Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Crowd funding

123578

Comments

  • MumboJumboMumboJumbo Member UncommonPosts: 3,219

    Another high-profile Kickstarter runs out of gas

     

    In short, rather than set the game's Kickstarter goal to fund the entirety of the project, Subutai used the $500,000 funding target to drive the first lap of development, with the optimism it could find conventional funding to complete development down the road. Unfortunately, that funding hasn't materialized.


    "The overall climate in the industry has become risk-averse to a degree that is difficult to appreciate until you've seen it," Subutai explains. "While we have been working on Clang, two major video game publishers, THQ and LucasArts, have gone out of business. Others have fallen on hard times. The current generation of consoles is coming to the end of its life cycle. Rather than invest in innovative new titles, the still-surviving publishers tend to keep their heads down, grinding out sequels and extensions to well-worn triple-A franchises."

  • sorattasoratta Member Posts: 39

    Looking at this thread, there's a really good and thorough analysis of the KS situation (fad? but I don't think it'll ever go away, as getting sponsors has always been a viable option, just that it's more visible now, thanks to the internet.) 

    Answering the main point, however, I don't think this is something big publishers are afraid of, though it can be a means for them to learn something (though not always the case.) Publishers can continue to churn out sequels in the relative comfort zone of the tried-and-tested, while observing the hit-and-miss situation with KS. If nothing else, they can use this for market research, to gauge if previously unpopular and unprofitable genres will be better-received with the current market.

    Then again, that depends on their flexibility, open-mindedness and monetary security.

  • MukeMuke Member RarePosts: 2,614
    Originally posted by Lence

    Whats your opinion on crowd funding at the moment? It's nice to see old-school devs or people with brilliant ideas get funded directly by fans. no more money to publishers, taxes etc.. but 100% goes to developers. I'm pretty sure big publishers are afraid of this.

    If people have the money and they dont know what to do with it, go for it imo.

    You got indy developers developing from a small office or basement, so it's a risk giving such a guy a couple of million trusting he will forge a gaming company with that money.

    On the other side you have the big international gaming companies like EA and SOE filled with suits who have never talked to the regular normal gamer and have such a big arrogant attitude thinking they know what's best for a gamer by telling them so and creating bad games the past decade, so that's not really very trustworthy either.

     

    So it's all a big gamble, really.

     

    "going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"

  • XthosXthos Member UncommonPosts: 2,739

    I remain skeptical that you can crowd fund your way from scratch to a quality, fully feature AAA MMO.

     

    As for people giving money, I am all for it, if they like what is presented, I do not get caught up on what others do with their money, like it is coming from my wallet.

     

  • GdemamiGdemami Member EpicPosts: 12,342

    I said it before and I say it again: Donating wealthy people in no material need, donating their business and living, is absurd.


    Unless something has changed lately, crowdfunding is a legal fraud. It is a loophole in system that needs a fix first. I am not a fond of the idea but if people want to provide money for funding, the donee must be liable for the money collected like with any other funding options and all the procedures that it brings along.

    Crowdfunding in the current form is a donation, not a funding method.

  • sorattasoratta Member Posts: 39
    Similarly, there's also that problem where these KSers fail because they keep expecting more, that they'll get picked up by a publisher after they use the money from crowd funding. They're not looking at the current constraints and moving where they're capable of doing, and just waiting for their eggs to hatch.
  • deathshrouddeathshroud Member Posts: 1,366

     

    Life Is Feudal has just launched its Indiegogo page (a form of kickstarter).

    The link is here with plenty of details on what the game is all about,

    http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/life-is-feudal

     

    hopefully this game will make its kickstarter goal, ambitious but at least its doing something with a bit of originality.

    there are 2 types of mmo, imitators and innovaters.

  • ArChWindArChWind Member UncommonPosts: 1,340
    My thoughts on crowd funding since you brought it up and want opinions.
     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_funding

     

    Tells the whole story.

