Because I like those guys I have never seen or met before and I hate those other guys I have never seen or met before.
But honestly I pledged to Wasteland 2 because I played Wasteland 1 and Brian Fargo et al have made many excellent games I want to give them a chance to make another one. If its not that great of a game then that is fine life is not certain. But I have always wanted another game like Wasteland and no publisher would do it, so I am fine with doing it.
Secondly the InExile folks are extremely open with their supporters, because well they already have our money. This sounds strange, but see we can't pull out. InExile is free to be completely honest because they kind of have us by the balls. They have their budget and their timeline and unless they are grossly incompetent they will meet it. They have the supporters money and even if they deliver 6 months late they still have that money. So why not tell them 6 months ahead of time that they will be 6 months late? Whereas a traditionaly publisher will just lie to you or release a crappy game.
Other side to that is a less morally savory company could just fold up and run with your (really their's now) money.
Its a gamble and like Fargo has mentioned the crowd source funding is likely now in a phase where the euphoria has worn off and the people who invest will want certain guarantees. There will be failures. There are always failures. And so some people will get their money wasted. Nature of the beast funding is not buying. Its a speculation.
I am speculating that I will be proud to have my name in the credits of Wasteland 2 and I will enjoy the game. But I know I am speculating until I see the finished product.
Buying a game and funding development of a game are not at all the same thing. If you go in thinking they are you will be disillusioned and are probably stupid or foolish as well. I didn't used to say stuff like that but I have come to the realization that it is necessary. If you think funding = buying then you are a fool. And fools are soon parted from their money.
Don't be a bag holder. In today's circumstances in the world this bears repeating. Don't be a bag holder. To balancce that out; don't be a coward either.
Originally posted by Alaya_AngelSoul Originally posted by Hedeon Originally posted by Destac So about 90% of you don't know what an investment is. When you invest in a business you are hoping for a payout to get more money. Well on Kickstarter you are donating to that company and then you can continue to pay more unless they offer you the game at release, but look at the facts people. If a game needs kick starter to be successful then you should probably avoid putting your money into it. NOT ALL GAMES but most of them.I don't believe in using kick starter for mmos but if they want to continue using it then go ahead I can't stop you.
I think you are the sort of person who would call 90% of other people stupid, who didnt care to understand what sort of background other people made their answer from...ofc more than 90% understand what an investment is...dont be absurd...
I do understand what an investment means, and I am not trying to offend anyone or attack anyone. I am simply offering my opinion for a "gaming" standpoint (which is exactly what is being offered by the game founders) They are trying to bring their dream into reality And offering you a chance to be a part of that reality (if you believe in the idea of their dream) If we were talking about tradable stock options we wouldn't be attaching a game title to it, or the process for funding (which incidentally is from a gaming standpoint as well)
It's a dream and a game to you. It's a money-making enterprise to them.
Kickstarter is a Known risk and most people investing into it know it.
pre-orders are often based on hype(lies) about a game, people expect someting and often feel stolen out of their money.
thats the diference. if you pre-order Knowing that you might (most likely) not like the final product, go ahead, if you dont like that risk..simply dont.
Kickstarter is a Known risk and most people investing into it know it.pre-orders are often based on hype(lies) about a game, people expect someting and often feel stolen out of their money. thats the diference. if you pre-order Knowing that you might (most likely) not like the final product, go ahead, if you dont like that risk..simply dont.
So about 90% of you don't know what an investment is. When you invest in a business you are hoping for a payout to get more money. Well on Kickstarter you are donating to that company and then you can continue to pay more unless they offer you the game at release, but look at the facts people.
If a game needs kick starter to be successful then you should probably avoid putting your money into it. NOT ALL GAMES but most of them.
I don't believe in using kick starter for mmos but if they want to continue using it then go ahead I can't stop you.
I think you are the sort of person who would call 90% of other people stupid, who didnt care to understand what sort of background other people made their answer from...ofc more than 90% understand what an investment is...dont be absurd...
I do understand what an investment means, and I am not trying to offend anyone or attack anyone. I am simply offering my opinion for a "gaming" standpoint (which is exactly what is being offered by the game founders) They are trying to bring their dream into reality And offering you a chance to be a part of that reality (if you believe in the idea of their dream) If we were talking about tradable stock options we wouldn't be attaching a game title to it, or the process for funding (which incidentally is from a gaming standpoint as well)
It's a dream and a game to you. It's a money-making enterprise to them.
Islin see my above edited version
I agree with all the causes you believe are worthy of donating money to: cancer research, veteran's aid, fight against famine and poverty. But I draw the line at donating money to help someone produce a luxury--a piece of entertainment software that only those of us with dispossable income can afford--in order to make a profit.
It's the profit motive that kills it for me. There are even some very wealthy individuals getting their project funded through KS. Giving money to someone like Richard Garriot who can afford to pay his way into being a space tourist, to fund his latest venture is not the same as donating to cancer research.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
So about 90% of you don't know what an investment is. When you invest in a business you are hoping for a payout to get more money. Well on Kickstarter you are donating to that company and then you can continue to pay more unless they offer you the game at release, but look at the facts people.
If a game needs kick starter to be successful then you should probably avoid putting your money into it. NOT ALL GAMES but most of them.
I don't believe in using kick starter for mmos but if they want to continue using it then go ahead I can't stop you.
I think you are the sort of person who would call 90% of other people stupid, who didnt care to understand what sort of background other people made their answer from...ofc more than 90% understand what an investment is...dont be absurd...
I do understand what an investment means, and I am not trying to offend anyone or attack anyone. I am simply offering my opinion for a "gaming" standpoint (which is exactly what is being offered by the game founders) They are trying to bring their dream into reality And offering you a chance to be a part of that reality (if you believe in the idea of their dream) If we were talking about tradable stock options we wouldn't be attaching a game title to it, or the process for funding (which incidentally is from a gaming standpoint as well)
It's a dream and a game to you. It's a money-making enterprise to them.
Unfortunately you are both wrong. Although you are also both right.
