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[Column] General: Why Do MMO Kickstarters Fail?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
While going on my weekly browse through Kickstarter I noticed an area of the video games subdivision that I had never noticed before. A section that boasts there are over 100 games on Steam that were once on Kickstarter. This is a great thing for Kickstarter to brag about! Kickstarter has made some amazing games possible. Of course most of them aren’t MMOs. Kickstarter has been a great platform for non-MMO indie games. But I’d like to take a look at the MMOs on that list and perhaps more specifically, the MMOs that AREN’T on that list.
Read more of Shannon Doyle's Independency: Why Do MMO Kickstarters Fail?
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Consider how many people have donated to more than one MMO Kickstarter campaign. There is a sense of Kickstarter fatigue, it was hot in 2011 / 2012, and now folks are burned out. They have donated to several campaigns, and are surprised by the failure of some projects, and are still waiting on others to release.
There is now a shortage of old, "experienced", well known game devs, and a flood of new talent. The old guys got in early, and wound up with a following. Most of the notable Kickstarter successes come from this generation. The new guys are unknown, most may never be hired by a AAA studio, and need to build a following, without the free AAA publisher money.
These two core factors contribute heavily to the current state of Kickstarter MMOs.
The biggest problem seen with backing Kickstarter MMO's is after seeing games like Star Citizen and Shroud of the Avatar on there. What's the issue? Selling tons of P2W items. Just look at either site and tell me they're not selling things that skirt around the main game for users: land without having to pay taxes, increased speed mounts, special items, super ships, etc.
These games were started on Kickstarter through the hopes of potential players on the promise of playing within that game's founded universe based on the pledge that they made. Now it kicks those founders in the crotch by stating that they want/need more funding by selling power items to increase the game itself; although far exceeding the goals of the Kickstarter.
That's the main difference between these -MMO's- and single player games: SP games deliver the product as was advertised without selling tons of extra DLC to "complete" the game. The game is whole. With the MMO versions, the game isn't sold whole, but instead piecemeal on their store beyond only a minor shell which is delivered as the Kickstarter package. It's disgraceful.
A MOBA should be a good project to start with as well. They're insanely popular, with a fraction of the budget of an MMO. Additionally, they're expected to be "unfinished products" as continued updates and new characters are part of the norm.
The experience that one could gain in skill design, balance, marketing/business modeling, and PvP design is nothing to scoff at either.
Edit:
And, Hell, we've never seen a MOBA that allows players to create their own MMO-style characters and form their own skill builds. While such a concept may be innately less competitive than standard models, the first developer to do so and do so WELL would hit a potential goldmine.
All I can really say, is that without Kickstarter many MMO ideas would die an early death because they can't convince anyone with investment cash that it's an idea worth developing. To a slightly lesser extent, I see a similar thing happening with Kickstarter.
Every indy idea is not interesting or worthy of support... and their KS campaigns fail.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I'm not surprised. There's only a limited amount of players and money to go around, and all those Kickstarters are competing with other MMO companies AND with each other for those players' attention. I imagine timing has a lot to do with it as well. If you start your Kickstarter the month a big title MMO or expansion launches you're likely missing out on a lot of potential pledges too.
Not to mention a lot of people have already backed MMO Kickstarters and will be waiting to see whether their investment actually pays off, or whether they just threw their money to the wind if the project fails in the end. It takes a big wallet and a lot of faith to keep tossing your money around in exchange for what are basically promises (with no refunds).
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
This is it. Remember Curt shilling. He got Kingdoms of Alamur out and it did good. He was told to do more with his first game with xpacks and sequels. But he wanted to make the next Wow and sunk all the money from one game into it. Some peoples ego's are just to big and you can't tell them anything.
If you want the best chance at making money. You have to Kickstart a MOBA game with a twist. Not an MMO. Low investment and high reward chance. It's the same as being an author really. If you are going about it independently and want to make a living you have to write what is popular.
That means young adult fiction. Doesn't have to mean Vampires. But some hybrid of young adult fiction. I hate the genre, but it sells. The Divergent movie made 288 million dollars and the author makes 17 million a year from the books.
Compared to my friend who writes low fantasy and makes 80,000 a year off it as an unsigned independent author. Respectable. But which would you rather have to start off with? Make enough money and you can write whatever you want after.
That's how I view MMO vs MOBA. I hate MOBAs with a passion. But start with the MOBA project. If it is successful? Use the success and money to fund your MMO passion project.
Hell if I was Notch? I'd go up to Turbine and WB with the best attorney and tell them I'm buying Lord of the Rings Online along with Dungeons and Dragons online. I would make both MMOs for a new generation. Give them all the love and advertising they need. Listen to the community. I would be interested working with an established passionate community like theirs. Not making my own thing.
