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Ulgress posted:If the studio has just been made, then $10-15k in total is the limit (with some leeway for the scope of the game, of course). The people who got hired knew exactly the risks, pay and the kickstarter is more of an advertisement than an actual funding job at this point. If they made a studio without being able to fund the studio, then that doesn't bode well for their money management with higher figures. This is REALLY stupid, we paid that much for licensing alone, so I suppose my team should have just not been paid huh?
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Dec 22, 2012 02:17
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http://www.facebook.com/BlackIsleStudios/posts/324568060990821 hahaha *wheeze*
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Dec 22, 2012 02:25
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Megazver posted:hahaha *wheeze* Highest rated comment: "I have no idea what the intention was of this update, but it made sure you will never see a single dollar from me." Man, those guys are batshit insane. Were they trying to be somehow... meta? 
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Dec 22, 2012 02:30
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I guess I'm weird because I don't think a kickstarter should be raising enough money to pay literally everyone on staff a salary until the game is completed. Kickstarter isn't a silent partner to fund entire companies from the ground up, its a way to rustle up some money to help finish a project that wouldn't have been completed otherwise, so when people run in and start dropping "DONT YOU KNOW WHAT A SALARY IS" it's kind of ridiculous. You haven't made anything yet. These are donations. They aren't capital investments. It's already a blessing that most of these kickstarters are convincing people to buy games that aren't even out yet, much less in a state where people can judge if its worth buying. Like, thats insane when you think about it. People are paying full price for games that literally just ideas in someones head. At some point, we should probably return to the model where games come out, then we pay for them, once we know if its bad or not. So, yeah I think Ulgress has the right idea.
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Dec 22, 2012 02:35
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quote:I hate it when people throw the word " unprofessional" around like that. This is not a business. Black Isle is loving ART. loving ART, guys!
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Dec 22, 2012 02:36
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coffeetable posted:The thing to watch for when it comes to how shady this is will be how the inXile and Obsidian guys react. Brian Fargo did in fact react to PV13 on twitter. Turns out, he didn't even try to stay neutral: Brian Fargo posted:Black Isle needs a Kickstarter to Kickstart a Kickstart http://www.destructoid.com/black-isle-needs-a-kickstarter-to-kickstart-a-kickstart-240960.phtml … Sad Brian Fargo posted:
Brian Fargo posted:Black Isle update 2 on FB: "maybe you should just empty the bank account on this project. Just to spite them. " Embarrassing... Brian Fargo posted:
This is about what you might expect considering how vocal he's been about the state of the industry since Wasteland 2 was first kickstarted.
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Dec 22, 2012 03:11
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This is probably the worst piece of PR I've ever seen from a video game company.
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Dec 22, 2012 03:21
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Varinn posted:I guess I'm weird because I don't think a kickstarter should be raising enough money to pay literally everyone on staff a salary until the game is completed. Kickstarter isn't a silent partner to fund entire companies from the ground up, its a way to rustle up some money to help finish a project that wouldn't have been completed otherwise, so when people run in and start dropping "DONT YOU KNOW WHAT A SALARY IS" it's kind of ridiculous. If someone was making iPhone cases I would be pissed if they didn't ask for enough to do an initial manufacturing run of the cases, because they'd be asking for less than they need to kicktart their project to profitability. Thanks to digital distribution, indie games' primary cost is simply living expenses for the duration of the development, so if an indie game is asking for less than they need to support development until the game becomes profitable then in my opinion they are not using Kickstarter as it was originally intended, and are literally using it for either advertising or some quick cash, both of which are subverting the real purpose of kickstarter. Minimum wage for 2 people for 6 months is easily about 15k, that is before any kind of expenses (licenses, contracted assets, backer rewards, legal fees, etc). Also, most of the money seems to come from whatever tier comes with a copy of the game, so its not exactly a donation and actually kinda-sorta counts against you when the game is released because anyone willing to back a game would probably have bought the game on release. Lucid Dream fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Dec 22, 2012 |
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Dec 22, 2012 03:50
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Haha what the gently caress.
