Kickstarter Gaming - for $10.000,00 you get a "don't steal my money" emoji

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Kickstarter Gaming - for $10.000,00 you get a "don't steal my money" emoji

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Darkhold: Feb 19, 2011; No Heart❤️
No Soul👻
No Service🙅

Drifter posted:

What do you mean 'how to put it towards your funding totals'?

The point is what if your B variable turned out to be 2-3 times larger than you were expecting your Tshirt and Poster tier was insanely popular where your digital tier was underfunded. Suddenly you end up with very little to make the actual game but your kickstarter is funded.

I'm also willing to bet the vast majority of people don't take that into account. Rarely does a kickstarter actually put a limit in their physical goods tiers.

Darkhold fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Nov 3, 2013

# ? Nov 3, 2013 20:47

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# ? May 13, 2024 15:55

Pythagoras a trois: Feb 19, 2004; I have a lot of points to make and I will make them later.

Darkhold posted:

The point is what if your B variable turned out to be 2-3 times larger than you were expecting your Tshirt and Poster tier was insanely popular where your digital tier was underfunded. Suddenly you end up with very little to make the actual game but your kickstarter is funded.

I'm also willing to bet the vast majority of people don't take that into account. Rarely does a kickstarter actually put a limit in their physical goods tiers.

Yeah, I think as you get less of a percentage of money that goes towards backing in the higher tiers, the trick is to assume that every t-shirt and commemorative plate gets sold. That's why there are limited slots.

Say you need a hundred bucks to make a game, but tshirts cost 5 bucks each. You limit your t-shirt tier to 10 available slots.

Then you sell all your t-shirts ($50 towards dev, and the t-shirts pay for themselves), and then you put your backing total at $150. When you go over $150, add more merch slots because your game is already funded and do the same math for stretch goals.

# ? Nov 3, 2013 21:08

pumpinglemma: Apr 28, 2009; DD: Fondly regard abomination.

Yeah, working out how to estimate physical reward costs is a tricky problem, and I'm not sure there's a good answer beyond just being very conservative. If the problem was just an imbalance in the number of people taking the physical reward tiers, I'd be a lot more sympathetic. What the Coles did was assume that all the physical rewards were free to make and free to ship, and that they wouldn't have to pay any taxes on what are essentially pre-orders, on top of understating the amount they needed. That's just stupid.

For me, things have got to the point where unless a Kickstarter is either low-budget or massively overfunded, I refuse to back it unless the people running it give some sort of indication that they're not dribbling morons. That means a rough breakdown of costs plus some sort of plan for if (when) things go overbudget anyway.

# ? Nov 3, 2013 21:16

Trapezium Dave: Oct 22, 2012

Bieeardo posted:

Man, I completely forgot about Hero U. I think I was interested at first, but got cold feet when I began to suspect that the Coles, nice folks that I'm sure they are, really didn't have much idea of what they were doing this time around.

I backed it although I felt the same way from their pitch, but I was a huge fan of Quest for Glory and didn't mind donating a few bucks to see what the Coles would do even if the end result turned out to be a mess. The last few updates seem way behind schedule though and I'm feeling a sense of doom about the whole thing. At this rate I doubt Hero-U is being released before 2015, and if the Coles have staked their house on it with the possibility of losing everything I'm feeling a little bad for encouraging them with my pledge.

# ? Nov 3, 2013 21:34

Arnold of Soissons: Mar 4, 2011; by XyloJW

The Heroes U guys are also plugging some terrible looking reggae game by some guy who apparently never heard reggae music before he played Tales of Monkey Island, and is now bringing the world reggae's story. They claim his numbers are very realistic, whih is unsurprising, seeing as they are the ones actually making the game for this idea guy.

What a pile of junk.

# ? Nov 3, 2013 22:20

TychoCelchuuu: Jan 2, 2012; This space for Rent.

Arnold of Soissons posted:

The Heroes U guys are also plugging some terrible looking reggae game by some guy who apparently never heard reggae music before he played Tales of Monkey Island, and is now bringing the world reggae's story. They claim his numbers are very realistic, whih is unsurprising, seeing as they are the ones actually making the game for this idea guy.

What a pile of junk.

To be fair, Bolt Riley had $320k from angel investors and if it hits its target it gets double the cash thanks to OUYA's intiative, plus it's less ambitious than Hero U as far as I can tell, so it's not impossible that it has a more realistic budget.

