Game News Shaker Kickstarter Cancelled

[Zed]

Tags: Brenda Brathwaite; Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption; Loot Drop; Shaker; Tom Hall; Transolar Games

For people with an eye on the Kickstarter campaign for Brenda Brathwaite and Tom Hall's Shaker, it may not come as a complete surprise that it was cancelled today. With half the time remaining, the campaign managed to raise a quarter of the target million dollars.

Ultimately, our pitch just wasn't strong enough to get the traction we felt it needed to thrive. Sure, it may have made it. We could have fought our way to a possibly successful end. In reading your feedback and talking it over internally, however, we decided that it made more sense to kill it and come back with something stronger.​

Hopefully their next attempt will have some more substance from the get-go. Perhaps with a little less industry endorsement and a little more game to show.

In other Kickstarter-related news:
Corey and Lori Coles's Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption has managed to raise nearly $60k of their target $400k, and it's still in its first day.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Sure, it may have made it.

No really, it wouldn't have.

Watch it come back with a $250,000 budget though.

 

[ColCol]

Next time do a better pitch....and get rid of John Romero.

 

[Goral]

They've basically admitted that they were making things up as they went and that they thought that just because they've mentioned some good titles people would suddenly throw money at them. Now they expect that someone (anyone) will believe them once they will finally finish making shit up? To me they are burned.

 

[Volourn]

Why come back? They suck, their kickstarter, their deisgn sucked, they just plain sucked. Fuck 'em.

 

[Bulba]

doen't it involve making shit up in every game? not that I want to defend those guys...

 

[Black]

Gee, you'd think tards would give people's wallets some time to rest and fill up after Double Fine, Obsidian, inXile, Shadowrun and many other kickstarter projects had just started but no, GIVE 1 MILLION NOW.

Work on your timing.

 

[Esquilax]

Gee, you'd think tards would give people's wallets some time to rest and fill up after Double Fine, Obsidian, inXile, Shadowrun and many other kickstarter projects had just started but no, GIVE 1 MILLION NOW.

Work on your timing.

I think that those initial speculations of Kickstarter fatigue are bullshit. Clearly if all of those projects managed to get funded many times what they initially asked for, your mythical Kickstarter fatigue isn't to blame. It was because the pitch was shit.

 

[CrustyBot]

Cleve taking out the competition.



Really though, they just had NFI what they were doing.

 

[Wizfall]

I don't believe in kickstarter fatigue too.
Their pitch video was awfull and their campaign management wasn't better.
But i kind of like their story (except for having a predetermiined character) and the suggested gameplay.
Next time they better tell clearly what they want to do from the start because i think a Wizardry 8 "spiritual successor" kickstarter could raise a good amount of money.

 

[made]

it wasn't oldschool enough

 

[commie]

Tom and Brenda are the old style of devs (1980's-1990's era) with almost no marketing nous for the new age. I've no doubt they could pull of a great RPG given the resources, but it's just their ability to get those resources that is the problem. They obviously had too much enthusiasm(and desperation) and too little concrete stuff and virtually no roadmap or plan for how to get their KS across. Obsidian and inXile had prepared for ages beforehand and even though their initial pitches had no real details about the game, their vision was sound and focused and they knew how to ramp it up at regular intervals. Even Obsidian was really criticised here by many for 'mismanaging' their KS, starting with almost no detail, yet it became wildly successful because they figured out how to maximize pledges at every step. The masterstroke was not releasing any detail about the actual world, instead just giving an overview of what kind of game they were trying to make. This got the initial funding and then there was a nice surge whenever an update went out with actual detail and new stretch goals. Shaker had nothing like that.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Speaking of which, why the hell did they start with stretch goals already laid out? That seems pretty stupid to me. You keep those to encourage more pledges after the first goal is achieved.

 

[Volourn]

Comparing them to Obsidian is poor 9despite my abshing of this earlier). Obsidian is pretty much as close to a AAA developer you can get Theya re a sizeable company with major success in recent eyars. They hada game sell 5mil+ copies. They have had other multi million selling games. They gets lots of press.

I bet if BIO (unlikely since they are tied to a publisher) had a KS, they would get $5mil in donations easy. Or think how much a Bethesda, SS, or Blizzard could get.

