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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Well, huh. So they have to lay people off now because they're essentially out of money already. If the kickstarter is a success, they may be able to hire some people back. If it's a failure, GPG may close its doors. I doubt they'd have problems reaching their goal, with or without the bad news. I suspect the problem is that they actually might require a whole lot more money than they're asking for, and at the current pace of funding they wouldn't get far beyond that million dollar figure. This is a tough situation. Chris Taylor looked gutted.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 03:37 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 12:06 |
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Macaluso posted:What the gently caress? That's some really asinine justification for firing your entire team Have you ever managed financials for more than just a small group project? If you're on the ropes, financially, that's exactly what you do. In an ideal scenario it means moving people to other projects, but if you can't make that happen (lack of projects, not enough funding on those other projects, already at maximum capacity, etc...) then you have to get rid of them. Sucks, but welcome to project management 101. Edit: The timing was really hosed up though. Should have gone for before the kickstarter, or tried to went for a smaller team working on smaller project to start with. nessin fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Jan 19, 2013 |
# ? Jan 19, 2013 03:42 |
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That was a pretty screwed up video. Goddamn.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 03:57 |
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Kenshin posted:Well, to be fair it means he's paying them all of their owed vacation time and (it sounded like) a severance. This is true. I just talked to my friend (one of the people laid off) and he is receiving a severance.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 04:15 |
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Macaluso posted:What the gently caress? That's some really asinine justification for firing your entire team This way, everyone can immediately claim unemployment, and it's clear what their options are. They could work on the KS without pay - and many probably will, because this usually happens in a layoff like this only way less publicly - or they could move on, but no one is out on their rear end with nothing and no clue. ... that said, god drat, that is not an upper of a video. I was hoping he'd try for some kind of call to action, "look we can do this, here's the team saying they're committed to seeing the KS through!" but... Nope. Just a successful grown man breaking down because his company is falling apart Shalinor fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Jan 19, 2013 |
# ? Jan 19, 2013 04:25 |
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Shalinor posted:This way, everyone can immediately claim unemployment, and it's clear what their options are. They could work on the KS without pay - and many probably will, because this usually happens in a layoff like this only way less publicly - or they could move on, but no one is out on their rear end with nothing and no clue. I mean we saw the worst way to do it last year with 38 Studios, the company closes down and you find out they never paid your moving expenses, you have an extra mortgage, and your health insurance was cut off yesterday but your wife is due next week. GPG is saintly by comparison.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 04:34 |
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Al! posted:I mean we saw the worst way to do it last year with 38 Studios, the company closes down and you find out they never paid your moving expenses, you have an extra mortgage, and your health insurance was cut off yesterday but your wife is due next week. GPG is saintly by comparison. Yeah, this is a far better way to go. Man that sucks.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 04:44 |
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I've been in that position, with the not really knowing how bad things are, and it going from fine, to "the contract for the new project will be signed any day now and we'll be fine", to the lay offs, except I was in the first batch which means I got cut before the desperation for the new contract became common office knowledge. Getting severance is clearly the best way for it to happen, but that's some crazy timing on the Kickstarter.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:10 |
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I think he should have never gone to Kickstarter to begin with, it just seems like KS is not the right move for something like this when the company is in peril. I do wonder though that with a bunch of these kickstarters for Adventure games and RPGs if publishers are taking a note of it. Its obvious it won't sell CoD level of sales, but its proven that there really is a market for these games.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:11 |
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PonchAxis posted:I think he should have never gone to Kickstarter to begin with, it just seems like KS is not the right move for something like this when the company is in peril. How do we know this is what he "began with?" Gas Powered Games has been around the block a few times, I'm sure they've made pitches and tried to work things out with publishers before this.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:16 |
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I didn't watch the video and am going off the kotaku article here: http://kotaku.com/5977246/were-hear...dium=Socialflow but this stands out as basically holding the game/people's jobs as some sort of kickstarter blackmail to me: quote:UPDATE 5: Taylor has made a lengthy statement via a video update to the Wildman Kickstarter page. He explains the reasoning behind the timing of the layoffs: If the company ran through the entire Kickstarter campaign and it failed, he says he'd have to let everyone go, shut the company down, and not give any paid time-off or severance. "That," he says, "I decided was not worth it." I want to believe that Chris Taylor is an awesome amazing guy who would never think to do such a thing (and has merely had to let his PR guy go before he was able to warn Chris that what he is doing can be read so negatively). But I can't help but feel that, intentional or not, he's basically emotionally blackmailing the backers into supporting the game.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:18 |
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Sigma-X posted:I didn't watch the video and am going off the kotaku article here: That's kind of how business and employment works. Everyone's jobs are "hostage" to the success of a company. What do you want him to say? It's just the reality of the situation. Either the kickstarter is a success and people get their jobs back, or the kickstarter fails and they have to find new work.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:21 |
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Yodzilla posted:How do we know this is what he "began with?" Gas Powered Games has been around the block a few times, I'm sure they've made pitches and tried to work things out with publishers before this. I think he was using "to begin with" as a figure of speech. As in this never should've been a KS at all.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:23 |