For some funders its a dream. For some getting funding its a dream. For some getting fuding it is about making money.
Currently for crowd sourced funding there is no Return on Investment (ROI) in a monetary sense for funders. Thus the funders are essentially buyers getting in on the product at a low price.
Theoretically you can make money on crowd soruced funding as a funder by doing the following:
1) become a funder in a project that gives you a large number of products at Y price with the speculation that Y will increase. They do this to attract funders. I.e funding is partially based on a low buy on the product.
2) When the product increases in value sufficiently due to its success, you then sell your units and make a profit.
Not that many people are getting into crowd sourcing in this way although some do. I assume this will grow over time as in reality this is how investing has worked for 1000s of years. Modern stock markets etc made it more rare for a while but we are seeing the inevitable clogging up of the works and conentration of power/capital into smaller and less real hands that always occur.
Crowd source funding is not actually anything all that new per se. It adds the new wrinkle of the modern age of very quickly going directly to the masses. But beyond that we are also seeing the creative destruction of over-weight top heavy infrastructure that alwasy eventually happen. Notice I didn't say "in a capitalistic society". No this always happens. Its unstoppable like the tide. Capitalism was just a system that attempted to make capital more free. Its been slowly dying for decades. Capital has always flowed whether we are talking about the Mercantile age of the 1700s or the Capitalistic/laissez-faire age of the 1800s and early 1900s or the neo-Mercantile age we have been in for a number of decades (notice I made no mention of socialism, that is because socialism is simply mercantalism taken to an extreme which is why its a complete con-game).
In the end funders believe in a product. Those who wish to also make money on the venture also simultaneously believe that a significant number of people will agree with them such that it will drive the price up because the value is percieved to be high.
As to why you are both wrong its because you have all combinations currently going on and its not an on or off things. You have people persuing dreams and trying to make a lot of money. You have people persuing dreams and just tryign to break even. You have people purely trying to do a business. You probably have cynical con men as well.
Brian Fargo is not making Wasteland 2 to maximize his money making, but he is also not trying to go poor either. He is making it because he wants to do so but has enough chops in the industry that he could probably make more money making some game with a publisher. The team Fargo has setup could completely evaporate as soon as WL2 is out.
On the other hands outfits like Adonit have launched multiple kickstarter products to make money. They are doing what they like (making innovative products) but are in it as a real business.
Its a vast smorgasbord just like well everything else.
Islin I do agree that there is a difference. My Opinion in my posting tho were based on funding for a game verses type of return. Real life > fantasy anyway of the week and twice on Sunday.
It occurred to me this can all be explained one rather simply question:
Why are all games bascially selling at the same price?
Normally a poor quality product is cheap and a high quality product is expensive in a relative sense. In games this only happens in the secondary market.
We have a name for this. Its called price fixing. When all publishers sell a product at a particular price this is normally considered collusion. In fact such behavior is often illegal.
Now draw your conclusion about the way capital is being allocated based on the fact that price has nothing to do with quality and therefore its wort as an allocation of capital ...
You should start to realize something is not right ...
Islin, btw it might interest you to know how down to earth Richard is. Every meeting or outing that I witnessed his presence at he wore jeans. Funnier still, at a totally formal red carpet event he looked great in his Tux......from the waist up that is, (he still had his jeans and sneakers from the waist down) :-)
So about 90% of you don't know what an investment is. When you invest in a business you are hoping for a payout to get more money. Well on Kickstarter you are donating to that company and then you can continue to pay more unless they offer you the game at release, but look at the facts people.
If a game needs kick starter to be successful then you should probably avoid putting your money into it. NOT ALL GAMES but most of them.
I don't believe in using kick starter for mmos but if they want to continue using it then go ahead I can't stop you.
I think you are the sort of person who would call 90% of other people stupid, who didnt care to understand what sort of background other people made their answer from...ofc more than 90% understand what an investment is...dont be absurd...
I do understand what an investment means, and I am not trying to offend anyone or attack anyone. I am simply offering my opinion for a "gaming" standpoint (which is exactly what is being offered by the game founders) They are trying to bring their dream into reality And offering you a chance to be a part of that reality (if you believe in the idea of their dream) If we were talking about tradable stock options we wouldn't be attaching a game title to it, or the process for funding (which incidentally is from a gaming standpoint as well)
It's a dream and a game to you. It's a money-making enterprise to them.
Unfortunately you are both wrong. Although you are also both right.
For some funders its a dream. For some getting funding its a dream. For some getting fuding it is about making money.
Currently for crowd sourced funding there is no Return on Investment (ROI) in a monetary sense for funders. Thus the funders are essentially buyers getting in on the product at a low price.
Theoretically you can make money on crowd soruced funding as a funder by doing the following:
1) become a funder in a project that gives you a large number of products at Y price with the speculation that Y will increase. They do this to attract funders. I.e funding is partially based on a low buy on the product.
2) When the product increases in value sufficiently due to its success, you then sell your units and make a profit.
Not that many people are getting into crowd sourcing in this way although some do. I assume this will grow over time as in reality this is how investing has worked for 1000s of years. Modern stock markets etc made it more rare for a while but we are seeing the inevitable clogging up of the works and conentration of power/capital into smaller and less real hands that always occur.
Crowd source funding is not actually anything all that new per se. It adds the new wrinkle of the modern age of very quickly going directly to the masses. But beyond that we are also seeing the creative destruction of over-weight top heavy infrastructure that alwasy eventually happen. Notice I didn't say "in a capitalistic society". No this always happens. Its unstoppable like the tide. Capitalism was just a system that attempted to make capital more free. Its been slowly dying for decades. Capital has always flowed whether we are talking about the Mercantile age of the 1700s or the Capitalistic/laissez-faire age of the 1800s and early 1900s or the neo-Mercantile age we have been in for a number of decades (notice I made no mention of socialism, that is because socialism is simply mercantalism taken to an extreme which is why its a complete con-game).
In the end funders believe in a product. Those who wish to also make money on the venture also simultaneously believe that a significant number of people will agree with them such that it will drive the price up because the value is percieved to be high.