     
    It’s free money so every Tom, Dick, Harry and their dog is now heading out to grab the dough now. Anyone with a name in any part of any business is now making for the cash grab. It comes as no surprise to me there and in fact I’ll wager on several names for near future OMG! going to start a Kickstarter campaign announcement here on this site.
     
     
    The bad news is that most of the money invested by these crowd funding people will vanish long before the products become a reality.
     
     
    My biggest concern though is that the loopholes left in the crowd funding laws. Big business can put together small companies (meet the requirements for crowd funding) with big name developers leading them and pull a lot of cash that never needs to be paid back. They can then later ‘sell out the project’ and have 100% tax free 0 dividend payout.
     
     
    The only real loser here are the people that blindly believe their investment in the NEXT thing will happen.

     

     

     

     

    ArChWind — MMORPG.com Forums

    If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
  • Quantum312Quantum312 Member Posts: 3
    Originally posted by ArChWind
    My thoughts on crowd funding since you brought it up and want opinions.
     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_funding

     

    Tells the whole story.

     
    It’s free money so every Tom, Dick, Harry and their dog is now heading out to grab the dough now. Anyone with a name in any part of any business is now making for the cash grab. It comes as no surprise to me there and in fact I’ll wager on several names for near future OMG! going to start a Kickstarter campaign announcement here on this site.
     
     
    The bad news is that most of the money invested by these crowd funding people will vanish long before the products become a reality.
     
     
    My biggest concern though is that the loopholes left in the crowd funding laws. Big business can put together small companies (meet the requirements for crowd funding) with big name developers leading them and pull a lot of cash that never needs to be paid back. They can then later ‘sell out the project’ and have 100% tax free 0 dividend payout.
     
     
    The only real loser here are the people that blindly believe their investment in the NEXT thing will happen.

     

     

     

     

    Heartily agree with this.  "Clang" on Kickstarter was just such an example of the loopholes in crowd funding laws.

  • WizardryWizardry Member LegendaryPosts: 19,332
    Originally posted by Lence

    Whats your opinion on crowd funding at the moment? It's nice to see old-school devs or people with brilliant ideas get funded directly by fans. no more money to publishers, taxes etc.. but 100% goes to developers. I'm pretty sure big publishers are afraid of this.

    I consider it a VERY shotty business venture.There is probably no law that could stop a person from taking  for example that 26 million and just putting it in some offshore account and not paying taxes.I am not even sure if there is any legality at all behind such ventures.

    There might be some pressure from publishers to force work out too fast but at the same time,you know they HAVE to put in some effort.When using innocent donations,they have zero risk and zero pressure.I know this much,i could hire 1-2 people and within 1-2 months put out more than what these Indie devs are putting out with multi millions.I would think the people donating would be smart enough to demand some content to be shown for all the money these devs are raking instead they accept some pictures and or talk of promises.

    I guess as in real life charities they do the same thing,nobody has proof the money is actually going where you hope it is going and most likely most are scamming money into their own pockets.

    I know for fact the law is VERY weak in the case of donations because a dev by name of Hunted Cow has been operating under the presumption of donations for many years yet they do nothing of the sort,the money is used to fund the business and they SELL everything that is claimed to be a donation.

    I am going to assume the prime purpose of these shotty operations is to avoid paying taxes like everyone else,totally free handouts.What is sickening is there are actually poor starving people out there who could use a hand but people scoff them,yet are so quick to hand money over to the rich who most certainly do not need it.

    Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.

  • Panther2103Panther2103 Member EpicPosts: 5,766
    As a whole I think they work well. They give devs a chance to work without a publisher, or get a publishers interest if they are looking for something like that. It allows them to be creative and get their own work out instead of a publisher telling them how to do their project to continue being funded by said publisher. I have a couple of games that have been crowdfunded, like Cloudberry Kingdom and been rather impressed. So I trust them to actually work, I just think there are a lot of scammers. So they are good and bad in that respect.
  • IXJacIXJac Member UncommonPosts: 13

    For me to back a Crowdfunding project requires a great deal of confidence in the devs ability to deliver, and me being unable to get a product similar to that being promised anywhere else.  To date only Star Citizen has met this mark, but even then I was aware of the project since near its inception, but held off actually buying in until a few months ago.  By then they had a lot more than just a fancy Kickstarter page to convince me they were seriously trying to deliver on their promises.

