I am with Aegho. The jerk that sells RPG Maker routinely spams sites with his "trial" without bothering to mention it is a trial. As such, I have never used it, and fight him every time I see him posting it somewhere as a "Full version" of the product. I would have no problem with him spreading his trial if he bothered to say it is a trial. And this game does not look good. It looks like a thousand other shitty games already out there. Half of them are free too.
I'm sure that this game has an audience for it somewhere, but I don't think that I'm it. But I'm not willing to say ahead of time if it would be a good or bad game. I've played games that looked worse that were decent, (and lots that looked better that were horrible). That said, there is some truth to what Omni wrote. All of the kickstarters that I participated in were either from companies and individuals that had a proven track record, or they actually had a working demo. If I'm buying a full game from an unknown entity, I better know that the game exists, and that it is getting some positive feedback. I don't want to tell anyone what to do with their money. But as kickstarters go, this doesn't seem like a very promising one. If these people are capable of doing what their goal is, they really need to give a demonstration. Drawing a web comic is not the same as creating a game. Show me that they can create a game, even a small one, and I might feel their kickstarter was a tad more credible.
Kickstarter for me is not just about great awesome well-reputed guys doing what they did best in the past and getting funded through fans of earlier work because publishers don't want to. It's also and very much so for budding talent, for new names, for taking a risk with the project you're funding because you (want to) believe in it. Kickstarter is not only about pre-ordering games that deserve to be made. It is also about offering opportunities and seeing where innovation may go, where trailblazers might end up. All you have to do is being able to give the money without needing a return on that. You're investing in someone else's dream, not investing in yourself. Read this, I did and it probably helped me formulate what I wrote: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-12-12-are-the-rich-old-men-ruining-kickstarter It's a good read in any case ^^
A perfect example of how bad kickstarter can get is in the details here. http://www.carmageddon.com/paypal-pledges "Estimated Delivery: Feb 2013 (DRM-free version - Dec 2013)" Ten months to make the same exact game without DRM? What are they thinking? The game will have exactly zero Internet multiplayer support, but will support multiplayer via LAN. This means that it has exactly zero reason to need Internet access at all, but DRM almost always insists on Internet access. I never pledged to this kickstarter because of a similar reason to what is confirmed by this quote above. It sounds like a cruel joke and looks like one too. Experience says it will be one.
By the way, in your post with the link above Godwin, the comments mention how Clockwork Empires is doing the fans well as opposed to many kickstarters. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-12-12-are-the-rich-old-men-ruining-kickstarter Just scroll down and read the comments, or search the page for "Clockwork Empire" and you will see it.
I don't disagree. But on the other hand, why should I give money to a random person off the street who's never created a game in their life? Why should I give anyone money for something that DOESN'T EXIST if they don't even have a game on their resume. It's like applying for a job. When you have no experience, you still need something -- a demonstration that you are actually capable of completing a project, even if its a project of a much smaller scale, even if it's a free game or a demo. Anyone ANYONE can start a project, not everyone can actually deliver a finished product. Some people do that, so don't tell me that that's not fair. Everyone who's established got their start someplace. Either they did something at school or in their spare time. Or they invested in themselves. Remember that Kickstarter is kind of an investment. If you don't have faith in the project, AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY faith in the people who are working on the project, why invest? Faith must be earned. I don't see these people as having earned anything.
I can't find any mention there. I'm not sure why. Personally, I totally disagree with the viewpoint of the article. Kickstarter is for everyone, whether they are established or not. It's just an alternate form of funding. There are other reasons why projects don't get funding, and why developers may not want to go through the traditional route where they have to yield creative control. That said, there's always risk involved in any project.
The quote is gone... I guess some jerkbag deleted it. Oh well. And I think you may have paid too much attention to the topic to grasp the real concept of the thread. The idea is that if you already have millions, you do not need a private investor, much less hundreds or even thousands of them. Take the risk with your own money and reap the profits if it works. A millionaire who says they need a hundred grand to make a game is a fucking scam artist. Even if they deliver as promised, they are doing so at the risk of everyone else, not their own money. Sorry if that sounds insulting. It is just how I feel on the subject.