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PonchAxis posted:I do wonder though that with a bunch of these kickstarters for Adventure games and RPGs if publishers are taking a note of it. Its obvious it won't sell CoD level of sales, but its proven that there really is a market for these games. I think the consensus (or at least, what I've seen Chris Avellone and co saying) is that while impressive for a medium studio, ~$3 million from maybe 50,000 people is a drop in the bucket for publishers. They'll seriously start taking note if those games then sell half a million copies or more, but until they get to that ballpark it's not really a "proven market" on the scale that they're interested in.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:25 |
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:That's kind of how business and employment works. Everyone's jobs are "hostage" to the success of a company. What do you want him to say? It's just the reality of the situation. Either the kickstarter is a success and people get their jobs back, or the kickstarter fails and they have to find new work. Except in this case the company was so horribly mismanaged that people's jobs now depend on begging people for money, which isn't the most stable business model. I'm not sure how many of them would even want to go back to that company, but the video game industry is pretty weird that way.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:27 |
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In many of the successful projects we've seen, a company's success have hinged on the success of the Kickstarter. The difference here is that "success" has a different meaning, whereby for Wildman to be successful for GPG, it would have needed to be overfunded. It's very clear that they'd make at least a million dollars if they kept on trucking, but it's evident that wouldn't have been enough, otherwise they wouldn't be in this situation. I do not like the trend of developers doing this, and I feel like there had to be a level of mismanagement involved to get them to that point. I mean, the layoffs came the week the project launched, that timing is just the worst. But It seems awfully kneejerky to just proclaim that the entire company is horribly managed and nobody would ever enjoy working there based on such little information.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 05:34 |
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Man, and I thought Wildman was a ridiculous, unlikely premise to begin with, but it just keeps getting worse out there. Of course they're not going to kill the Kickstarter-- hope springs eternal, and the comments section is filled with the same people who bit in the first place.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 06:00 |
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:That's kind of how business and employment works. Everyone's jobs are "hostage" to the success of a company. What do you want him to say? It's just the reality of the situation. Either the kickstarter is a success and people get their jobs back, or the kickstarter fails and they have to find new work. Most businesses don't go to public fundraising, lay everyone off, and then tell the people they're soliciting for funds "if you care enough and give us enough money, some of them will get their jobs back." I totally get the reality of the situation, I've been in the games industry for 6 years. I think it has been done without tact or care, and comes off as a callous manipulation rather than even basic planning. It isn't like this surprised GPG. They didn't wake up one morning and go "oh poo poo, the sack full of paychecks is empty!" They could have started the kickstarter a month earlier, and not gone public with their intent to lay people off if it was unsuccessful.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 06:01 |
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Yea I kind of feel like they're trying to guilt people into backing. If you give us money, we will give these people their jobs back! Look at those poor people with no jobs. Poor them.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 06:14 |
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:The difference here is that "success" has a different meaning, whereby for Wildman to be successful for GPG, it would have needed to be overfunded. It's very clear that they'd make at least a million dollars if they kept on trucking, but it's evident that wouldn't have been enough, otherwise they wouldn't be in this situation. This is what makes me hesitant about the project. If you're clearly going to need 3 million to make the game you're showing then make that the goal from the beginning. You can't rely on stretch goals when only 4 games have really gotten up to that 3 million level. I don't want to back the project for a million and find out later that wasn't enough to get it done. I hope if works out for him though it would be sad to see a 15 year old studio go under.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 06:16 |
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Isn't it like against the Kickstarter terms of service to put a funding target at a price lower than is necessary to deliver the product? poo poo is all super shady. Edit: Not in so many words, but if they can't make the product even if it hits their target then they're gonna be responsible to refund the donations all the same. Super No Vacancy fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Jan 19, 2013 |
# ? Jan 19, 2013 06:20 |
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The sad part is that if he had done a kickstarter for Kings and Castles, a game that many people are already waiting for excitedly, they wouldn't have had any problems funding it. Edit: Oh, and Cassielle if you're still reading this: I checked out the game and there is a one huge flaw that I think will prevent many people from enjoying the game: In the item descriptions it uses properties like "small bonus to X". This will piss off pretty much every ARPG fan because we like to compare loot and want to see the exact numbers on item properties. Give us the exact percentages and numbers on the magic item properties and every Diablo fan I know will buy this for their tablet. Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Jan 19, 2013 |
# ? Jan 19, 2013 08:13 |
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Mr.48 posted:The sad part is that if he had done a kickstarter for Kings and Castles, a game that many people are already waiting for excitedly, they wouldn't have had any problems funding it. According to his twitter he would've "had to" set the target to no less than $3 million, so yeah, he probably would have some trouble.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 08:48 |
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I don't understand how continuing is even an option at this point. Let's say it reaches 1.2 million or something; that clearly isn't enough to keep the studio running at full capacity, so what's he trying to accomplish?
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 13:45 |
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Hakkesshu posted:I don't understand how continuing is even an option at this point. Let's say it reaches 1.2 million or something; that clearly isn't enough to keep the studio running at full capacity, so what's he trying to accomplish? A nice mansion in South America?