    So I'm a general skeptic on the idea of crowdfunding.  I see it as something that can too easily become a scam.

  • amalageramalager Member UncommonPosts: 15
    Crowd funding usually works for mobile or hand-held games. The Dev should have pretty much all of the things he need beforehand as coding takes a whole lot of time. That could also mean Devs will have the help of a few people like artists and the like. 
  • SEANMCADSEANMCAD Member EpicPosts: 16,775
    I think on average what has been produced by crowdfunding is better than what has been produced by AAA.

    Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.

    Please do not respond to me

  • NadiaNadia Member UncommonPosts: 11,798

    i love crowdfunding but like any tool - there's uses and abuses

     

    recently, this Potato Salad kickstarter satire has been huge success

    raising 38k  of a $10.00 goal

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato-salad

     

    a game blogger wrote an editorial about it

    http://stonemaiergames.com/the-problem-with-potato-salad/

    the problem.

    This project is really, really bad for new creators who discover Kickstarter who discover the site because of this project. Here are the myths this project is creating (and persisting) for those people:

    1. Kickstarter is free money. I’m sure at some point you’ve seen a project where the creator clearly thought Kickstarter was free money. They slapped something together in their garage over the weekend, somehow got it approved, and launched it a few days later. The thing is, those projects don’t fund. They hardly attract any backers at all. Thus they serve as an excellent warning to other creators about the work they need to put into projects. Potato Salad is doing the exact opposite. It makes Kickstarter look like free money, which is the worst possible perception new creators could have about the site.

    2. Getting press for your project is easy. If you’ve ever tried to get press for anything, you know how hard it is. It’s why I advocate actually building relationships with the press (bloggers, podcasters, etc.) so you can have a slim chance of leveraging that press into big press–major website, television news, etc. You create your own luck.

    Potato Salad, however, is making it look like all you have to do is put a project on Kickstarter, and the press will come to you. And really uninformed press, at that. Here’s how ABC Columbus introduced their 3-minute segment about the project (this is a verbatim quote): “Kickstart is a funding website where you can help others with a goal–maybe a trip, buying a house, or for Zach Brown, make potato salad.”

    Yeah…you can’t use Kickstarter to buy a house. Good research, Channel 6 Columbus.

    3. You don’t have to give backers anything in return for their pledge. I already talked about the “rewards” Zach is offering. If you look at most other projects with blase rewards (or way overpriced rewards), you’ll learn right away that they don’t work. Kickstarter isn’t a charity. In fact, the very definition of Kickstarter is that “Projects must create something to share with others.” Potato Salad offers a very, very thin representation of that definition. Good luck getting those bites of potato salad to 500 backers, Zach.

    4. Actually needing the money isn’t required. The truth is, Kickstarter doesn’t require creators to prove they need the money to make their project a reality, and that’s a good thing–it means that Kickstarter is about much more than just money. But it’s certainly part of the equation. It’s much more compelling to backers if the money actually matters. Plus, Kickstarter’s core guidelines state, “Projects must be honest and clearly presented.” Is Zach Brown being honest that he truly needed $10 to make a potato salad? Obviously not. I get this. You get this. But does random new project creator who saw Zach Brown on the local news get this? Nope.

    I have no ill will towards Zach Brown (okay, maybe just a little–I’m protective over my fellow Kickstarter creators who try to do the right thing for backers). I’m guessing he thought he’d make $10 from a few friends and that would be that. I don’t even blame Kickstarter–they probably got a chuckle out of the project and thought it might attract a few random backers. But now it’s reached a critical mass, and it’s a problem.

