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Name one game successfully funded by Kickstarter AND released
Ramonski7
Member UncommonPosts: 2,662
And try to make it a good one. I'm not talking about these basement projects that some dude dreams up when he was hammered during a D&D session. Because I'm trying to comprehend how people here think Kickstartering a game project leads to these superior games that cut out the middle man and pinheads that get in the way of a developer's full potential. To give this game a starting point let's compare it to say....the new Tomb Raider that was released. Cause that was a damn good game that I didn't have to pay a dime for (it came free with the purchase of a new video card along with Bioshock: Infinite).
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
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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
But wouldn't that time get cut down seeing that a lot of those investor set deadlines would not be hindering nor pressuring the development team?
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I'll name more than one:
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
Faster Than Light
Akaneiro
All three of these games were fairly well received by critics.
Edit: Notice someone mentioned Path of Exile, they didn't use Kickstarter for that, but they did use Crowdfunding of sorts.
regardless a MMO or RPG takes years to make.. it will speed things along but say an average MMO takes 4-5 years as they do.. so you are now down to 2-3 years. Like I said most all the big projects only got funded in the past year or so.. kickstarter has only been around for a couple years and only got popular in the past year.. need to give it time before you can claim kickstarter is not producing quality games.
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
I think Kickstarter is a good idea I think, but yeah, most of the games that look like they'll be cool are still in development.
Kickstarter was founded in 2009, and only recently is it finding a place in the gaming world. Demanding instant results is kind of silly when development takes time, especially for an indie studio. If there's nothing cool a year or two from now, your point will be made.
At the same time, what makes a cool game to you doesn't always make a cool game for someone else. Not only are people different, but we're pushing 4 generations of gamers at this point.
In the end I also just don't understand all the fear and hatred for Kickstarter, unless you work for one of the big developers.
http://thewordiz.wordpress.com/
FTL
You got it all wrong. The investors RUSH development, not the other way around.
http://thewordiz.wordpress.com/
Yeah that's quite sad. And those aren't even Tomb Raider quality games... I do have FTL though. And I love it. Hardly the end-all be-all of investor/developer relationships though. But he did get 200k for a game that I don't think cost him nearly that much to make.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
No, the opposite actually. Since developers do not have to adhere to strict deadlines and release games in "unfinished" states releasing via Kickstarter and not a publisher should increase the development time. It becomes problematic though because a lot of developers are very poor at setting deadlines for themselves and knowing when to just release it and not get caught in feature creep / development hell.
kickstarter just recently started making some major tracks last year. game developments generally take years. so this whole thread is a little fucked.
until last year i didn't even know kickstarter was even a website. and i'm sure i'm not alone in that.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
That's pretty much what I was going to say.
Becuase there aren't "producer" set deadlins they can take longer to finish their projects.
And I agree with the last part, they need to be good at project managment.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
They raised that money during closed beta.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
So, not being pressured is going to produce faster results? I do admit, the majority of projects on KS I'm skeptical about. The only ones that I believe have a chance are Pathfinder Online and the Obsidian project. The rest, I feel, are going to come up short. I see a lot of these ideas and say, "gee, I think there is a real reason this didn't get picked up by a major developer/publisher in the first place." There are always going to be exceptions though. FTL comes to mind right off. And some of the projects over on Steam Greenlight seem to have potential as well.
So because they are under less pressure, they could feasibly take longer than the traditional way games are made...that makes me feel better.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
ya that coke i got from mcdonalds was good too. I didn't pay a dime for it either it came with the bundle that I purchased with my burger and fries.
Consider a few things first:
1. Tomb Raider while it did well in sales actually did poorer than expected for Square Enix and they recently had massive layoffs on the Western division that makes those games. Lots of articles about this whole debacle, but here is one: http://www.develop-online.net/news/43647/Rising-dev-costs-concern-as-36m-Tomb-Raider-sales-are-not-enough
2. Tomb Raider cost millions (possibly close to the 100 million range) to develop where the most successful Kickstarters only receive a few million at most.
3. Kickstarter is still in it's infancy and game development takes a long time. Most game projects from the announcement of their Kickstarter take over two years to complete.
4. Companies who use Kickstarter typically don't have the massive staff required to produce games quickly and they tend to spend more time on development as a whole.
5. Tomb Raider costs $50, while successful Kickstarter games are usually priced below $20.
6. Comparing the best indie games to AAA games is a bit absurd to begin with.
Tomb Raider is hardly a mmo or a rpg. But I do get what you're saying. It will take some time to see some of the more robust projects come to fruition. I just think when they do, it won't be any different than me sloshing through the crapping games now to find a real gem.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Well for me it was free because I didn't even know it did until I got the email from Amazon and Steam. I was upgrading my card to play FFXIV: ARR when it's released. So yeah for me, I didn't pay a dime.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
This ^.
It's especially bad when a project is a pashion project, which isn't uncommon for kickstarters. Designers are notorious bad at finishing stuff in a timely manner, because the good ones always want to add more, tweak / refine, or test out a new idea. This is where producers basically come in to make sure projects are running on schedule.
That said, kickstarters do have deadlines of a sort, and there are penalties for skipping deadlines. Contrary to what a lot of people think, kickstarters aren't a charity, it's crowd sourcing. However, if you just take the money and run there are penalties. Unfortunately such a situation hasn't actually happened yet (last I checked), so no one can say for sure how that will turn out.
And that's my point. People here will be expecting AAA games to comedown the piplines. Especially when some of these KS projects cross the 1 million dollar threshold. Like:
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
i only mentioned mmo's or Rpgs because of the site we are talking on.. tomb raider was an amazing game btw.. by far best character representation in a video game ever imho loved how she reacted to the enviorment and everything...
anyway also on what others saying it is true games could take a bit longer due to no constraints to get the product out at any set deadline.. but also I'm sure some publishers are much more involved than others and could possibly make things take longer.. but guess overall it does make more sense that games would be longer in development without them breathing deadlines down their necks...
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
Rarely have I heard of a publisher delaying a complete and ready to ship product. Hell most developers are under such a tight deadline (partly of their own doing no doubt) that their games get huge day one patches. Furthermore in what world does pressure and crunch time make someone work with less expedience, outside of a union?
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012