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Dec 22, 2012 03:51
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You know what they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity!
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Dec 22, 2012 03:58
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Bieeardo posted:loving ART, guys! Doesn't that make it pornography?
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Dec 22, 2012 04:00
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Radio the Universe looks freaking fantastic. It had the perspective of a JRPG, but looks more like an exploration platformer... thing - with fantastic art.
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Dec 22, 2012 06:08
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Shalinor posted:Radio the Universe looks freaking fantastic. It had the perspective of a JRPG, but looks more like an exploration platformer... thing - with fantastic art. Just kidding of course, it looks excellent. Only $12k?
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Dec 22, 2012 06:14
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Varinn posted:I guess I'm weird because I don't think a kickstarter should be raising enough money to pay literally everyone on staff a salary until the game is completed. Kickstarter isn't a silent partner to fund entire companies from the ground up, its a way to rustle up some money to help finish a project that wouldn't have been completed otherwise, so when people run in and start dropping "DONT YOU KNOW WHAT A SALARY IS" it's kind of ridiculous. Kickstarter by its nature is a donation system. It's never been capital investments, because you aren't getting returns. It's pure donations, even for mostly complete games. Your reasoning is insane. Why is it not valid to use Kickstarter to start projects that would have been incredibly hard or impossible to start on otherwise? Sometimes people have a great idea, as well as the connections and basic infrastructure ready, but not the money. See: Wasteland 2, Shadowrun, DFA, Planetary Annihilation, etc. In the end, as long as the end result is indies making games that they wouldn't have been able to make otherwise, Kickstarter is being put to good use. Your guidelines for what what a Kickstarter should be are completely arbitrary.
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Dec 22, 2012 06:21
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Lucid Dream posted:If someone was making iPhone cases I would be pissed if they didn't ask for enough to do an initial manufacturing run of the cases, because they'd be asking for less than they need to kicktart their project to profitability. Thanks to digital distribution, indie games' primary cost is simply living expenses for the duration of the development, so if an indie game is asking for less than they need to support development until the game becomes profitable then in my opinion they are not using Kickstarter as it was originally intended If you're really worried about "original intent", the first Kickstarter, by one of their founders, was used primarily as something more like a market research tool, rather than directly to get money. He was having a hard time finding a place to hold a concert. He put up the original Kickstarter and used it to determine whether there was an audience large enough to support his concert. Kickstarter is a tool that can be used to actualize a concept based on latent market demand.
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Dec 22, 2012 06:56
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So after a quick scan of this thread, it seems no one has made any mention yet of War for the Overworld. I thought I'd wait until Forsaken Fortress finished it's run before mentioning it, but it seems like a no-brainer for anyone interested in Dungeon Keeper style games. It's basically a bunch of fans getting together to make Dungeon Keeper 3 with all the intellectual property filed off. They've got a playable tech demo put up and and a fair bit of information about the game, much of which looks fantastic. Best of all, if they can hit 225,000 GBP they can get Richard Ridings to narrate everything. Nothing says Dungeon Keeper better than Richard Ridings. Seeing as you guys seemed excited about about Forsaken Fortress and Maia, I thought I'd bring it to your attention. RYXlord fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Dec 23, 2012 |
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Dec 22, 2012 10:27
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Shalinor posted:Radio the Universe looks freaking fantastic. It had the perspective of a JRPG, but looks more like an exploration platformer... thing - with fantastic art. That is pretty much hitting all the right buttons for me. Kind of want to see what those higher tier awards will look like, though I probably won't back higher than $25.
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Dec 22, 2012 10:46
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LumberingTroll posted:This is REALLY stupid, we paid that much for licensing alone, so I suppose my team should have just not been paid huh? It really isn't. If you started a studio with your explicit plan being "Use KickStarter to live", then I don't think I should trust you with my money. To me that rings as an unreasonable decision. The public doesn't exist to bail you out of bad situations or unemployment (which is fundamentally what a newly established development studio without money is). It's there to supplement development and your own cash reserves. Then again, implicit in all of this is the understanding that regardless of how much money you ask for, if people really like your concept, you're getting 10x that.