While I can appreciate your point of view, people who have money do not get that way by spending their own cash. People always look for investors, even if they have money, simply because it's always better to spread the risk. It may not seem socially just, but it's smart. Furthermore, when you have unlimited funds, there's a tendency to spend it all when things start to go awry. But a budget creates discipline, it creates an actual deadline to work towards. Besides, just because someone is a millionaire (and I'm not sure which person you are talking about) doesn't mean they have a million cash to invest.
Well... being a millionaire doesn't actually guarantee they have a ton of liquid funds. A lot of the money tends to be tied up in things, especially for minor league millionaires. Braben hasn't exactly always been successful either. His publisher droping The Outsider almost bankrupted Frontier developments, had to resort to layoffs. I can definitely see why he went kickstarter to avoid that happening again, and I think Elite Dangerous is probably his pet project that he's always wanted to do (an Elite 4 MMORPG project was first announced in 2001! And again in 2005. He's been wanting to make this for some time). Btw if you work for a living and don't do so through your own company that you built yourself, thus risking your own money, you're also being kind of hypocritical.
Likewise I appreciate your prospective. And I recognize that not all "Millionaires" have a million in spendable cash. But does that not mean they are not a millionaire? A person with two homes each worth 500K but no money at all is not a millionaire. In reality, they are pretty much beyond broke if that is the case. So I am using the term generally, but in the literal definition. As for who fits the description, I have no idea. But if they are asking for a hundred thousand and have several hundred thousand on hand that is not required to live, I expect they should take no less than half the risk themselves. Anything other than that falls into the scammer category as explained in the link above. Kickstarter is not a shop, and makes no guarantee that people will be happy with their expense. So long as the kickstartee delivers *ANYTHING* that resembles the thing they agreed to deliver, it is all but impossible to get anything out of them even in a court of law. And if they deliver nothing whatsoever, there is no way to get your money back. Even if they spend the money on cocaine and full page advertisements mocking kickstarters for paying for their drug habit, there is not a shred of hope for getting anything fair in return. At best they can possibly be found guilty of breaking a legally binding contract and ordered to pay back the money they snorted... But it is too late at that point. You cannot get blood from a radish.
I'm sorry but I think that sentence needs some parsing before I can understand what you are trying to say. I can guess (forgive me if I'm misinterpreting you). IF you want to make a game, as I've said other places, there are often reasons why you don't want to use traditional funding (such as going through an established company EVEN IF you are the owner of that company). As others have pointed out, Kickstarter is a more democratic process, where the consumer gets to have a greater say in the process. I know I've said that art is not a democratic process, and democracy is not prone to producing the best art. And the majority could just as easily screw up a game as a business-oriented company can. But at least there's a connection between the developers and the consumers that you don't always get.
Let me speak both sides of the argument. If you use kickstarter as an individual, you have zero guarantees set in stone. Release dates are no real concern, and you decide for yourself how much polish the game gets before it is released. But if you do the same with private funding from a company, you can be told to deliver it now or they will pull your funding. Even if it is far from finished. Companies are often publically traded via stocks. Meaning they are required to attempt to make money, even if it is a bad move in the long term, since doing otherwise can be used as evidence they were trying to push the stock price down for one reason or another. If you have a company pay for your game, you are on their clock, and must do what you are told. People often want games finely polished. This simply does not happen with shareholders bitching about stock prices because they were told the game of the century would be out by now and they would be swimming in money. You do not have the same freedom with private corporate finances as you may with your own, or a kickstarter. This is an undeniable fact.
Which brings me back to my original point -- that you don't want to invest in projects that don't have a lot of hope for success. People who got rich in this business are simply a better risk. Show me one who's spending the money on cocaine, and yes, they WILL go to jail because that IS Fraud. You are right. You are not buying a game. In fact, you are not really an investor, in the traditional sense because you are not buying a share in the success of said game. Kickstarter is pretty up-front about that though, so there is no INHERENT fraud. Yes, if the the money does not go towards creating a game, then it would be fraud, and if you could prove it, someone WOULD go to jail. It's not a traditional investment, but it is still a kind of investment. I'm not saying that there aren't people who are investing who don't THINK that they are buying a game. (People like that ought to be slapped until they get some sense). But it IS a way of using your money to tell developers that THIS is a project that you believe has merit, that there is a game that OUGHT to get made, and these are the people who OUGHT to be making it. I'm not a person of faith, but it is a faith-based system. You have to believe that something is worthy of support, and that you aren't merely donating to someone's Cocaine habit, as you so wonderfully put it. Besides, the people running these projects may not be investing some of their own cash (or they might be -- I don't know and you don't know if they are). But what they ARE doing is investing with their own blood sweat and tears, their own creativity and in the case of the higher profile projects, their own reputation.