As to why you are both wrong its because you have all combinations currently going on and its not an on or off things. You have people persuing dreams and trying to make a lot of money. You have people persuing dreams and just tryign to break even. You have people purely trying to do a business. You probably have cynical con men as well.
Brian Fargo is not making Wasteland 2 to maximize his money making, but he is also not trying to go poor either. He is making it because he wants to do so but has enough chops in the industry that he could probably make more money making some game with a publisher. The team Fargo has setup could completely evaporate as soon as WL2 is out.
On the other hands outfits like Adonit have launched multiple kickstarter products to make money. They are doing what they like (making innovative products) but are in it as a real business.
Its a vast smorgasbord just like well everything else.
Nice hstorical primer, although it would have been more effective if you hadn't strayed to take a shot at the form of government that attempts to protect the little people from the abuses and excesses of the wealthy
There may be a mix in KS projects but in that mix I'm not seeing any MMO projects offereing a percentage of profit in their extensive lists of perks. But I admit, I haven't looked at every single one of them.
There could be someone out there offering an honest investment opportunity instead of using their cache as a known good developer and all around good guy plus promises of giving you special gamer status to separate you from your money.
If some of those do exist, please send me the links.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
It occurred to me this can all be explained one rather simply question: Why are all games bascially selling at the same price? Normally a poor quality product is cheap and a high quality product is expensive in a relative sense. In games this only happens in the secondary market.We have a name for this. Its called price fixing. When all publishers sell a product at a particular price this is normally considered collusion. In fact such behavior is often illegal. Now draw your conclusion about the way capital is being allocated based on the fact that price has nothing to do with quality and therefore its wort as an allocation of capital ... You should start to realize something is not right ...
I do believe in price fixing, I don't applaud it but it exists. There is also supply and demand, as well as economic considerations. One thing I learned from my father that I have carried with me and applied to all my personal business endevors is simple logic. How can you make the most money? Sell a product that cost $5.00 to make for $100.00 dollars and fill 3 orders......or offer same product for $20-25.00 and fill orders for hundreds or even thousands of sales orders?
Lol we really got way off of topic here, but it's always nice to participate in a good conversation.
It occurred to me this can all be explained one rather simply question:
Why are all games bascially selling at the same price?
Normally a poor quality product is cheap and a high quality product is expensive in a relative sense. In games this only happens in the secondary market.
We have a name for this. Its called price fixing. When all publishers sell a product at a particular price this is normally considered collusion. In fact such behavior is often illegal.
Now draw your conclusion about the way capital is being allocated based on the fact that price has nothing to do with quality and therefore its wort as an allocation of capital ...
You should start to realize something is not right ...
I do believe in price fixing, I don't applaud it but it exists. There is also supply and demand, as well as economic considerations. One thing I learned from my father that I have carried with me and applied to all my personal business endevors is simple logic. How can you make the most money? Sell a product that cost $5.00 to make for $100.00 dollars and fill 3 orders......or offer same product for $20-25.00 and fill orders for hundreds or even thousands of sales orders? Lol we really got way off of topic here, but it's always nice to participate in a good conversation.
Off topic...
Lol. That reminds me of my current efforts to replace my dying washer and dryer. I've decide on a nice pair from LG and there are 4 places here in Vancouver that sell it. All 4 of them have a "low price guarantee." They'll beat any competitor's price and discount an extra 10% fo the difference. The price? You got it. All 4 of them sell it for the same identical "sale" price
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
i read threw the internet today look at tons of diffrent stories on kickstarters and i found it intresting that the amount of scam kickstarters has been going up at a constent rate, to include video games.
whioe it dose seem most of these have been found out by gamers and before the pedge was meet, it dousnt mean there arnt more that havent been found out.
i just cant put faith in something that i get no gurrentee of a return, on and to this day i dont know why or how people can.
but to each thier own if people wish to do this then so be it, but mark my words, in a few years time when all these games come due, thier will be ones that have disapeared into the night with no trace of what is going on with them, and will prob never be heard of agian.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
So about 90% of you don't know what an investment is. When you invest in a business you are hoping for a payout to get more money. Well on Kickstarter you are donating to that company and then you can continue to pay more unless they offer you the game at release, but look at the facts people.
If a game needs kick starter to be successful then you should probably avoid putting your money into it. NOT ALL GAMES but most of them.
I don't believe in using kick starter for mmos but if they want to continue using it then go ahead I can't stop you.
I think you are the sort of person who would call 90% of other people stupid, who didnt care to understand what sort of background other people made their answer from...ofc more than 90% understand what an investment is...dont be absurd...
I do understand what an investment means, and I am not trying to offend anyone or attack anyone. I am simply offering my opinion for a "gaming" standpoint (which is exactly what is being offered by the game founders) They are trying to bring their dream into reality And offering you a chance to be a part of that reality (if you believe in the idea of their dream) If we were talking about tradable stock options we wouldn't be attaching a game title to it, or the process for funding (which incidentally is from a gaming standpoint as well)
It's a dream and a game to you. It's a money-making enterprise to them.
Unfortunately you are both wrong. Although you are also both right.
For some funders its a dream. For some getting funding its a dream. For some getting fuding it is about making money.
Currently for crowd sourced funding there is no Return on Investment (ROI) in a monetary sense for funders. Thus the funders are essentially buyers getting in on the product at a low price.
Theoretically you can make money on crowd soruced funding as a funder by doing the following:
1) become a funder in a project that gives you a large number of products at Y price with the speculation that Y will increase. They do this to attract funders. I.e funding is partially based on a low buy on the product.
2) When the product increases in value sufficiently due to its success, you then sell your units and make a profit.
Not that many people are getting into crowd sourcing in this way although some do. I assume this will grow over time as in reality this is how investing has worked for 1000s of years. Modern stock markets etc made it more rare for a while but we are seeing the inevitable clogging up of the works and conentration of power/capital into smaller and less real hands that always occur.