As long as I broke even or lost a little bit at worst? I wouldn't care. Already a billionaire. Hell you could drop a 700 million dollars on both and not even sweat a drop. Even if you lost it all.
The world needs more great games. To some it's a mere hobby. To others it's a form of escape and relaxation. Where you can form life-long friendships. I know for a fact some games have gotten people through some rough times. For every idiot who plays too much and ruins their life.
There are people who play games to help deal with cancer rehab, to recover from mental illness, form friendships for life, and help them relax in hard times. That my friends is priceless.
I think this is far closer to the reason 'Why' MMORPGs fail to gain support (and funding) than anything the article offered. They are simply bad ideas. There is frequently nothing original in the world.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Demigod, by Stardock.
Very early game before the whole MOBA boom happened, and it was very fun. The main issues was that it was a box-sold product (not F2P with champion buys) and the game's server structure did not uphold well in it's first few weeks after some 500,000+ pirated copies hammered the same servers as legit players. The game's late delivery of new Champions also didn't do well in the overall future of it either.
However the gameplay design, the art style, and the structure for which the champions were played all made for one very interesting MOBA that was enjoyable when able to be played.
I'd like to see a Demigod 2 in the works in a future MOBA. Someone quick, try to Kickstarter it with the original developers and Stardock's licensing permission!
I don't think that's true at all. He formed is studio precisely to make an mmo.
The single player game came later with the thought that it was going to make enough money for his studio to continue.
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 fail because they over promise and generally under deliver. Star Citizen is a prime example. I bought into Star Citizen about 14 months ago because at the time they had projected the would have the dogfighting module in by Dec 2013 and that the game play experience would be similar to WoT random battles. Well despite all that money, they didn't deliver on that time frame and I lost interest. Also I was honestly expecting the single player module out this year and honestly for them to at least have the MMO part in a playable alpha phase. This was based on the info I had about 14 months ago.
So here we are over a year later and we are at the point they indicated they would be in Dec 2013 with only the dogfight module in game and I have heard it is buggy as hell. So I have to ask myself, how much longer before we have a fully playable MMO? It has been 14 months since I invested and it has taken them 14 months to get to where they were expecting to be in 2 month when I bought into the game so does that mean another 14 months for the single player portion and maybe if we are lucky, another 14 months for a MMO? I mean it is getting kind of ridiculous to have to wait 4-5 years to get a return on my investment so this has made me very gun shy about buying into anything that isn't at least 75% done and playable.
That being the case, I think there are probably alot of players that have invested into these crowdfunded game and have realized after waiting 14 months for a finished product, just like me, that spending $60 of our hard earned money for something we aren't even going to see for 3-5 years isn't really worth the investment especially with the economy being so bad.
MMOs are simply far too large in budget, scope, and size for crowd funding. This well is only so deep. And with everyone and their brother grabbing buckets to get a swipe at it. It's going to dry up if these indies don't start delivering. But not only that, as is the case with SC. and as someone had pointed out in an earlier post. They are "Kicking their initial backers in the crotch" with this P2W Bullshit. It defeats the whole purpose of why players turned to Crowd Funding in the 1st place. I'm willing to bet that IF and when SC finally releases, The experience will be no where near what is currently being promised. And I believe that will probably be the last best hope for future Crowd Funding in this genre. If it fails, People aren't likely to keep coming back for more. Players are already getting fed up with the pre-paid alpha / beta access.
the problem is kickstarter as a whole, the whole give me money now for something I may never see, and even if I do its likely just a crappy product that isnt that good anyways. Its made for selling hype.
I would donate to a company if rather than getting the game I got like .0001 % stake for ever $100. then it would make sense for me to donate. I'd rather let the other whales give money to them, and see if a project ever gets finished.
I havent seen a single mmo, that doesnt sound great in concept, we are all fooled constantly by the geekspeak
Donating for a Kickstarter for an MMO is just too risky. The game could end up being terrible, being nothing like what they pitched, or could end up not coming out at all. Even if it does come out and is a quality product, you're unlikely to see the finished product for 3-4 years, and most people aren't willing to spend money on something that far ahead of time.
I've donated to crowdfunding campaigns before, typically to musicians wanting to self-produce an album. These are far less risky than an MMO for many reasons:
1) The artist is usually already established.
2) The goal is usually far smaller than the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars needed for an MMO, usually around $10,000 or so.
3) You are likely to see a product in months rather than years.
That being said, people will donate to a crowdfunded MMO, but they better have something to show, at least a demo. If you're donating just on hope and talk (Pantheon), that's not going to get you very far.
Most MMO's fail. Sad but true fact. They may continue on for awhile, but never meet the return on investment that was initially projected. When massive but poorly run companies like EA can't get Star Wars right, what chance does a kickstarter financed game have?
