How would you invest to CSE/CU/MJ?

Eluwien

Long live Camelot! 

 

tl;dr: The Knights of the Round Table has gold to invest, and ponders how to use it effectively.

 

While the "why kickstarter" and what the biz words actually mean is discussed here, the question is mute if alternatives are not considered. It is obvious that MJ, City State Entertainment and Camelot Unchained hits a special warm spot for many of us and that it's probably one of the most hyped MMO even before a single screenshot or even KS has sarted, ever.

 

It has been established on several ocassion that CSE does not want to have large entities as investors to mantain their control over the developement process, and thus be allowed to cater to the intended market niche without bending over to the demands of the Big Money. This seems to be highly appreciated decission path, if not for the possibility of a better product, but even only as show of integrity against the Corporations. 

 

However, it is astonishing to me that in the world of 2013 kickstarter is the pinacle of crowd funding philosophy. While it is a solid method for gauging interest in the intended market niche, it is hardly the best this era can offer (and by no means a kickstarter donation is an investment, stop arguing about the obvious). I propose to CSE to consider alternative methods of offering actual investment packages using crowdsourcing philosophy, such as crowdcube or Gambitious. Both organizations offer kickstarter type solutions with the option to return revenues to the investors, eventually enabling profit gains. I also want to challenge CSE to offer an IPO, Initial Public Offering for the stocks of the company. With modern day tools it is by no means impossible to offer stocks with no actual voting power (thus retaining the control over developement), offer these through a subsidiary company (to avoid certain limitations / mitigate risk), and to offer these in a manner that single purchasing party can not hold more than insignificant quantity of stocks (to avoid losing ownership to big investor) while still allowing realization of profits from such investment.

 

I said it before and I say it again. 2001 we were mere gamers, now 12 years later we're adults with adult understanding of economics, and with adult wallets, if you know what I mean.

meddyck

The idea of donating money and getting even a micro-percentage of sales back is intriguing. It doesn't seem likely they are going to change course at this point though after spending weeks raising awareness for the kickstarter.

Jithak

I'll just wait till the kickstarter and see how much information is out till then. Then I'll decide how much I'll invest. I'm almost sure that it will be at least the amount to guarantee beta acces and the full game. If I'll go further is depending on what I know the game will be and will not be.

fanglo

Over 70% favor some version of kick starter. Seems like they are doing what most players want.

CluckingChicken

STOCKS? Why would I want STOCKS when I could get a fancy VIP forum status?

tlear

Dudes.. its $100 lol do you buy stocks in that volume? Whats the point..

Eluwien

After 25 votes...

60% support some form of Kickstarter, 48% only if it quarantees access to pre-release test phases.

16% is looking for return from their investment either through direct stock purchase, or Equity Based crowd funding solution.

No one cares about pre-ordering.

Suprisingly 8% wants a CSE bank account information for a direct donation without anything in return. Combined with 12% Kickstarer supporters without interest on rewards, this combines to a whopping 20% who want to give money only to support the developement of CU.

 

As Fanglo states, majority of the voters seem to support Kickstarter solution. Wether this is because of not understanding the alternatives, or because Kickstarer is the most likely and most discussed option is hard to say. From CSE point of view, this also would mean that if 60% support their KS initiative, 40% of potential backers are perhaps lost by only having a KS option.

 

Tlear points out that no one would buy stocks at the volume in $100, or even three figure numbers. This of course depends on available options and initial cost of the stock. Percentage growth is anyway percentage growth, regardless of the volume allocated to this company's stock.

 

Also this also raises the question what is the potential income received from different kind of investing options. Kickstarter donations average in general at numbers bellow $100, while equity based crowdfunding options generally get higher value per single backer. Without a doubt a stock offering attracts those with even more to invest. Coming back to the 40% potential backers lost with having only KS option, one might consider the 16% of these who want return on investment to make up larger proportion of the actual funding gained.

 

Keep on voting!