Crowd source funding is not actually anything all that new per se. It adds the new wrinkle of the modern age of very quickly going directly to the masses. But beyond that we are also seeing the creative destruction of over-weight top heavy infrastructure that alwasy eventually happen. Notice I didn't say "in a capitalistic society". No this always happens. Its unstoppable like the tide. Capitalism was just a system that attempted to make capital more free. Its been slowly dying for decades. Capital has always flowed whether we are talking about the Mercantile age of the 1700s or the Capitalistic/laissez-faire age of the 1800s and early 1900s or the neo-Mercantile age we have been in for a number of decades (notice I made no mention of socialism, that is because socialism is simply mercantalism taken to an extreme which is why its a complete con-game).
In the end funders believe in a product. Those who wish to also make money on the venture also simultaneously believe that a significant number of people will agree with them such that it will drive the price up because the value is percieved to be high.
As to why you are both wrong its because you have all combinations currently going on and its not an on or off things. You have people persuing dreams and trying to make a lot of money. You have people persuing dreams and just tryign to break even. You have people purely trying to do a business. You probably have cynical con men as well.
Brian Fargo is not making Wasteland 2 to maximize his money making, but he is also not trying to go poor either. He is making it because he wants to do so but has enough chops in the industry that he could probably make more money making some game with a publisher. The team Fargo has setup could completely evaporate as soon as WL2 is out.
On the other hands outfits like Adonit have launched multiple kickstarter products to make money. They are doing what they like (making innovative products) but are in it as a real business.
Its a vast smorgasbord just like well everything else.
Nice hstorical primer, although it would have been more effective if you hadn't strayed to take a shot at the form of government that attempts to protect the little people from the abuses and excesses of the wealthy
There may be a mix in KS projects but in that mix I'm not seeing any MMO projects offereing a percentage of profit in their extensive lists of perks. But I admit, I haven't looked at every single one of them.
There could be someone out there offering an honest investment opportunity instead of using their cache as a known good developer and all around good guy plus promises of giving you special gamer status to separate you from your money.
If some of those do exist, please send me the links.
KS cannot offer a percentage of profits. I am pretty sure doing so would make their system illegal in many countries.
I am not taking a shot a socialism per se, I am merely pointing out that its nothing new. The econmic model of socialism is basically the same as the mercantilism persued by monarchs and oligarchs. These tend to concentrate capital in a few hands much like currently exist with game publishers.
When people get into the bullshit political tribalism that dominates today's society they start to think things like oh well publishers are private businesses therefore its not the same if capital is conglomerated up to a small number of people who don't actually give a shit about games.
No it doesn't matter. We are not in a laissez-faire system anymore we have not been in one for a quite some time. There is price fixing all over the place. Capital is concentrated in a small number of hands and you are now seeing the consequences of that. And yo uare seeing many attempts to allow capital to not have to be passed from the hands of the many into the wise-hands of the few. Whether its Bitcoin or crowd funding a large number of people are attempting to circumvent the monopoly on the allocation of capital. Will it be successful? I have no idea.
I will leave the debate as what type of bullshit political ideaology will remedey which social ill better, I don't care because at the risk of being redudant its all bullshit. They are politicans; they are every bit as venal as a 5 year old and half as smart. But make no mistake, when it comes to capital allocation socialism is absolutely no different than an autocracy or an oligarchy. Perhaps it is more benign, perhaps its worhwhile price to pay. I don't know and I don't care. But the consequences are essentially the same.
Unfortunately due the feedback mechanism of these things the nature of their capital allocation regime directly affects their ability to enact political goals as well. This is probably the reason we constantly shift back and forth historically.
There are reasons why we vacilate between the two paradigms of distributed capital allocations versus centralized capital allocation. Some reasons are good-intentioned, some are for pure tyrannicaly greed. Neither of those are confined to public or private areas and both have serious consequences for both good and ill. And under certain circumstances one be even be obviously advantageous over the other (such as during war time). But be assured the maxim of "Follow the money" is one of the pillars of understanding the world. And that how it flows is constantly changing while also following certain cycles. Central planning of capital allocation eventually clogs up and becomes completely in-bred.
In the context of gaming as long as people simply keep buying games at $60, or alternatively as long as the price fixing is allowed by the law, per game irregardless of quality then you are essentially guaranteed all the types of things you would see in a heavily mercantile, centrally planned country. The difference is the publishers are not countries, they just need to sell stuff and pay for the production. But due to the price fixed model you are getting assmebly line production. They spit out X amount of money at Y amount of games and hope 10% of them sell a lot of copies because they have no idea nor do they care which games are good.
This is already breaking down as people can now get quite decent games for $15 on steam and other downloading services. The KS games can come out with all sorts of prices and will probably vary wildly.
On many levels people realize the capital allocation and therefore the development is completely in-bred and top heavy. This does not mean capital allocation will not eventually consolidate into the hands of a few publishers. I guarantee you even if all the main publishers go down in flames the paradigm we see now will happen again in some form. This is the natural way of things. We are seeing the "house-cleaning phase" that occurs in all dynamic natural systems as they vacilate between two paradigms accumulate too much of a resource in a certain place perform creative destruction and shoot off to the other pole of the dynamic tension.
Don't get too caught up in the tribalism of it all. Both sides are wrong. Both sides are right. The trick is to realize what the consequences are of the current dynamic and how you want to swim through the currents.
KS is one of a large number of things in a large number of markets that is attempting (can't tell you if it will be successful) change the tension in the dynamics of one the Great Powers of human society. One of the pillars upon which everyone's life is based.
This is a serious thing. If KS were to seriously impact the publishers how long would it take a law to appear to kill KS's business model on the grounds that its a hot-bed for con-men and we need to protect the consumer? Anyone who think a multi-billion dollar industry does not have serious lobbyists is a naive fool. This would happen very quickly.
In some respects it would be correct. There is no reason there can't be many con-games in KS.
So pick your poison. A wild west where capital is much more freely allocated and fabullus things get created along with amazing failure and crooked operations. Or the slow steady plodding of vaguely, and sometime overtly, shady publishers.
