepepe]

Please fail. We don't need another shooter to compete with Mass effect 4.

I think it's safe to say they are gonna fail, only 5 days to go and so far the new video & kickstarter page only got them +10k...they still are 80/200k.

 

[attackfighter]

one thing about this project and the MMO one is that they don't offer anything you couldn't acquire elsewhere

the market's already saturated with tacticool shooters and WoW clones

no reason for anyone to turn to kickstarter for that crap

 

[Wyrmlord]

Shame I have to pledge jewgoldz to be allowed to post that in their comments section.

Are you serious?

Ah, but another Richard Lowtax that man.

 

[Destroid]

Plenty if you use the UT3 engine which has a very cheap licence.

This is a tribesish game a lone guy is developing in his spare time I've been following. He's only been at it for a couple of months:

 

[Spectacle]

one thing about this project and the MMO one is that they don't offer anything you couldn't acquire elsewhere

the market's already saturated with tacticool shooters and WoW clones

no reason for anyone to turn to kickstarter for that crap

There hasn't really been any tactical shooters in the style of ghost recon or counterstrike released in the last few years, but these guys are completely failing to describe how their game will be different from CoD.

 

[RK47]

Their records failed them. I have a hard time believing someone behind Halo Reach has any semblance of what made 'tactical shooters' hardcore aside from 4 - man co-op and increased incoming damage.
Also doing third person and first person. HAHAHAHA. Hellgate anyone?

Go choke on a dollar coin or something. I rather spend my money on emotionally engaging shooter like Binary Domain with real time squad reactions and relationships on the field.

 

[potatojohn]

I would be down for another R6/SWAT, but I don't think these clowns can do it.