Kickstarter fatigue is also huge factor here. I helped finance one game (Project Eternity) and waiting for that to get released and played before I look at another. It's a crowded space, you might get more out of financing a potato salad than an MMO.
You've funded "Project Eternity" and now you're waiting for it to be released ? Am I the only one giggling here ?
Kickstarter-fatigue is no doubt a major factor when it comes to backing MMO projects. They take years and years to complete, which means backers have to sustain there own hype for years and years. Not gonna work...
Lack of originality has been around for a very, very long time. Lets face it, it is virtually impossible to come up with something completely and utterly new, no matter how hard anyone tries. The best anyone can hope for is a well done game with similarities and maybe some new twists on old formulas. The problem with originality isn't the technology or the UI or interfaces, such as the upcoming Occulus Rift, it's the content that lacks originality as it's been done before in books, movies, history....etc.
u cant blame the players, we are tired of being promised things , pay now and MAYBE in some years u will get that....2 years later nothing to show for it...but keep the $$$ coming eh?
IF ..... IF released the game is a empty shell of promises that never became true....
i feel sorry for ppl still supporting , nowadays feel more like a scam that crowdfunding
p.d btw i will support OFFLINE RPGS and indie games but mmorpgs is a no-no
I agree with what was said above about MMO Kickstarters failing because of too much competition for limited monies, backers experiencing burnout &/or being more wary of what/who they back due to bad experiences in the past.
I threw some dollars towards The Repopulation & I'm very pleased at where they are at this stage in the game's development cycle. It's still early but the fact that there's something actually visible/playable there & not just empty promises & fears of vaporware is exciting & satisfying. The devs have been very open & forthcoming with information & although their project is very very ambitious, it gives you hope that it'll actually come to fruition.
Something to think about concerning the aforementioned Star Citizen is, HOW long are they going to keep collecting money? They're WAY past what they initially sought &, IMO anyway, the stretch goals that they're adding are getting thinner & thinner, like they're just tacking on stuff to justify collecting more money. No, I am NOT saying the game won't produce something/anything, before the uproar & defense mechanisms begin, I'm saying WHEN do you say when? When do you say: Ok, this is enough, we have enough money, let's stop the fund-raising here?
Yeah, I understand, it's better to have & not need & all that, etc, etc, but IF this game is still a few years away from being playable in the as-advertised state, are they going to continue to raise funds that entire time, or for another 6 months, a year or more? & if they do, what are they going to do with that money? What will the stretch goals look like in December 2015, when this project could, at this rate, easily be well over, what, $85+ million dollars?
IMO SC is turning into a money pit, & as someone said earlier, the more money they raise, the more fans & backers will expect them to produce, & the longer the game will be in development. I unfortunately think they WILL be victims of their own success because no matter what they put out there, it may never be enough to satisfy all of the expectations being heaped upon them.
There is a bit of a difference between "right" and profitable. They definitely made a profit off the game. Getting it "right" is a subjective term and varies according to the person looking at it. Many people still play the game and enjoy it, and those people would say the game was done "right" while others (myself included) did not like the combat gameplay being identical to World of Warcraft.
I have never donated to a Kickstarter campaign and refuse to do so without seeing a partially-working product with good potential to achieve the expectations set by the creators. Every MMO I have seen on Kickstarter has just been in the conceptual stages. In addition, the staff they typically have only includes programmers and graphics designers. To me, that signifies a huge risk that my money will just be wasted by people who don't know how to produce a game. A project manager can make or break a game.
Two things I can see. One is that MMOs are fucking expensive and we, the people who would back a project know this. We know that Star Citizen is a complete anomaly, and it's very fucking unlikely to be repeated, so the people asking us to fund their MMO aren't going to get enough to fund the quality of game we'd like to see. So they pretty much, while not saying it, have to get funds to build a pitchworthy base that they can shop around to get actual investors to fund them to complete. So they're asking us to bet on the kicstarter to make something that has a chance at passing the next hurdle to getting made.
The second thing is something I may have said a 100 times here. These devs are all trying to be Blizzard, none of them are trying to be CCP. They all want to hit big with WoW instead of making EVE. It they make wow, they'll hit it big and it's diamond cigars for everyone, except that will never happen.
Were they instead to focus on making a game that could attract and hold the interest of a modest playerbase and then pour everything they make back into that game while growing and building upon it, then maybe they can grow to the point where they can afford to make a shooter that no one on the platform they designed it for wants and pour money into the hole of nice license for fricking years and then give up. That, my friends, would be success.
But nobody is doing that. Maybe the repopulation is, I woldn't know because I don't fucks with kickstarter or early access, at least they're on Steam.