There are no pat easy answers and societies get tired of one and move to another and then back as they tire of the problems of the other. But in the end this is not about the venality of publishers or the awesomness of one person with a dream. Its just about how capital gets allocated the natural consewuences that system produces.
Originally posted by azzamasin Originally posted by DoogiehowserRemember this video?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf5Uj4XIT1YPeople get so much flak for pre ordering a MMO for merely 50 to 60 bucks while people pledge hundreds of dollars of their hard earned money on kickstarters. How is it any different? all you got is word of the developers and big promises. You don't get to participate before hand or test anything before handing out your hard earned cash.Atleast, people who pre order have enough videos, previews and beta testing to make up their mind while pledgers just go by someone's word alone and promises which might be as real as pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.Can anyone help me understand why former is bad and looked down upon in general while later is ok and encouraged?
While I have kickstarted 2 games so far. 1 successfully and the other not so much. I did both because I wanted to see their game come to life. I also preorder the hell out of a game I look forward to. I see nothing wrong with either but I do have a problem with someone kickstarting a game and then being hyporcritical towards me because I bought a $200 Neverwinter Founders pack.
Originally posted by mmoguy43 Now you know what it is like to be an investor.
Yeah.
Isn't Kickstarter perfect for the gamer? Instead of 'suits' putting up money just to make money, it's left to gamers to invest in an idea they'd like to see become reality.
You guys are kidding right? Do you even know what investing is?
I doubt he's kidding. The 'suits' and 'evil corporations' stuff is getting tiresome'.
Maybe someone stole his iPad while he was posing at an Occupy rally pretending to be oppressed.
LOL I've been saying all along kickstarter is the ultimate game developer level of greed and should be looked at very closely by the Justice department.
Originally posted by psiic LOL I've been saying all along kickstarter is the ultimate game developer level of greed and should be looked at very closely by the Justice department.
My take is that people will always blind by hope.
Wait till some of these efforts suck in a lot of money, and then fail to produce games .. then the reckoning, and finger-pointing will begin.
and who knows how long that still has.. good thing about amazon though is you don't get charged till the game ships.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
It occurred to me this can all be explained one rather simply question:
Why are all games bascially selling at the same price?
Normally a poor quality product is cheap and a high quality product is expensive in a relative sense. In games this only happens in the secondary market.
We have a name for this. Its called price fixing. When all publishers sell a product at a particular price this is normally considered collusion. In fact such behavior is often illegal.
It's not price fixing. It's the combined effect of customary and perceptual price points.
Consumers perceive a game as a monolithic product. The features within that game are not perceived as individual features, primarily because such comparison shopping does not really exist. As such, unless a game comes with other components that people are accustomed to comparing, the game will sell best at the price customers are accustomed to paying. This sits in the 35-60 USD range. Excuse me... 34.99 to 59.99 range.
Devs/publishers cannot sell a PC or console game at a lower price without the consumer perceiving it as inferior. This is a cognitive bias that holds true for many products, not just video games. If a dev/publisher wants to sell at a higher price, they would have to include physical items or extra services in the box, as the feature set alone is not comparitively weighed by the consumer.
Now, the consumer CAN break that chain, and they can do so by engaging in comparison shopping between titles. Once such behavior is adopted, the devs/publishers will adjust what their product contains, how they market it, and the price of the product based on the perceived value that the consumers have given to the content of the game.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
People get so much flak for pre ordering a MMO for merely 50 to 60 bucks while people pledge hundreds of dollars of their hard earned money on kickstarters. How is it any different? all you got is word of the developers and big promises. You don't get to participate before hand or test anything before handing out your hard earned cash.
Atleast, people who pre order have enough videos, previews and beta testing to make up their mind while pledgers just go by someone's word alone and promises which might be as real as pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Can anyone help me understand why former is bad and looked down upon in general while later is ok and encouraged?
These are two differen't things all together and aren't really something you can compare. Just because it involves games and putting down money early is does not make them the same.
Pre-ordering a game is having a product that is essentially done or there abouts to which you put the money down up-front because your intention is to go and play that game. Peoples frustration with the system is more of a by-product of recent releases within the industry.
Typically games that are funded by Publishers are expected to make a return and as such it's not a chairty. This often means that games get 'rushed' out the fay before they are ready because the publishers cannot or will not continue to fund a product to that extent. As such due to the flexibility of XBOX and PS3 (of course, the PC too) have the ability to be 'patched' later which is what happens. Games come out some what 'not' complete and they get in a position where they meet consumer back-lash as they frantically try and repair elements in the game that are flawed.
Because money is rather tight these days people are waiting for 'reviews' to come out before laying down the money which makes sense considering all the stories of people who have been burned by a rubbish, or broken game fooled by trailers and clever pep-talk of developers who want you to invest in their product. Because people are not pre-ordering as much this causes an affect where publishers look at the initial release of the title, see that not so many sold on outset and consider this as a kinda loss. I am not an expert but I imagine early sales and reprentation indicates to shareholders that the company is going from strength to strength and making smart business choices. Of course, if games aren't brining the money immediately then it makes shareholders less likely to invest in the company because they feel like the wait for the return is too unreasonable. This, leads to a detriment to the companies over all health. It's all a knock on effect.
But to answer this question I would say bad games and badly published games have led to the result in demonising the pre-order market with everyone holding on to their purse-strings a little bit tighter than they would normally. Of course they do try things like 'pre-order bonus' to try and coax you in but its all for an investment point of view.
Take Sim City for example... a MASSIVE IP with a MASSIVE cult following, the new release was near unplayable for some at the outset. So, putting your money down for the game in advance, receiving the game and then not being able to play it will make you cautious in the future.
Now... Kickstarter
These are typically games that just don't attract Publishers (because of the low rate of return or simply because they are considered too much of a risk.. which I understand. They are a business after all). However, these are games that have HUGE appeals to cult followers to the series/genres.
