Camelot Unchained – Crowdfunded Controversy, Why Am I Not Surprised? - MMORPG.com

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Camelot Unchained – Crowdfunded Controversy, Why Am I Not Surprised? - MMORPG.com

The Game? Unreleased. The Developer? Defensive. The Funding? Paid in full. The Side Project? On the way. The preceding description could be used to characterize any number of crowdfunded games in development. Another controversy rears its head, so this time I have to ask myself, “Why am I not surprised?”

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Gyva02

A fool and his money are soon parted...

hyllyh

crowfunding are trap!
send your $$ to the red cross! best option

NicoleC

I don't doubt that FS:R was beneficial for tech and for the CU team, however absurdly mismanaged the announcement to the backers was. The glossed over background, however, is that CU needed yet another round of financing and the private investors balked. So the private investors think 17m and 6 years is enough money and time to produce a game much closer to release.... why would individual backers think otherwise?

Albatroes

Did they already have an alpha/beta for backers at least of the actual game at some point (Camelot Unchained, not the new one)? If not, I can understand the hostility at this announcement. If they did and those who participated are still allowed refunds, I'd say the hostility can be dialed down a bit. If refunds haven't been granted at all, then of course hostility is warranted.

All of that said, I feel crowdfunding should be for doing what you said the money was for to do, not to help establish yourselves as a company. You lose any defense regardless of the reasoning if you try to do something otherwise. Sure, from a business perspective, its a good idea for them to make something on the side to establish themselves as a credible company (although, I dont think I would've picked a tower defense game even if its easy enough to make with already created assets, simply because there's hardly a market for it, just look at Orcs Must Die....Unchained ironically), but from a moral perspective, its very lacking. I can't really say that all the kickstarter companies have good moral judgment at the end of the day though (Ashes with a BR that has monetization for 'testing,' Crowfall selling their untested engine, Chronicles and almost anything they do it seems).

retiredmj

Kickstarters need more regulations, people need more common sense.

The thing this article doesn't care to mention is that developers need integrity...

There's plenty of blame to go around, simply picking those that do the funding is a cop out by this writer

juanchii

So sissy, well yea its a crowfunding, u pay money for a project, the company can focus on the project with the money for that, but it doesnt mean they cant do aything else... You been waiting for years for something to come so stop being a pain and just wait, like u been doing ir whole life... if u dont like it, dont pay it, simple. Your choice, no one forced u.. And if that shet its helping in development mechanics and features for the main project for me its welcomed.. Btw in AshesOC they already explained 10000 times that all u see in the side project are mechanics and assests included in the mmorpg so we can get a full texted and worked game... PD: al the monetization that mention its for COSMETICS, freaking cosmetics they dont get u anything else besides a usseles lava shield or something like that, so if u want to keep helping the studio go ahead but dont bitch about that... sigh, just wait, wait and wait till a product its completed and released to critice something...

p4ttythep3rf3ct

You know, it sucks. At the end of the day, there are little people out there using Kickstarter to spin up legit projects that actually come to fruition. These Colossal multi-million dollar MMO SNAFUs really undermine them. I know I am going to be less apt to help fund projects going forward, and that sucks for everyone.

That said, there is one project coming up on KS at the end of the month or so that I will donate to, though certainly not near the amount I handed over to CSE. It's a tiny tiny studio making a VRMMORPG where I figure every dollar counts. I won't be donating any more than the cost of the game would on release. My hope isn't entirely dashed...just on life-support. If this one fails to release by expected date, I'm done with financing game studios on Kickstarter.

AndrewGoat

I've never contributed to a crowdfunding mmo and I never will. I will pay you for your game when it is released. That's how it should be.

Albatroes

AndrewGoat said:

I've never contributed to a crowdfunding mmo and I never will. I will pay you for your game when it is released. That's how it should be.

I've always been with this mind-set when it comes to these crowdfunded "projects." If you have an idea, get proper funding and do it. This establishes accountability which all of these guys want to obviously avoid. There's no responsibility if these guys can't deliver on what they said or even change course. I know some people will respond "they dont want to go corporate because they can't make the game they want" but ask yourself this.....how many games have realistically saw the light of day? And how many of those actually adhered to the developer's original vision? At least with corporate, you're getting something and if it dies, chances are you wouldn't have known about it until years later.

Slapshot1188

Careful Steven Webber... soon you may be branded as a Harbinger and Troll for questioning the ludicrous statements of developers. What we call common sense is not so common when people start using terms like faith to describe a game. It’s nearly a religion for some.

biaxil

Ok, so then as someone who loves mmos, i feel screwed. If crowd funding leads to this, and triple AAA corporate MMOs are all run of the mill, aim to please the lowest common denominator style player, wow clones... then i guess i have nothing to play. And please don't say New World; the type of player just described in the latter has already turned that game into an abomination.

maskedweasel

biaxil said:

Ok, so then as someone who loves mmos, i feel screwed. If crowd funding leads to this, and triple AAA corporate MMOs are all run of the mill, aim to please the lowest common denominator style player, wow clones... then i guess i have nothing to play. And please don't say New World; the type of player just described in the latter has already turned that game into an abomination.