# ? Nov 3, 2013 23:16

Arnold of Soissons: Mar 4, 2011; by XyloJW

TychoCelchuuu posted:

To be fair, Bolt Riley had $320k from angel investors and if it hits its target it gets double the cash thanks to OUYA's intiative, plus it's less ambitious than Hero U as far as I can tell, so it's not impossible that it has a more realistic budget.

It's budget may be more likely to produce a game, but the game will be terrible if it ever exists, and existence isn't really guaranteed what with the power team actually making the game being in dire financial straits. Also the $10,000 backer pledge requires them to fly two people from the US to Israel, which is incredibly asinine.

# ? Nov 3, 2013 23:26

The Moon Monster: Dec 30, 2005

PiCroft posted:

Just pledged $20 on Rimworld. It looks like a cross between Starbound (The only other kickstarter I've backed) and Dwarf Fortress. What's not to like?

Starbound had a kickstarter? I figured getting 1.5 mil in pre-orders would have been enough.

# ? Nov 3, 2013 23:29

TychoCelchuuu: Jan 2, 2012; This space for Rent.

Arnold of Soissons posted:

It's budget may be more likely to produce a game, but the game will be terrible if it ever exists, and existence isn't really guaranteed what with the power team actually making the game being in dire financial straits. Also the $10,000 backer pledge requires them to fly two people from the US to Israel, which is incredibly asinine.

I'm not going to argue that a bunch of white people making a reggae adventure game is going to be anything other than a train wreck (although I think the art they have so far looks pretty nice) and I agree that having the two main designers be people who are currently loving up their own Kickstarter does not inspire confidence either, but $10,000 definitely buys more than two plane tickets to Israel and it's not really clear how much the "power team actually making the game" is going to be doing, since the dude behind the pitch has made a couple of games himself.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 00:20

King Burgundy: Sep 17, 2003; I am the Burgundy King,
I can do anything!

TychoCelchuuu posted:

I'm not going to argue that a bunch of white people making a reggae adventure game is going to be anything other than a train wreck (although I think the art they have so far looks pretty nice) and I agree that having the two main designers be people who are currently loving up their own Kickstarter does not inspire confidence either, but $10,000 definitely buys more than two plane tickets to Israel and it's not really clear how much the "power team actually making the game" is going to be doing, since the dude behind the pitch has made a couple of games himself.

I'm not backing this, and I'm not arguing that anyone should, but I want to point out that the Coles designed part II of this trilogy. Part I is what is being kickstarted.

I don't know that that makes it any better, but fyi.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 01:20

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Stonehearth just released an update. They've got five people on staff now, will have a sixth on Monday to do audio, and are on track for a December release of the playable alpha.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 01:47

Tagichatn: Jun 7, 2009

The Moon Monster posted:

Starbound had a kickstarter? I figured getting 1.5 mil in pre-orders would have been enough.

It doesn't but their preorder system works exactly like kickstarter except they don't have to pay a cut to Kickstarter/Amazon.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 02:51

Trapezium Dave: Oct 22, 2012

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Stonehearth just released an update. They've got five people on staff now, will have a sixth on Monday to do audio, and are on track for a December release of the playable alpha.

With the way nearly all the games I've backed tend to go, it's a pleasant surprise when a playable version with "Estimated delivery: Dec 2013" actually turns out to be December 2013.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 02:54

The Moon Monster: Dec 30, 2005

Tagichatn posted:

It doesn't but their preorder system works exactly like kickstarter except they don't have to pay a cut to Kickstarter/Amazon.

Well, the game was going to get made no matter how much money they got, and there was no threshold for the money going through.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 02:56

Arnold of Soissons: Mar 4, 2011; by XyloJW

TychoCelchuuu posted:

I'm not going to argue that a bunch of white people making a reggae adventure game is going to be anything other than a train wreck (although I think the art they have so far looks pretty nice) and I agree that having the two main designers be people who are currently loving up their own Kickstarter does not inspire confidence either, but $10,000 definitely buys more than two plane tickets to Israel and it's not really clear how much the "power team actually making the game" is going to be doing, since the dude behind the pitch has made a couple of games himself.

Oh has he? I guess I missed that.

Sorry, I don't know why this is getting to me but that pitch video really rubbed me the wrong way.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 08:15

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

No Gravitas posted:

I think what you are seeing is maybe a day-night cycle and the "spotlight" is the light radius at night?
I really don't see it early in the video. Just as well, I'd hate a permanent spotlight.

The video is public on youtube, so I don't think I'd be runining everything by posting it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu9w5P_7apA

EDIT: The update is public anyway.