For example I am a BIG Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment fan. However, getting a sequel or an addition to this AD&D games was always (in the past) considered a pipe dream. Mainly because it is more an 'older' style type of game, the current generations of gamers wouldn't really of grown up with those type of games. Most that did will be in their 30's now. So, you end up with these really popular franchises that no publisher will touch but people want... Not enough people to get a publisher interested, but enough interest to garner support from developers who still want to make those type of games.
Now, they don't need a massive budget, but they do need to obviously pay the bills and make the game, so you get a massive reduced buget than a publisher would front. You get a dedicated team to work on the game you want and the promise the game will be made.
Of course, you are taking a 'risk' but it's about your confidence and trust in the company. I really could go on and on about this stuff, but it's apparent to anyone that the two are not the same. They just handle the side of business too differently.
The only way I can make it easier is this:
Pre-orders is a consumers distrust in the publisher
Kick starter is a consumers trust in the developer.
Comments
Because I like those guys I have never seen or met before and I hate those other guys I have never seen or met before.
But honestly I pledged to Wasteland 2 because I played Wasteland 1 and Brian Fargo et al have made many excellent games I want to give them a chance to make another one. If its not that great of a game then that is fine life is not certain. But I have always wanted another game like Wasteland and no publisher would do it, so I am fine with doing it.
Secondly the InExile folks are extremely open with their supporters, because well they already have our money. This sounds strange, but see we can't pull out. InExile is free to be completely honest because they kind of have us by the balls. They have their budget and their timeline and unless they are grossly incompetent they will meet it. They have the supporters money and even if they deliver 6 months late they still have that money. So why not tell them 6 months ahead of time that they will be 6 months late? Whereas a traditionaly publisher will just lie to you or release a crappy game.
Other side to that is a less morally savory company could just fold up and run with your (really their's now) money.
Its a gamble and like Fargo has mentioned the crowd source funding is likely now in a phase where the euphoria has worn off and the people who invest will want certain guarantees. There will be failures. There are always failures. And so some people will get their money wasted. Nature of the beast funding is not buying. Its a speculation.
I am speculating that I will be proud to have my name in the credits of Wasteland 2 and I will enjoy the game. But I know I am speculating until I see the finished product.
Buying a game and funding development of a game are not at all the same thing. If you go in thinking they are you will be disillusioned and are probably stupid or foolish as well. I didn't used to say stuff like that but I have come to the realization that it is necessary. If you think funding = buying then you are a fool. And fools are soon parted from their money.
Don't be a bag holder. In today's circumstances in the world this bears repeating. Don't be a bag holder. To balancce that out; don't be a coward either.
I think you are the sort of person who would call 90% of other people stupid, who didnt care to understand what sort of background other people made their answer from...ofc more than 90% understand what an investment is...dont be absurd...
I do understand what an investment means, and I am not trying to offend anyone or attack anyone. I am simply offering my opinion for a "gaming" standpoint (which is exactly what is being offered by the game founders) They are trying to bring their dream into reality And offering you a chance to be a part of that reality (if you believe in the idea of their dream) If we were talking about tradable stock options we wouldn't be attaching a game title to it, or the process for funding (which incidentally is from a gaming standpoint as well)It's a dream and a game to you. It's a money-making enterprise to them.
Islin see my above edited version
Kickstarter is a Known risk and most people investing into it know it.
pre-orders are often based on hype(lies) about a game, people expect someting and often feel stolen out of their money.
thats the diference. if you pre-order Knowing that you might (most likely) not like the final product, go ahead, if you dont like that risk..simply dont.
Very true and well said
I agree with all the causes you believe are worthy of donating money to: cancer research, veteran's aid, fight against famine and poverty. But I draw the line at donating money to help someone produce a luxury--a piece of entertainment software that only those of us with dispossable income can afford--in order to make a profit.
It's the profit motive that kills it for me. There are even some very wealthy individuals getting their project funded through KS. Giving money to someone like Richard Garriot who can afford to pay his way into being a space tourist, to fund his latest venture is not the same as donating to cancer research.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Unfortunately you are both wrong. Although you are also both right.
For some funders its a dream. For some getting funding its a dream. For some getting fuding it is about making money.
Currently for crowd sourced funding there is no Return on Investment (ROI) in a monetary sense for funders. Thus the funders are essentially buyers getting in on the product at a low price.
Theoretically you can make money on crowd soruced funding as a funder by doing the following:
1) become a funder in a project that gives you a large number of products at Y price with the speculation that Y will increase. They do this to attract funders. I.e funding is partially based on a low buy on the product.
2) When the product increases in value sufficiently due to its success, you then sell your units and make a profit.
Not that many people are getting into crowd sourcing in this way although some do. I assume this will grow over time as in reality this is how investing has worked for 1000s of years. Modern stock markets etc made it more rare for a while but we are seeing the inevitable clogging up of the works and conentration of power/capital into smaller and less real hands that always occur.
Crowd source funding is not actually anything all that new per se. It adds the new wrinkle of the modern age of very quickly going directly to the masses. But beyond that we are also seeing the creative destruction of over-weight top heavy infrastructure that alwasy eventually happen. Notice I didn't say "in a capitalistic society". No this always happens. Its unstoppable like the tide. Capitalism was just a system that attempted to make capital more free. Its been slowly dying for decades. Capital has always flowed whether we are talking about the Mercantile age of the 1700s or the Capitalistic/laissez-faire age of the 1800s and early 1900s or the neo-Mercantile age we have been in for a number of decades (notice I made no mention of socialism, that is because socialism is simply mercantalism taken to an extreme which is why its a complete con-game).
In the end funders believe in a product. Those who wish to also make money on the venture also simultaneously believe that a significant number of people will agree with them such that it will drive the price up because the value is percieved to be high.
As to why you are both wrong its because you have all combinations currently going on and its not an on or off things. You have people persuing dreams and trying to make a lot of money. You have people persuing dreams and just tryign to break even. You have people purely trying to do a business. You probably have cynical con men as well.
Brian Fargo is not making Wasteland 2 to maximize his money making, but he is also not trying to go poor either. He is making it because he wants to do so but has enough chops in the industry that he could probably make more money making some game with a publisher. The team Fargo has setup could completely evaporate as soon as WL2 is out.