    What’s worse is that anyone reading this blog entry already knows the truth behind those myths, but no new creators spawned from Potato Salad have any idea this blog exists. I really hope Kickstarter doesn’t approve any of those projects.

  • winterwinter Member UncommonPosts: 2,281
    Originally posted by Lence

    Whats your opinion on crowd funding at the moment? It's nice to see old-school devs or people with brilliant ideas get funded directly by fans. no more money to publishers, taxes etc.. but 100% goes to developers. I'm pretty sure big publishers are afraid of this.

      It good and bad. Good as you mentioned when it goes to making a game. bad when it goes to scammers like Brad that set their own paychecks (I feel like I'm worth paying $15K this month!) and as CEO's decide to give themselves advances  to the point of gutting the games developement

  • CrazKanukCrazKanuk Member EpicPosts: 6,130

    I think crowdfunding is great if it's done right. There are plenty of good examples of this, both through Kickstarter and private. What it really boils down to, for me, though, is value. Now that is a very subjective term, I know, but it can be measured quite easily in terms of success. There are probably a couple aspects to this, value for my money, and value in quality of product.

     

    First, value for my money refers to giving me something that I feel I "can't lose" on. Firefall was a really good example of this. For $20, I could get a permanent XP bonus (yeah, forevs!!), plus $15 worth of in-game cash to buy additional "battleframes" which equates to classes, plus a cosmetic item or something, I don't remember exactly. However, the point is, if I plan on playing this game, there is no reason I shouldn't back it because it's well worth my money. 

     

    An example of a poorly-implemented value model would be Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen. There were really no packages that gave you any value for your money. You can give them $10 if you want a pat on the back, pay $35 for the game (which I'd suspect would be retail for the game after a money or less anyway) plus 30 days gametime (which I would expect to be included anyway). So when these types of packages are put together people will tend to just "wait and see" instead. There's just no compelling reason to buy it. 

     

    Second is value in Quality. What do you already have done? How well is it executed? Is it well thought out? This particular item is what I feel was almost the downfall of Camelot Unchained. People are weary of things like Kickstarter as it is, so people need to show that they have some reasonable work done and thought put into a project. That doesn't necessarily mean physical demo content (which doesn't hurt). Look at Project: Eternity, for instance. It was primarily a lot of really well-presented concepts, gameplay elements, and story. Plus, once they reached their goal, they had a "dungeon" which would have levels added to it for every additional stretch goal, which seemed to spur a frenzy of spending.

     

    Take a look at something like Project Shaker, and the exact opposite happened. I mean it didn't fail for a lack of people with industry experience, but their delivery of content and concept was just torn apart. 

     

    I think that the biggest misconception is that games simply don't get made. However, I think it's more an issue with failed projects getting more press than successful ones. If you google it, there's actually a large majority of game projects which have shipped versus not shipped. 

    Crazkanuk

    ----------------
    Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
    Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
    Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
    Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
    Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
    ----------------

  • Agent_JosephAgent_Joseph Member UncommonPosts: 1,361
    crowd founding = taking money without any responsibility for what going collected money (just new word for scam)
  • CrazKanukCrazKanuk Member EpicPosts: 6,130
    Originally posted by Agent_Joseph
    crowd founding = taking money without any responsibility for what going collected money (just new word for scam)

    I guess ignorance is bliss sometimes. You do realize that these people are legally obligated to deliver whatever product it is that they're funding (if done through something like Kickstarter), right? There are very few projects, especially in games, that I'm aware of which have outright not delivered. There are plenty which haven't shipped on time, but I'm aware of maybe one or two cases where the game was simply not delivered at all. 

    Crazkanuk

    ----------------
    Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
    Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
    Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
    Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
    Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
    ----------------

  • GdemamiGdemami Member EpicPosts: 12,342


    Originally posted by CrazKanuk
    I guess ignorance is bliss sometimes. You do realize that these people are legally obligated to deliver whatever product it is that they're funding (if done through something like Kickstarter), right?  

    False.