DANG this game looks good. The guy shooting his pistols out of his cloak reminds me of a cowboy, in a very good way.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 08:36

Tensokuu: May 21, 2010; Somehow, the boy just isn't very buoyant.

I think I have a problem. I tend to back most projects that are Metroidvanias that I think look promising (a lot of them). If there's a $10 tier that gets me the game, I'm pretty much in. I saw a buddy had backed this yesterday and I couldn't resist.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1183462809/paradise-lost-first-contact

Game's premise seems to be reverse Metroid: you play as the alien that was captured by scientists, escaping from your pod and learning/evolving as the game goes on.

I really hope that this game does well. I have yet to back a failed project (knock on wood) so I hope the trend continues.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 15:43

monster on a stick: Apr 29, 2013

Remember Parallax, the space 4X game loosely associated with Timothy Zahn? They're still not doing too well (though there was a mysterious $6500 bump with no new backers today), so the creator is trying something a bit different:

quote:

I mentioned this in my previous update, but didn't go into too much detail. So, a description, and then some questions that I've gotten...

The referral program is pretty straightforward: if you refer someone and they pledge to the Kickstarter, you'll get 10% of their pledge amount toward an "upgrade" for yourself, to a higher pledge tier. You won't get any of the physical rewards that come with it, but you will get everything else for your upgraded tier.

When the Kickstarter ends and we send out our initial survey, we'll be asking every backer who recommended the project to them. So make sure that anyone you refer knows to tell us it was you when the time comes - maybe even have them send you an email that say "thanks for the referral, I just pledged" so you can send it back to them as a reminder...

Why?

As I keep mentioning, our biggest weakness for this Kickstarter seems to be visibility, and what better way to get all of you to reach out to other potential backers than with a little enligtened self-interest? You're already backers, so you obviously believe in the project and the game, and we want you to share that excitement with other people so we can make it a reality.

...

Do I get credit for people that my referrals refer?

You mean like Multi-Level Marketing? Ummm... See, there's this stigma... Ok, fine, why not - after all, you got them involved in the first place (or, at least, convinced them to put down your name as the referrer). We'll calculate your upgrade based on their pledge + upgrade.

So if all backers could list me as their referrals so I can make :smug:

the "public face of the human leader's faction", that'd be awesome.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 15:52

madjackmcmad: May 27, 2008; Look, I'm startin' to believe some of the stuff the cult guy's been saying, it's starting to make a lot of sense.

Drifter posted:

What do you mean 'how to put it towards your funding totals'?

You figure out what you need to make the game, figure out how much the merchandise costs, then price upper tiers accordingly. YOu just make sure that with every tier you're not losing out on some large percentage of profit.

What he's was saying is that if I have 100 backers at the 60 dollar level, and 600 backers at the 10 dollar level, those 600 backers are more cash-in-pocket for development because they're just emails and a copy of the game. The 60 dollar tier has physical rewards tied to it, so you might only get to put 40 of those dollars toward development.

Drifter posted:

A = game dev costs
B = associated merchandise costs
C = associated fees/taxes
A1 + (A2 + B) + C = Kickstarter goal

Yeah, so, there's a few things wrong here but primarily some extra "x3"s thrown in there for good measure would help.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 17:38

SaltyJesus: Jun 2, 2011; Arf!

Broforce has a new trailer. This poo poo is seriously the best, do yourself a favor, call some buddies and play the demo. It's not a Kickstarter strictly speaking but it's a "preorder and help us make the game" thing.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 17:47

Great Rumbler: Jan 30, 2013; For I am a dog, you see.

Battle Worlds: Kronos is out today:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/237470/

I don't know much about how it turned out, but I do know that it's got hexes, so it surely can't be too bad.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 18:36

Christian Knudsen: Oct 13, 2012

Stasis is a gorgeous and extremely atmospheric 2D isometric horror adventure game by one dude (with a demo available!). I've been looking forward to this game for quite a while now.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 18:54

SaltyJesus: Jun 2, 2011; Arf!

Christian Knudsen posted:

Stasis is a gorgeous and extremely atmospheric 2D isometric horror adventure game by one dude (with a demo available!). I've been looking forward to this game for quite a while now.

drat, you were pretty fast dude, I was going to link it too. Stasis is awesome.