On the other hands outfits like Adonit have launched multiple kickstarter products to make money. They are doing what they like (making innovative products) but are in it as a real business.
Its a vast smorgasbord just like well everything else.
Real life > fantasy anyway of the week and twice on Sunday.
It occurred to me this can all be explained one rather simply question:
Why are all games bascially selling at the same price?
Normally a poor quality product is cheap and a high quality product is expensive in a relative sense. In games this only happens in the secondary market.
We have a name for this. Its called price fixing. When all publishers sell a product at a particular price this is normally considered collusion. In fact such behavior is often illegal.
Now draw your conclusion about the way capital is being allocated based on the fact that price has nothing to do with quality and therefore its wort as an allocation of capital ...
You should start to realize something is not right ...
Nice hstorical primer, although it would have been more effective if you hadn't strayed to take a shot at the form of government that attempts to protect the little people from the abuses and excesses of the wealthy
There may be a mix in KS projects but in that mix I'm not seeing any MMO projects offereing a percentage of profit in their extensive lists of perks. But I admit, I haven't looked at every single one of them.
There could be someone out there offering an honest investment opportunity instead of using their cache as a known good developer and all around good guy plus promises of giving you special gamer status to separate you from your money.
If some of those do exist, please send me the links.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I do believe in price fixing, I don't applaud it but it exists. There is also supply and demand, as well as economic considerations. One thing I learned from my father that I have carried with me and applied to all my personal business endevors is simple logic. How can you make the most money? Sell a product that cost $5.00 to make for $100.00 dollars and fill 3 orders......or offer same product for $20-25.00 and fill orders for hundreds or even thousands of sales orders?Lol we really got way off of topic here, but it's always nice to participate in a good conversation.
Off topic...
Lol. That reminds me of my current efforts to replace my dying washer and dryer. I've decide on a nice pair from LG and there are 4 places here in Vancouver that sell it. All 4 of them have a "low price guarantee." They'll beat any competitor's price and discount an extra 10% fo the difference. The price? You got it. All 4 of them sell it for the same identical "sale" price
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
i read threw the internet today look at tons of diffrent stories on kickstarters and i found it intresting that the amount of scam kickstarters has been going up at a constent rate, to include video games.
whioe it dose seem most of these have been found out by gamers and before the pedge was meet, it dousnt mean there arnt more that havent been found out.
i just cant put faith in something that i get no gurrentee of a return, on and to this day i dont know why or how people can.
but to each thier own if people wish to do this then so be it, but mark my words, in a few years time when all these games come due, thier will be ones that have disapeared into the night with no trace of what is going on with them, and will prob never be heard of agian.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
KS cannot offer a percentage of profits. I am pretty sure doing so would make their system illegal in many countries.
I am not taking a shot a socialism per se, I am merely pointing out that its nothing new. The econmic model of socialism is basically the same as the mercantilism persued by monarchs and oligarchs. These tend to concentrate capital in a few hands much like currently exist with game publishers.
When people get into the bullshit political tribalism that dominates today's society they start to think things like oh well publishers are private businesses therefore its not the same if capital is conglomerated up to a small number of people who don't actually give a shit about games.
No it doesn't matter. We are not in a laissez-faire system anymore we have not been in one for a quite some time. There is price fixing all over the place. Capital is concentrated in a small number of hands and you are now seeing the consequences of that. And yo uare seeing many attempts to allow capital to not have to be passed from the hands of the many into the wise-hands of the few. Whether its Bitcoin or crowd funding a large number of people are attempting to circumvent the monopoly on the allocation of capital. Will it be successful? I have no idea.
I will leave the debate as what type of bullshit political ideaology will remedey which social ill better, I don't care because at the risk of being redudant its all bullshit. They are politicans; they are every bit as venal as a 5 year old and half as smart. But make no mistake, when it comes to capital allocation socialism is absolutely no different than an autocracy or an oligarchy. Perhaps it is more benign, perhaps its worhwhile price to pay. I don't know and I don't care. But the consequences are essentially the same.
Unfortunately due the feedback mechanism of these things the nature of their capital allocation regime directly affects their ability to enact political goals as well. This is probably the reason we constantly shift back and forth historically.
There are reasons why we vacilate between the two paradigms of distributed capital allocations versus centralized capital allocation. Some reasons are good-intentioned, some are for pure tyrannicaly greed. Neither of those are confined to public or private areas and both have serious consequences for both good and ill. And under certain circumstances one be even be obviously advantageous over the other (such as during war time). But be assured the maxim of "Follow the money" is one of the pillars of understanding the world. And that how it flows is constantly changing while also following certain cycles. Central planning of capital allocation eventually clogs up and becomes completely in-bred.
In the context of gaming as long as people simply keep buying games at $60, or alternatively as long as the price fixing is allowed by the law, per game irregardless of quality then you are essentially guaranteed all the types of things you would see in a heavily mercantile, centrally planned country. The difference is the publishers are not countries, they just need to sell stuff and pay for the production. But due to the price fixed model you are getting assmebly line production. They spit out X amount of money at Y amount of games and hope 10% of them sell a lot of copies because they have no idea nor do they care which games are good.
This is already breaking down as people can now get quite decent games for $15 on steam and other downloading services. The KS games can come out with all sorts of prices and will probably vary wildly.
On many levels people realize the capital allocation and therefore the development is completely in-bred and top heavy. This does not mean capital allocation will not eventually consolidate into the hands of a few publishers. I guarantee you even if all the main publishers go down in flames the paradigm we see now will happen again in some form. This is the natural way of things. We are seeing the "house-cleaning phase" that occurs in all dynamic natural systems as they vacilate between two paradigms accumulate too much of a resource in a certain place perform creative destruction and shoot off to the other pole of the dynamic tension.
Don't get too caught up in the tribalism of it all. Both sides are wrong. Both sides are right. The trick is to realize what the consequences are of the current dynamic and how you want to swim through the currents.