  • Agent_JosephAgent_Joseph Member UncommonPosts: 1,361
    Originally posted by CrazKanuk
    Originally posted by Agent_Joseph
    crowd founding = taking money without any responsibility for what going collected money (just new word for scam)

    I guess ignorance is bliss sometimes. You do realize that these people are legally obligated to deliver whatever product it is that they're funding (if done through something like Kickstarter), right? There are very few projects, especially in games, that I'm aware of which have outright not delivered. There are plenty which haven't shipped on time, but I'm aware of maybe one or two cases where the game was simply not delivered at all. 

    what about this ; they spend for project 10% - 50 % collected money,other spend for personal stuff

  • NadiaNadia Member UncommonPosts: 11,798
    Originally posted by CrazKanuk

    There are very few projects, especially in games, that I'm aware of which have outright not delivered. There are plenty which haven't shipped on time, but I'm aware of maybe one or two cases where the game was simply not delivered at all. 

    i agree - ive used kickstarter for 12 months

    I've personally backed over 300 projects during that time period

    https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/587845789

     

    75% of my pledges funded

    there have been zero  "no shows" yet -- only delays in delivery

    some projects have been delayed 6 months to 1 year

     

    scams do exist on KS but I've had good fortune with the pledge choices i have made

  • Kicksave321Kicksave321 Member CommonPosts: 262
    Yeah id be very hesitant to do crowd funding. You have all these people bashing Brad for taking 45k you have all these people all pissed at Oculus for taking millions then turning around and selling out for $2 billion and what do the crowd finders get?  Oh hey give us another $350 for dev kit 2.  Shady business like Oculus making off with $2billion on stolen proprietary technology and Brad pocketing $45k makes me wonder how anyone would put a penny into crowd funding. 
  • CrazKanukCrazKanuk Member EpicPosts: 6,130
    Originally posted by Agent_Joseph
    Originally posted by CrazKanuk
    Originally posted by Agent_Joseph
    crowd founding = taking money without any responsibility for what going collected money (just new word for scam)

    I guess ignorance is bliss sometimes. You do realize that these people are legally obligated to deliver whatever product it is that they're funding (if done through something like Kickstarter), right? There are very few projects, especially in games, that I'm aware of which have outright not delivered. There are plenty which haven't shipped on time, but I'm aware of maybe one or two cases where the game was simply not delivered at all. 

    what about this ; they spend for project 10% - 50 % collected money,other spend for personal stuff

    Check here

     

    That's a pretty damn long list. I've got through quite a few with most of them actually being released or actively in development. I'm sure there are a few stinkers in there, but I think that the success rate of these crowd-funded games versus studio-funded games is actually better. So I don't think for one second that the people running these projects, on the whole, are crooks or anything like that. In fact, I'd say that the people behind these projects are probably more accountable than the majority of major studios. 

     

    Feel free to throw out some support for your argument any time you want, though. I'm sure Brad McQuaid will come up, but his Kickstarter didn't work. If someone has a Kickstarter fail and you still fund them, independently, what's wrong with you? In those cases, I'm really sorry, but people are just dumb and probably deserve having their money taken from them. Same thing goes for people who send tens of thousands of dollars to Nigerian Princes and Princesses who need your help to bribe security offices to get their massive amounts of gold out of secure storage. 

     

     

    Crazkanuk

    ----------------
    Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
    Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
    Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
    Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
    Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
    ----------------

  • CrazKanukCrazKanuk Member EpicPosts: 6,130
    Originally posted by Gdemami

     


    Originally posted by CrazKanuk
    I guess ignorance is bliss sometimes. You do realize that these people are legally obligated to deliver whatever product it is that they're funding (if done through something like Kickstarter), right?  

     

    False.

    We'll see I guess

     

    If the state wins this case, then it would be like a $1.6 million dollar hit, for a project that raised $25k, lol. I hope they do win, too. It would set a precedent for the future of crowd funded projects. 

    Crazkanuk

    ----------------
    Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
    Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
    Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
    Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
    Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
    ----------------

Sign In or Register to comment.