I think we're stuck between a rock and a hard place for MMOs right now. Many AAA companies don't want the expense of creating an MMO, at least, not to the standards many of us want.  Then you have kickstarters where developers believe they can pull off miracles with limited funding, or at least get a game enough of the way to entice larger investors. 

Meanwhile the genre is saturated by older games. The community who plays the older games, refuses to move on, because there's nothing new, and new games won't come out in fear that they won't make it because older games may already cover that niche. 

So we're at an impasse. Until developers can revitalize the mechanics, find a way to build MMOs cheaper, or find a reason to create something new, we're going to get these half assed attempts through kickstarter.


I feel like genres are cyclical in a way. Eventually MMOs will come around again, we just might not see it happen for another few years. 

Aeander

I am distinctly reminded of Mighty Number 9 & Red Ashes.

rpmcmurphy

I absolutely think that CSE have handled this badly but it seems to me they are caught between a rock and a hard place.

They've been operating on a small budget with limited income for the last 6 or 7 years and no doubt have forecasted their capital drying up before being able to release CU. That is totally on them for not building the game in that timespan but rather than write it off as a complete loss they are clearly looking for an additional income source in the hope it will allow them to finish CU.

So either they tell people "Hey guys we're outta money, CU is not gonna happen" in which case morale drops, refunds escalate yadda yadda or they come up with a new income stream which unfortunately has led to all these other claims...

A total no win situation

laserit

rpmcmurphy said:

I absolutely think that CSE have handled this badly but it seems to me they are caught between a rock and a hard place.

They've been operating on a small budget with limited income for the last 6 or 7 years and no doubt have forecasted their capital drying up before being able to release CU. That is totally on them for not building the game in that timespan but rather than write it off as a complete loss they are clearly looking for an additional income source in the hope it will allow them to finish CU.

So either they tell people "Hey guys we're outta money, CU is not gonna happen" in which case morale drops, refunds escalate yadda yadda or they come up with a new income stream which unfortunately has led to all these other claims...

A total no win situation

Agreed, I don’t believe they’re doing it to be greedy, I believe they’re doing it to survive.

Gdemami

Slapshot1188 said:

soon you may be branded as a Harbinger and Troll

...too late for that, yellow yournalism is the 'new direction' for this site.

Works well, I guess....

Gdemami

Arterius said:
An MMO needs at least 4 times more then that. IF not 10x more then that. No investor is going to part with that much.

...that is just blatant nonsense.

Pretty much all indy MMOs got investors - SOTA, CF, CU w/e you name it got (major) funding outside of crowdfunding. Neither you need +20M budget.

laserit

Gdemami said:

Arterius said:
An MMO needs at least 4 times more then that. IF not 10x more then that. No investor is going to part with that much.

...that is just blatant nonsense.

Pretty much all indy MMOs got investors - SOTA, CF, CU w/e you name it got (major) funding outside of crowdfunding. Neither you need +20M budget.

Really

Well why don’t you detail some of that for us. 

Gdemami

Arterius said:
I said that investors do not give developers or studios enough to finish the game.

...so investors are retarded and invest into a projects that they know will never be finished?

That is what you are saying here.

You are just making heap of unfounded, sense lacking assumptions.

Gdemami

Arterius said:

I am saying that the put the bare minimum in so they don't lose a ton of money if the project fails.

...so you say they are retarded.

Kyleran

Gdemami said:

Slapshot1188 said:

soon you may be branded as a Harbinger and Troll

...too late for that, yellow yournalism is the 'new direction' for this site.

Works well, I guess....

Says the person who never met a gaming journalist she liked.

laserit

Gdemami said:

Arterius said:
I said that investors do not give developers or studios enough to finish the game.

...so investors are retarded and invest into a projects that they know will never be finished?

That is what you are saying here.

You are just making heap of unfounded, sense lacking assumptions.

Are you saying that investors never lose their shirts.

Hate to break it to you but it happens all the time.

How many auctions have you been to, I’ve been to a couple hundred over the years.

Gdemami

Arterius said:

You are cheery picking what I am saying and not listening to what I am saying.

....on the contrary, I am listening what you are saying and no matter how wonderfully that sounds in your head, it's nonsense.

There is plenty of evidence that investors put money into indy MMO developers, all the time, and they would not do that if they believed the project won't ever be fully funded.

Gdemami

laserit said:
Are you saying that investors never lose their shirts.

...erm, I saying the exact opposite, you need to be much brighter reader.

Gdemami

Arterius said:

Look I am sorry but if you were listening to what I am saying then you would know that I am right. Either that or you don't keep up to date with MMO kickstarter news. Every single one of them has talked about getting an investor and then later they talk about how they have to find another investor. Camelot Unchained has done it 3 times.

....so you make up ridiculous premise that devs must have only 1 investor, fully funding the project(upfront, eh?) and that is why indy MMOs are doomed.

But if I am listening to you, I would know you are right... The one not listening to you is you, sir.