KS is one of a large number of things in a large number of markets that is attempting (can't tell you if it will be successful) change the tension in the dynamics of one the Great Powers of human society. One of the pillars upon which everyone's life is based.
This is a serious thing. If KS were to seriously impact the publishers how long would it take a law to appear to kill KS's business model on the grounds that its a hot-bed for con-men and we need to protect the consumer? Anyone who think a multi-billion dollar industry does not have serious lobbyists is a naive fool. This would happen very quickly.
In some respects it would be correct. There is no reason there can't be many con-games in KS.
So pick your poison. A wild west where capital is much more freely allocated and fabullus things get created along with amazing failure and crooked operations. Or the slow steady plodding of vaguely, and sometime overtly, shady publishers.
There are no pat easy answers and societies get tired of one and move to another and then back as they tire of the problems of the other. But in the end this is not about the venality of publishers or the awesomness of one person with a dream. Its just about how capital gets allocated the natural consewuences that system produces.
BAM!!
it is hypocritical indeed.
I doubt he's kidding. The 'suits' and 'evil corporations' stuff is getting tiresome'.
Maybe someone stole his iPad while he was posing at an Occupy rally pretending to be oppressed.
This ^^^^
.. and it is probably worse.
Kickstarter: you don't even know if there is a snake.
My take is that people will always blind by hope.
Wait till some of these efforts suck in a lot of money, and then fail to produce games .. then the reckoning, and finger-pointing will begin.
The two scenarios are different in this way.
Pre order: The game is already done and is being moved to be sold or they are setting up the servers.
Kick Starter: Game is not developed and it could end up sucking.
Pick your choice and yes there is a right answer
The Arcade Corner
The Daily Exposition
Actually,
1) some games are on pre-order BEFORE they are even finished, and
2) For KS, the game may not be even be finished ... not to mention sucking.
aren't most games on pre-order well before they are done? especially MMOs.. hell i got TESO on pre-order already and who knows when they will launch
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0081Q58AW/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
you can go pre-order the new Final Fantasy XIII game right now on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Returns-Final-Fantasy-Playstation-3/dp/B00946FSIA/ref=pd_sim_vg_3
and who knows how long that still has.. good thing about amazon though is you don't get charged till the game ships.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
It's not price fixing. It's the combined effect of customary and perceptual price points.
Consumers perceive a game as a monolithic product. The features within that game are not perceived as individual features, primarily because such comparison shopping does not really exist. As such, unless a game comes with other components that people are accustomed to comparing, the game will sell best at the price customers are accustomed to paying. This sits in the 35-60 USD range. Excuse me... 34.99 to 59.99 range.
Devs/publishers cannot sell a PC or console game at a lower price without the consumer perceiving it as inferior. This is a cognitive bias that holds true for many products, not just video games. If a dev/publisher wants to sell at a higher price, they would have to include physical items or extra services in the box, as the feature set alone is not comparitively weighed by the consumer.
Now, the consumer CAN break that chain, and they can do so by engaging in comparison shopping between titles. Once such behavior is adopted, the devs/publishers will adjust what their product contains, how they market it, and the price of the product based on the perceived value that the consumers have given to the content of the game.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
These are two differen't things all together and aren't really something you can compare. Just because it involves games and putting down money early is does not make them the same.
Pre-ordering a game is having a product that is essentially done or there abouts to which you put the money down up-front because your intention is to go and play that game. Peoples frustration with the system is more of a by-product of recent releases within the industry.
Typically games that are funded by Publishers are expected to make a return and as such it's not a chairty. This often means that games get 'rushed' out the fay before they are ready because the publishers cannot or will not continue to fund a product to that extent. As such due to the flexibility of XBOX and PS3 (of course, the PC too) have the ability to be 'patched' later which is what happens. Games come out some what 'not' complete and they get in a position where they meet consumer back-lash as they frantically try and repair elements in the game that are flawed.
Because money is rather tight these days people are waiting for 'reviews' to come out before laying down the money which makes sense considering all the stories of people who have been burned by a rubbish, or broken game fooled by trailers and clever pep-talk of developers who want you to invest in their product. Because people are not pre-ordering as much this causes an affect where publishers look at the initial release of the title, see that not so many sold on outset and consider this as a kinda loss. I am not an expert but I imagine early sales and reprentation indicates to shareholders that the company is going from strength to strength and making smart business choices. Of course, if games aren't brining the money immediately then it makes shareholders less likely to invest in the company because they feel like the wait for the return is too unreasonable. This, leads to a detriment to the companies over all health. It's all a knock on effect.
But to answer this question I would say bad games and badly published games have led to the result in demonising the pre-order market with everyone holding on to their purse-strings a little bit tighter than they would normally. Of course they do try things like 'pre-order bonus' to try and coax you in but its all for an investment point of view.
Take Sim City for example... a MASSIVE IP with a MASSIVE cult following, the new release was near unplayable for some at the outset. So, putting your money down for the game in advance, receiving the game and then not being able to play it will make you cautious in the future.
Now... Kickstarter
These are typically games that just don't attract Publishers (because of the low rate of return or simply because they are considered too much of a risk.. which I understand. They are a business after all). However, these are games that have HUGE appeals to cult followers to the series/genres.
For example I am a BIG Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment fan. However, getting a sequel or an addition to this AD&D games was always (in the past) considered a pipe dream. Mainly because it is more an 'older' style type of game, the current generations of gamers wouldn't really of grown up with those type of games. Most that did will be in their 30's now. So, you end up with these really popular franchises that no publisher will touch but people want... Not enough people to get a publisher interested, but enough interest to garner support from developers who still want to make those type of games.
Now, they don't need a massive budget, but they do need to obviously pay the bills and make the game, so you get a massive reduced buget than a publisher would front. You get a dedicated team to work on the game you want and the promise the game will be made.
Of course, you are taking a 'risk' but it's about your confidence and trust in the company. I really could go on and on about this stuff, but it's apparent to anyone that the two are not the same. They just handle the side of business too differently.
The only way I can make it easier is this:
Pre-orders is a consumers distrust in the publisher
Kick starter is a consumers trust in the developer.