I subscribe to the Heisenberg Kickstarter Uncertainty Principle. That is that you really never know what you will get for your money in a kickstarter. But just to be a picky bitch, I must point out that kickstarters have never been challenged in a court. And they are in fact *NOT* a binding contract like any other. You can argue they are, but you could also argue that they are a binding contract that the developer pretend to make a game and eventually give up publicly once they run out of cocaine addled nose time. In fact, I postulate that this is the universal image of a Kickstarter: Ignore the spoilered part if you are a kid. Drugs are bad. Spoiler: Ignore this Just for the record, I have never used that stuff. But I cannot find the image I was looking for, so these will do. *Edit* Also to be clear, I suspect that most people who do Kickstarters will attempt to do exactly what they set out to do. Attempt is the key word there. I did the Ouya Kickstarter. And they are already shipping the prerooted developer consoles. Mine will be several months more, but I believe it will happen as they agreed. There have been several other kickstarters I participated with.I have mixed feelings on it, but I do not believe it is a real guarantee you will get what you are paying for.
"A millionaire who says they need a hundred grand to make a game is a I was commenting on this bit here: If he's not risking his own money in order to work, then that bit is a bit hypocritical. For this is Braben's job. He's a computer game designer. Just because he's made some money doesn't mean he must risk it to make more, it's like saying Brad Pitt is a scam artist for not bankrolling his own movies.
We can argue on this all night long. But in the end, all we will achieve is to waste our time. I am cynical and agnostic about almost if not everything. You need not agree with me. In reality, you are more likely to be right if you disagree with me. I follow the idea that if you expect the worst, you will always be pleasantly surprised when things are not as you expect.
Wow I opened a real bag of rice here! Basically what I was trying to get across is that I like taking a chance sometimes because something feels right in a project for me. And I may be wrong and it may not work, but I will not limit the money I spend on kickstarter to be exclusively for the ones who've already proven they can do it. Taking a risk with your money is part of it, fundamentally, to me. So when I notice I am leaning towards funding only 'pretty-much guaranteed to succeed' stuff I tend to auto-correct and descend into the lower regions at the bottom of the list and see whether I can back something there. Of course I do use my brain and such and some projects just look awful and bad and silly and some are like a scam etc, so I am pretty careful with my money, but not too careful. I basically reacted to this statement: With: "I'm different." There's no problem whatsoever with me being different from you. Or you from me. About the millionaire funding: I think I would think twice indeed, as I feel a good distribution of wealth across the globe is ideal, and a millionaire has a lot of money, so if he can put that back into the community through a game so much the better (and if he makes even more than he put it: great! he can do it again AND give to a charity). See now actually on kickstarter that is a very good idea: because you will not give your money if the project in unsuccesful. So it's actually only a net positive feeling for the project creator that he is maybe on to something seeing as how people believed in him. No negative. (Furthermore I very very unexpectedly got a free signed book sent to me without any cost whatsoever out of backing a project which had 24 backers, it asked for $500K, didn't make it (OBVIOUSLY), but then achieved through private funding twice the money they asked and can launch a full year ahead of schedule, and as thanks to the 24 backers they got a book. I know, silly story that you cannot use in your future, but it was fun and well, I liked sharing it )
I'm not talking about funding success. I think we both agree that we only want to invest in projects that look good to us. The main difference is that part of what makes a project look good to me is THE PROJECT'S prospect for success. Even AAA titles get cancelled for all sorts of reasons. Key people may leave the project, it may run way over budget, it may meet all sorts of issues, from technical to creative, to financial to legal to personal. Show me a hundred projects that are in their early stages, I can guarantee you that not all of them will be completed. Many more may be completed but not actually fulfill their initial promise (I mean that both in terms of quality and actual promised features, content, etc.). Crap games sometimes start out with brilliant ideas. But we will agree to disagree, I think.