 

hadati

What I want, and I think most of the people who voted for alpha, is to have a chance to truly impact the development of the game, to have the devs really listen to and change things based on our feedback.  So many companies only offer a last-minute stress test kind of "beta" experience but only find out afterwards, usually in a painful way, that they should have brought in their end-user far earlier in the process.  Not only are we better at finding bugs and reporting them, but we come up with amazing ideas for innovating the MMO genre and if there's a process for letting the very best ideas rise to the top, then CU could definitely end up becoming a huge hit and not just the niche, modern-graphic RvR game that has been promised.

meddyck

As a programmer, I wonder if everybody who is gung ho to get into alpha really understands the kind of rough shape the game will be in at that point with numerous often critical bugs and missing features. I totally get the desire to see and give input about game design from the earliest stages but actually playing the game in alpha won't be for the faint of heart.

pwain

Kickstarter, no rewards needed.

 

and now shut up and take my money

Plastic-Metal

Originally posted by meddyck
As a programmer, I wonder if everybody who is gung ho to get into alpha really understands the kind of rough shape the game will be in at that point with numerous often critical bugs and missing features. I totally get the desire to see and give input about game design from the earliest stages but actually playing the game in alpha won't be for the faint of heart.

 

Well put, meddyck.  A lot, and I mean a lot, of features are missing; place holder textures, blocks representing geographical static meshes, tons of bugs in the things that are visible/working.   Alpha builds are awesome, but if you're in it just to "see the game" ... you're better off waiting for open beta.  Quality Assurance is a serious business!

hadati

The earlier you push an asteroid, the more it affects it's trajectory as time passes.

rogue187

i'd invest IF promised was as good or better than the features of Archeage, Wildstar and ESO put together...gl

morfidon

I don't understand you who want cash from investing 30-500$ lol.

You get game for donating on KS. You would have to pay for it anyway if it was realeased. It's like preordering game without any broker / agent between you so 100% cash goes to the studio. You get also some benefits not affecting game if you pay more. What's more it will probably cost more for people who do not donate at KS so it's good investment. You will save money even just because of it. What's more if you pay more you will have your monthly sub lowered. Geeesh chill out everyone.

Vymm

The sheer economics and legal fees of microtransactions/microloans that you are talking about i'snt worth the small amount of money most people will be donating (ie. $100-500 as seen from polls).  If these guys wanted to raise serious capital I am sure they could do it without many problems from VC/angel investors.  But as we all know, with that VC money comes the downside of being rushed to market.  When a game is funded or partially funded by players -- who don't need an economic/financial return on investment (ROI) the game has the ability to flourish in the development stages, hell even stagnate a bit, until a 'quality' product is reached for launch.

 

Vymm

logonmas

The reason why people wouldn't want an IPO/stock is it would be a bad investment.  The funding might be a lot more than 2 million to get an IPO, then you have higher operating costs because all of the book keeping/reporting/etc needed so that takes away from funding.  Also, their stock value would be absolute crap and it would be a hard sell since they only have one mobile game out so far so they would experience likely 2 years of losses that they would have to report until the game is made.  Stock holders likely wouldn't be too thrilled with that. Also, targeting a niche market would further reduce the likelihood that stocks would ever skyrocket.  It would be very likely a zero-sum gain at best.

 

This basically means you'd be investing in a company that isn't looking to 100% maximize profits and as a stock holder, that is absolutely not what you want.  Also, when you have investors they would likely be pushing the game to make more money, demand that they sell the game for more, offer more expensive options in the cash shop and pay to win options that would increase sales. They basically would need to get rid of their design philosophy in order to make it functional.  If they were shooting for a main stream release and not a niche game it might make sense.  However, most of the stock holders would end up losing money on this deal and likely get a worse game as a result. When people invest in stocks, they want return on their investment... if the game isn't wayyyyyyyyyy above their projections then they'll more than likely take a loss as far as stocks go and stock holders who wanted to play the game will likely be more pissed off than getting a reward on Kickstarter. It would almost certainly wind up as a junk stock unless the company took off and started buying up smaller companies and released dozens of games as a publisher.