SaltyJesus fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Nov 4, 2013

# ? Nov 4, 2013 19:11

miguelito: Oct 5, 2012; I'm WILD about
WILDMAN
_{(ask me about sexy shaving)}

So for the souls who backed it, they actually released a teaser for the new Broken Sword on Gamescom. It's quite a while ago, but well, I just stumbled across it, and eeehhhhhhh.

Get in here if you wanted generic epic string music over decidedly unepic camera shots and wood puppet animation that looks like straight out of HOTD: Overkill cutscenes, but unironic.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 20:24

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Yeah, it looked like that right from the very first screenshots. Sigh.

At least Dreamfall Chapters looks good.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 21:03

Great Rumbler: Jan 30, 2013; For I am a dog, you see.

miguelito posted:

So for the souls who backed it, they actually released a teaser for the new Broken Sword on Gamescom. It's quite a while ago, but well, I just stumbled across it, and eeehhhhhhh.

For most adventure games, I'm not gonna be too hard on them for having lame cutscenes. As long as its got decent in-game dialogue, at least passable voice acting, nice-looking backgrounds, and puzzles that don't make me want to kill myself, then I can live with it.

They should have just made comic-book style cutscenes, though.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 21:05

Comrade Flynn: Jun 1, 2003

Just got my RimWorld playable alpha. Looks neat so far.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 21:17

Kenshin: Jan 10, 2007

Comrade Flynn posted:

Just got my RimWorld playable alpha. Looks neat so far.

Gah, hitting refresh on my email like crazy.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 21:24

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

A note from Cinemaware: the reboot of the Wings KS is starting at the end of this week.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 21:26

CrookedB: Jun 27, 2011; Stupid newbee

Christian Knudsen posted:

Stasis is a gorgeous and extremely atmospheric 2D isometric horror adventure game by one dude (with a demo available!). I've been looking forward to this game for quite a while now.

STASIS is shaping up to be really great. Everyone should at least try out the free alpha demo: https://www.stasisgame.com/getstasis/

# ? Nov 4, 2013 21:30

diadem: Sep 20, 2003; eet bugz

I haven't optimized the glaring big O issues yet for the alpha, but real world tests are showing that even with these issues the game is a lot less server intensive than expected.

I'm still moving everything a micro instance VM to a new 12 core 64gb ram server. CPU usage is peaking at 3% of a single core. Ram usage seems to be 100 megs per user after a min of 3.5gb base, but that'll decrease drastically once I spend a couple days tweaking a few things.

Next step after that is to configure a login splash page for our backers en masse. Next step after that is to move back to a farm/cloud, because it always makes me nervous when I'm testing on less than three load balanced servers at once. Then I'll move from AppFabric to Redis.

Reactions to the pre-alpha have been flattering so far

.

The kickstarter is at 92%

diadem fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Nov 4, 2013

# ? Nov 4, 2013 21:30

macnbc: Dec 13, 2006; brb, time travelin'

Megazver posted:

At least Dreamfall Chapters looks good.

What little we see of it.

I've backed probably a half dozen or so Kickstarted games, and Dreamfall Chapters has to be the worst of the bunch in terms of keeping backers informed. I just checked and there has only been 1 significant backer update in the past 6 months. (In September. Before that was April.) They seem far more preoccupied with this Journeycon thing, which not everyone can afford to go to a convention just to find out what's going on.

Pretty much everything else I've backed (including troubled projects like Banner Saga) gets backers more frequent updates than them. I don't necessarily need daily/weekly ones like Star Citizen but at least once every other month would be nice.

And now they're working on an additional game entirely. It's frustrating.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 23:13

Arnold of Soissons: Mar 4, 2011; by XyloJW

Great Rumbler posted:

Battle Worlds: Kronos is out today:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/237470/

I don't know much about how it turned out, but I do know that it's got hexes, so it surely can't be too bad.

An instal limit on a Steam game seems a bit much to me, personally.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 23:18

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

macnbc posted:

What little we see of it.

I've backed probably a half dozen or so Kickstarted games, and Dreamfall Chapters has to be the worst of the bunch in terms of keeping backers informed. I just checked and there has only been 1 significant backer update in the past 6 months. (In September. Before that was April.) They seem far more preoccupied with this Journeycon thing, which not everyone can afford to go to a convention just to find out what's going on.

Pretty much everything else I've backed (including troubled projects like Banner Saga) gets backers more frequent updates than them. I don't necessarily need daily/weekly ones like Star Citizen but at least once every other month would be nice.

And now they're working on an additional game entirely. It's frustrating.