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Dec 22, 2012 10:51
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Shalinor posted:Radio the Universe looks freaking fantastic. It had the perspective of a JRPG, but looks more like an exploration platformer... thing - with fantastic art. Wish I could afford the "one art" level.
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Dec 22, 2012 10:58
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Reminder that professional studios budget ~$100k per developer per year. One- or two-man studios can obviously undercut that massively by taking chunks out of their standard of living or by not having a family to feed, but $15k/year is barely over the US's (draconian) poverty line. Now all that might be moot if Kickstarter was just to supplement cash reserves, but it isn't. For games, the role its fallen into is to fund the transition from preproduction/concept (which is cheap) to full-on development (which is crazy expensive). And if the concept work has been well done, and the vision is reasonable, and the studio has prior art showing they're not loving idiots, I don't see the problem with that. coffeetable fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Dec 22, 2012 |
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Dec 22, 2012 12:29
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Shalinor posted:Radio the Universe looks freaking fantastic. It had the perspective of a JRPG, but looks more like an exploration platformer... thing - with fantastic art. The music really sells this one. The game itself kinda reminds me of Valkyrie by Namco, but the movement looks much more satisfying.
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Dec 22, 2012 13:15
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Fergus Mac Roich posted:This is probably the worst piece of PR I've ever seen from a video game company. Nothing will beat Sony's God of War II insanity or EA's absolutely asinine and overdone JNCO jeans style extreme edgyness advertising of Dante's Inferno. And also every ad Eidos ever put out post Tomb Raider.
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Dec 22, 2012 13:52
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Personally I think the racist PSP white ads win.
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Dec 22, 2012 14:09
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G0LlXv-nyI Come to think of it, I can't think of an ad campaign for the PSP that wasn't utter poo poo. There was also those racist cartoons that tried to appeal to "urban" (read: poor black) demographics, which came with terrible graffiti in neighbourhoods that didn't condone them and without mayoral consent.
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Dec 22, 2012 14:49
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I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Telepath Tactics is entering its last week and looks pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxRhcwfn4i0 There's a demo available, too, and it's a pretty fun Fire Emblem-style game. It has "mod support, manipulable battlefields, and hotseat multiplayer." And the range of tactics is pretty neat too: quote:Telepath Tactics borrows liberally from the best tactics games around to provide a wide variety of available strategies. Throw enemies off of cliffs; push enemies into water or lava; fling friends across gaps; set your enemies on fire; freeze them; blind them; cripple them; stun them; use hit-and-run tactics with cavalry and bowmen; teleport; grab item drops; stick your ranged units on the high ground to boost their effectiveness; the list goes on and on.
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Dec 22, 2012 14:55
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YourAverageJoe posted:The music really sells this one.
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Dec 22, 2012 15:43
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This is obviously insane but the sentiment of not donating = spitefully sabotaging a project is starting to become a bit more common which I dislike. Admittedly up this point it had only been supporters doing it. For people quite possibly committing fraud they're remarkably poor con artists.
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Dec 22, 2012 17:00
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The Call to Arms guys put out an alpha test video, sure looks a lot like modern times Men of War. The improvements to the cover system look great though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z2PAk83Ce4
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Dec 22, 2012 18:53
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ReV VAdAUL posted:This is obviously insane but the sentiment of not donating = spitefully sabotaging a project is starting to become a bit more common which I dislike. The Skyjacker guys played that card back in July: Bieeardo posted:Hey, a personal message from a poster child for expensive toss-in bloat: Oh, apparently they just came back with another, smaller Kickstarter for a starship builder... with the caveat that the stretch goals are the real goal, so that they can
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Dec 22, 2012 19:10
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Shalinor posted:Radio the Universe looks freaking fantastic. It had the perspective of a JRPG, but looks more like an exploration platformer... thing - with fantastic art. Yeah this is a neat project, developer's great as well. If you like the music he's worth following on soundcloud as well: https://soundcloud.com/sevenee
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Dec 22, 2012 20:19
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Davincie posted:The Call to Arms guys put out an alpha test video, sure looks a lot like modern times Men of War. The improvements to the cover system look great though. It looks fantastic. I can't/won't be able to back it but I'll definitely be buying it. It's basically all I could have hoped for from a modern MoW.