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 14:52 |
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At least he is not pulling shady practices like Curt Shilling did with his crew on Kingdoms of Amalur. His people are getting severence and openness and honesty. I have to respect him for that.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 16:16 |
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Hakkesshu posted:I don't understand how continuing is even an option at this point. Let's say it reaches 1.2 million or something; that clearly isn't enough to keep the studio running at full capacity, so what's he trying to accomplish? Maybe it's enough to keep it running at reduced capacity, or to try to keep it running a little longer and keep shopping it around to a publisher. Or maybe he's hoping he can get the 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever million and hire everyone back. I can't hold it against him for holding onto that hope.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 16:25 |
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It's kind of funny looking back at what Obsidian were saying about their kickstarter. They set the goal to around 1 million and weren't even totally sure they'd make that. Everyone told them, "Oh, of course you'll make it, you're Obsidian, come on now." But now we see what happens when you try to assume something like that and make a mistake. Obsidian were lucky that they really were(and are) that beloved and had a project with that much potential.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 20:04 |
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Yodzilla posted:It especially doesn't help when three of their last four games fell flat of their face. Space Siege, Demigod and SupComm 2 were pretty much DOA. I have no idea how successful AoE Online was but it seemed neat enough. Shame it was a F2P title. Sadly, AOE Online is shutting down a bunch of servers and has officially announced that there will be no new content made in the future.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 20:25 |
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XboxPants posted:Maybe it's enough to keep it running at reduced capacity, or to try to keep it running a little longer and keep shopping it around to a publisher. Or maybe he's hoping he can get the 2 or 3 or 4 or whatever million and hire everyone back. I can't hold it against him for holding onto that hope. I don't know, man, when holding onto that hope potentially wastes over a million dollars worth of people's good will, I'm less inclined to give him a shot.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 20:29 |
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bubbabrigs posted:At least he is not pulling shady practices like Curt Shilling did with his crew on Kingdoms of Amalur. His people are getting severence and openness and honesty. I have to respect him for that. There is nothing open and honest about what Taylor is doing. He lied about the goal for the project, he would have lied about the layoffs if Kotaku hadn't broken the story, and he's told 3 different news outlets 3 different stories about the state of the company. Fergus Mac Roich posted:It's kind of funny looking back at what Obsidian were saying about their kickstarter. They set the goal to around 1 million and weren't even totally sure they'd make that. Everyone told them, "Oh, of course you'll make it, you're Obsidian, come on now." But now we see what happens when you try to assume something like that and make a mistake. Obsidian were lucky that they really were(and are) that beloved and had a project with that much potential. Maybe, just maybe, there actually exists a large market for PC-centric isometric RPGs. The most disappointing thing about GPG's kickstarter is that it's just another MOBA styled game.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 22:56 |
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The Sonic Fan Remix guy apparently wants to do the same thing with Daytona USA in The 90's Arcade Racer.
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 23:38 |
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The genre doesn't really speak to me, but those screens are gorgeous, goddamn!
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# ? Jan 19, 2013 23:56 |
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I'm copy-pasting a post I made in TVIV about the VGHS season 2 kickstarter. Please back if you can, if not because VGHS season one was interesting television (if not fully realized television), then because the people behind this project are goons who do pretty awesome work.Occupation posted:Hey so just getting the word out. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Jan 20, 2013 |
# ? Jan 19, 2013 23:59 |
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I have been after a game like this for ages, arcade racers are my favourite thing. If this had multiplayer in it's base goal I would be donating - without that it is a lot less attractive. The graphics are really, really polished and authentic to the genre.
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# ? Jan 20, 2013 00:03 |
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Occupation posted:VGHS season 2 kickstarter Thanks for the heads up. I never backed season 1 but I'm sure going to pitch some money their way this time
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# ? Jan 20, 2013 00:15 |
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VGHS was a total surprise to me since I'd never heard of it until it turned up on Netflix. Remarkably well done considering how easily the subject matter might have made it totally unbearable. Instead it was self-aware and cute-funny, with the impressive special effects and good chemistry between the actors really making it worthwhile. That said, it seems to me it's going to cruise right through its goal for Season 2 and given that it will end up being free, none of the reward tiers really motivate me to donate. Not that I have any better ideas or anything, but nothing there really strikes me as worth overpaying for. Maybe I'm overconfident - I'll definitely chip in some money if it's necessary in the home stretch.
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# ? Jan 20, 2013 00:35 |
Wow, pretty crazy that Sega guy's doing something else. A (talented) fan obsessed. Also, OUYA. Do a shot or whatever.NeonCowboy posted:
Hey, I thought this was pretty good! Anyone else give it a try? Not much of a "toy" game, you could compare it to To The Moon. I could definitely see how it is hard to shop, I kind of want to not say anything about it...
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# ? Jan 20, 2013 14:33 |
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Al Baron posted:The Sonic Fan Remix guy apparently wants to do the same thing with Daytona USA in The 90's Arcade Racer.
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# ? Jan 20, 2013 21:47 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 12:06 |
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Isn't he the furry paedophile dude, or was that another Sonic fangame creator?
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# ? Jan 20, 2013 22:23 |