 

[commie]

Comparing them to Obsidian is poor 9despite my abshing of this earlier). Obsidian is pretty much as close to a AAA developer you can get Theya re a sizeable company with major success in recent eyars. They hada game sell 5mil+ copies. They have had other multi million selling games. They gets lots of press.

I bet if BIO (unlikely since they are tied to a publisher) had a KS, they would get $5mil in donations easy. Or think how much a Bethesda, SS, or Blizzard could get.

Well it's not comparing them directly as of course Obsidian are a large, established studio and Loot Drop are just three names, only one of which would actually maybe be recognised by the gaming public at large. Having said that, the basic principles of getting a KS to work apply for everyone. Dead State got funded for fucks sake and even though I'm not really convinced by it yet I threw my money down because of the modest goal and the fact that they brought something to the table. DS KS also wasn't that great but it was enough obviously, and that's the difference. Shaker didn't know what the hell it was trying to be, what direction it was heading in, hell they even offered a separate RPG as a stretch goal!

 

[Syl]

Shaker Kickstarter Cancelled

OMG THAT WAS TOTALLY UNEXPECTED!

 

[Jarpie]

The big mistake Loot Drop did was that they didn't have anything. The succesful Kickstarter needs to have at least some basic info and what I've found, it needs to set up what will be the "feel" of the game; Project Eternity this did very well, Wasteland 2 did as well, Legends of Eisenwald too, so did Jane Jensen.

It does not have to be anything concrete like screeshots or definite design but when I watched and read the Project Eternity pitch, I knew what will be the "feel" of the game.

When I watched and read Loot Drop's pitch, I had no fucking idea how it'll be and their updates didn't help at all. When they presented their updates it pretty much felt like they've just thrown them together in five minutes.

They have most probably already lost people since Shaker left very bad after taste - and once you lose your customers they're not coming back. If they do come back to Kickstarter they need completely new pitch, settting and basicly everything, the moment people smells Shaker in it, they're gone.

 

[Minttunator]

Bad timing, not a very good initial pitch, not enough information about the actual game.

The important thing is that people don't jump to the conclusion that there is no interest in that type of RPG - there is, it just needs to be presented a bit better.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

They've basically admitted that they were making things up as they went and that they thought that just because they've mentioned some good titles people would suddenly throw money at them. Now they expect that someone (anyone) will believe them once they will finally finish making shit up? To me they are burned.

One step short of confessing to running a financial scam and in their own words. But next time they will be serious. No really. They admitted they had been making it up as they went along.

In case anybody missed it this shows enormous contempt for people in general, including admitting they were lying after the fact.

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

Cleve taking out the competition.



Really though, they just had NFI what they were doing.

 

[Ogg]

they thought that just because they've mentioned some good titles people would suddenly throw money at them. Now they expect that someone (anyone) will believe them once they will finally finish making shit up? To me they are burned.

Well they actually gathered 250k$. I already find it hard to believe considering the poor quality of their pitch and overall campaign. People did throw money at them despite their lack of preparation. Sadly, like DU, I'm certain they will come back with a lower threshold and sheeple will donate. That's the very nature of fandom.

 

[Trash]

The idea of Kickstarter is that devs show their ideas and pitch them to their customer base. The Wasteland 2 team had little to show apart from big time industry names and that one hauled in the millions. Loot Drop did do pretty much the same and didn't, despite a trackrecord of people who worked on classics such as the Wizardry series, Anachronox and Doom. The flak they're getting is ridiculous. These people are not the pr suits that ruined the industry to begin with, they are developers. People now basically demand a return of the pr folk before shelling out. Way to validate the industry.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I bet if BIO (unlikely since they are tied to a publisher) had a KS, they would get $5mil in donations easy.

I'm actually waiting to see how long it is before the smart exec at EA realises how much of a free ride they can get and try it.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Liked the story too and wanted to patronize them after next paycheck... more for Cleve I guess.

 

[tuluse]

The idea of Kickstarter is that devs show their ideas and pitch them to their customer base. The Wasteland 2 team had little to show apart from big time industry names and that one hauled in the millions. Loot Drop did do pretty much the same and didn't, despite a trackrecord of people who worked on classics such as the Wizardry series, Anachronox and Doom. The flak they're getting is ridiculous. These people are not the pr suits that ruined the industry to begin with, they are developers. People now basically demand a return of the pr folk before shelling out. Way to validate the industry.

No, we demand an actual game to be pitched, not just saying "old school rpg" 100 times.