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Dec 22, 2012 20:35
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Awww, both Tortured Hearts and Thorvalla wished me Merry Christmas.   I have to admit, there's something about their art style that gives me the fuzzies.
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Dec 22, 2012 23:31
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So I ran across a kickstarter that is interesting. Who knows if they can deliver what they've promised, but if they can, former UO players would probably be pretty pleased. I don't know the devs for this Kickstarter, but after listening to them in IRC I decided throw some money down toward it. Apparently the game is in a pretty decent state of development compared to most Kickstarter projects, since they will be delivering a beta client to backers in January if the Kickstarter is funded. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1784263141/topia-online https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x11-NQgpCAA I also took one of the images they had from their Kickstarter page that explains the game's features. It looks like there are some pretty heavy death penalties as well as scripting options? I don't really know what the scripting stuff entails, but it could be neat. 
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Dec 23, 2012 01:13
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While it does seem more thought out than other indie sandbox MMOs I've seen and it does have some interesting ideas, I've pretty much decided I wasn't going to spend any money on any unfinished MMOs. I'm sorry, but I'm not giving any MMO my money until I've played the released version's trial.
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Dec 23, 2012 01:18
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Megazver posted:While it does seem more thought out than other indie sandbox MMOs I've seen and it does have some interesting ideas, I've pretty much decided I wasn't going to spend any money on any unfinished MMOs. I'm sorry, but I'm not giving any MMO my money until I've played the released version's trial. You know, after playing Mortal Online on release, I can definitely say I understand where you are coming from. I think at times, Kickstarter ends up being me putting money toward my ideal of a game, rather than any game that has ever existed. I'll be sure to let you guys know if its worth it once I get ahold of the beta.
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Dec 23, 2012 01:21
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Shalinor posted:Kind of related to the above discussion - what's everyones sense for the target funding that indie games should be going for, these days? I think it also depends where the developer is based (Seriously. $100K hires you two americans/brits or 10 ukranians , for a year, and you'd be lucky to fit one australian or norwegian in for that price), and what they are hoping to achieve. I get deeply suspicious of anything with 3d graphics and under $200K asking price because thats a *lot* of labor required. But then again, you get something like Legends of Eisengard which has a team of 8 belarusians happily beavering away for about $70k total, and they'll probably still have money left over, AND it looks fantastic because highly talented cheap labor geeks.
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Dec 23, 2012 14:35
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Shalinor posted:Oh come on, their goal was $7k. Even overfunded, they're only at $60k. That's a token budget meant to make precisely the kind of simple game on display. This is "fans of web comic get to pitch in to see their favorite thing get turned into a game," the level of game was very clearly shown, and they all knew that going in. Nobody's getting exploited here, and they had prototype footage and everything you'd expect for an honest kickstarter. I'm pretty sus on any iphone/ipad project that offers a copy of the product as an incentive. If its not a free app, its a very complicated proposition offering that since apple more or less puts a hard limit on coupons as well as geographic limits. Ie;- Blame apple, not devs.
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Dec 23, 2012 15:26
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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1548272412/radio-the-universe-0 A weird surreal 32-bit scifi Zelda? This looks good, even with me not normally liking these kinds of games. Also, I love the author's sense of humor. quote:Q> What happens if you don't meet your goal? quote:It will be a dense game, designed to be a satisfactory challenge for as diverse a skill level spectrum as possible. If you're exceedingly bad at video games, then consult your video games doctor. You can also wait for a nearby star to perish and automatically win the game. It's in the code. quote:Features: Megazver fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Dec 23, 2012 |
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Dec 23, 2012 18:34
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Where do you get '32-bit' from? Also that game has been posted...and discussed...on this page of the thread.
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Dec 23, 2012 19:29
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Also nobody's mentioned the $1 and $999 donation tiers.quote:I will pray to a star on your behalf. No discernible effect.
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Dec 23, 2012 19:32
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