Well, the video demo was alright:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsAmaDfyO6k

# ? Nov 4, 2013 23:31

Krabkolash: Dec 7, 2006; With this hand I rolled 8d20

AND GOT 160.

Arnold of Soissons posted:

An instal limit on a Steam game seems a bit much to me, personally.

Wait, its possible to do that on Steam? I had no clue. I don't see any notes about it on the store, is it somewhere obvious that I'm missing?

# ? Nov 4, 2013 23:57

Mo_Steel: Mar 7, 2008; Let's Clock Into The Sunset Together; Fun Shoe

Krabkolash posted:

Wait, its possible to do that on Steam? I had no clue. I don't see any notes about it on the store, is it somewhere obvious that I'm missing?

It's listed in the right sidebar of the game's Store page, about 1 screen down:

Enhanced Steam on Google Chrome is flagging the game as having 3rd Party DRM as well, though it might just be inaccurate because the game is new.

# ? Nov 4, 2013 23:59

RightClickSaveAs: Mar 1, 2001; Tiny animals under glass... Smaller than sand...

CrookedB posted:

STASIS is shaping up to be really great. Everyone should at least try out the free alpha demo: https://www.stasisgame.com/getstasis/

Oh awesome! I've been following this game for what feels like forever, and for a while there hasn't been a lot to follow, but now all of the sudden there's a Kickstarter and an alpha demo. You guys are on top of this stuff.

Stasis looks really promising. It's just one guy but he's already been working on it for a long time and seems to know what he's doing.

macnbc posted:

What little we see of it.

I've backed probably a half dozen or so Kickstarted games, and Dreamfall Chapters has to be the worst of the bunch in terms of keeping backers informed. I just checked and there has only been 1 significant backer update in the past 6 months. (In September. Before that was April.) They seem far more preoccupied with this Journeycon thing, which not everyone can afford to go to a convention just to find out what's going on.

Pretty much everything else I've backed (including troubled projects like Banner Saga) gets backers more frequent updates than them. I don't necessarily need daily/weekly ones like Star Citizen but at least once every other month would be nice.

And now they're working on an additional game entirely. It's frustrating.

I keep telling myself it's because they're so busy working on it, but yeah, not much has happened in the way of updates. I didn't realize how long it'd been. I was also thinking maybe it's because they're a bigger studio that's made games before, so they're keeping the early production stuff under wraps until they have something to show backers, but I don't know how true that actually is. Double Fine is a decent sized company and they have updates at least once a month, usually more often, even at the pre-production phase.

# ? Nov 5, 2013 00:59

QVC Drinking Game: Jun 23, 2005

Mo_Steel posted:

It's listed in the right sidebar of the game's Store page, about 1 screen down:

Enhanced Steam on Google Chrome is flagging the game as having 3rd Party DRM as well, though it might just be inaccurate because the game is new.

You can get BWK from GoG in any case.

# ? Nov 5, 2013 01:11

Fergus Mac Roich: Nov 5, 2008; Soiled Meat

Mo_Steel posted:

It's listed in the right sidebar of the game's Store page, about 1 screen down:

Enhanced Steam on Google Chrome is flagging the game as having 3rd Party DRM as well, though it might just be inaccurate because the game is new.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/237470/discussions/0/684839199680872412/#p1

quote:

Hi. I'm one of the developers. I'm not sure if I can follow. 3rd party DRM would be something like copy protections, activation limits and so on, right? There is none of that in the game. If you buy the game on Steam, the Steam DRM is in place (obviously). But when you buy it on our side or at GoG, there is none.

Sounds like the whole thing is just a mistake.

# ? Nov 5, 2013 01:11

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# ? May 13, 2024 15:55

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

macnbc posted:

What little we see of it.

I've backed probably a half dozen or so Kickstarted games, and Dreamfall Chapters has to be the worst of the bunch in terms of keeping backers informed. I just checked and there has only been 1 significant backer update in the past 6 months. (In September. Before that was April.) They seem far more preoccupied with this Journeycon thing, which not everyone can afford to go to a convention just to find out what's going on.

Pretty much everything else I've backed (including troubled projects like Banner Saga) gets backers more frequent updates than them. I don't necessarily need daily/weekly ones like Star Citizen but at least once every other month would be nice.

And now they're working on an additional game entirely. It's frustrating.

They are? Which game?

Nvm, just found it on their website. Strange.

theblackw0lf fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Nov 5, 2013

# ? Nov 5, 2013 01:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Kickstarter Gaming - for $10.000,00 you get a "don't steal my money" emoji

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