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Saoshyant posted:Well, this was certainly unexpected: The American Southern University website is a placeholder right now, and they barely register on Charity Navigator (assets/income of $0.) I wouldn't give them a dime.
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Jul 1, 2013 00:42
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Harlock posted:It sounds like a two-fold issue going on. The average backer/consumer isn't educated on gaming budgets/the development process (and become somewhat unjustly irate at the delay in what they perceive to be a pre-order system) and these Kickstarter project creators whom are underestimating the time to finish their own projects as well as overextending themselves when overfunded. Although the fact that they're underestimating the project comes hand in hand with being overfunded and the scope of the vision is greater. There is a lot of denial in the game industry about why budgets (both money and time) tend to go over. Developers blame the creative process, that other software goes over cost, that all the other guys do it. But at some point, if you've seen this happen a bunch of times (Double Fine has, and the Banner Saga guys who worked on TOR certainly have) you need to deal with it and prevent it. This isn't happening. Both the DT and BS guys should have realized a long, long time ago (like a month or two after the kickstarter finished, if not before) that there would be no way to ship everything they wanted to, on budget and on time. I respect the hell out of Tim Schafer but if he just took out his calculator and figured out the problems with Broken Age, then he shouldn't be running a game company. quote:I'm really curious how the development cycle would have gone if these games finished without being overfunded. Would the original vision/design proposal be on time and to budget? Or would there be more horror stories about successful Kickstarters failing to complete projects either due to funding or stuck in development hell. There's no way the game would have shipped. $400K would have paid the salaries for a programmer, an artist, and part of a production guy *maybe* for a year. tanker posted:Would a conservative estimate just seem like too raw a deal to publishers (or backers)? Or is the game industry in general so used to working people so hard that they expect miracles, and if not, tough? This is a big part of it and why I left the industry. I was tired of working 60-80 hour weeks because someone made impossible promises that the game could ship by Christmas. monster on a stick fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jul 5, 2013 |
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Jul 5, 2013 05:31
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Trapezium Dave posted:My feeling was this was a big part of the problem too. Game development was/is for the young, there was barely anyone who stayed for more than ten years, so there weren't enough veterans to develop strategies for sensible development. Plus since everyone was always working flat-out they didn't have the time to reflect on how to be effective. I think the average was seven years before you got out while I was there; I left at six  . I love working in teams with "old guys" since they plan for reasonable work weeks so they can see their families and do poo poo other than write video games. (Helpful hint for those looking for programming jobs! If you see lots of people above 30 and with pictures of their wives/husbands/kids on their desks, you will have a much better chance of a work-life balance.) Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:You're acting like Double Fine didn't account for potential setbacks. When it's really clear they did and are adapting to them pretty well, actually. Because they've yet to ask for more money, and apparently they won't have to, and they still feel like they're going to ultimately be able to make the game they feel like will meet and exceed everyone's expectations. Just a bit later than previously announced. That last bit is the most common thing in all of game development, it's just almost always invisible to the consumer. Because the companies do adapt, account for, and deal with those issues behind closed doors where no one in the public can notice. They didn't account for setbacks. They received *eight times* what they asked for and still ran out of money. They clearly don't want to abandon the increased "vision" of the game, as they've taken to Humble sales and (maybe) Steam Early Access to finish the game. Assuming they are right about the budget this time. Serious question: did nobody on the team think/say "hey Tim this ain't gonna ship in July"? Because when I worked on games that shipped late, we *always* knew, many months ahead of time - and that went for programmers, artists, and QA. Perhaps the people running the project didn't know, but if so that was only because they didn't want to know.
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Jul 5, 2013 08:29
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GhostBoy posted:Slipping deadlines and blowing the budget isn't unique to games development, however in the DoubleFine case, they said they'd need to cut up to 75% of the content to keep the original plan, which was the plan that included all their stretch goals. That's not business-as-usual, estimates are hard situations, that is someone blowing the scope to kingdom come and forgetting how they are going to pay for it. Also Tim is full of it when he says they'd need to cut 75% of content. Sorry but that's just to justify why the game is late and they'll have to do the crazy Steam thing. I don't think he's intentionally lying, rather he's someone who is so in love with his vision that everything would be terrible if he couldn't execute on the whole thing. I feel a little sympathy but not much because every game I know of has the exact same problem of too many ideas and not enough budget.
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Jul 5, 2013 23:43
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The website for Code Hero has gone down. The guy behind CH says it's a "mixup" with the hosting company (presumably they didn't take his word that the "check was in the mail.") "Kickstarter: It's like having 5,000 publishers asking when you are going to ship"
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Jul 6, 2013 02:55
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Yodzilla posted:Looks like there's some poo poo brewin' for board game fans: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/forkingpath/the-doom-that-came-to-atlantic-city/posts/548030 Many of the comments boil down to "I was pre-ordering a game, I want my money back." Of course it's not a pre-order, and the money is used to develop the game. Which makes me wonder why people expect a refund at all. Why do they think people create Kickstarters and ask for funds? Do they expect the money to be put into escrow and not used to create the product? I would think that realizing Kickstarter money is used to create the product is just common sense. I helped fund Project Eternity, and I'm pretty sure that my cash is being used to create the game. Whether circumstances are different in this case is another matter. VVVV -- then why would I ever use Kickstarter if I either have to deliver the product or refund the money? That implies that I can't spend the money, so what purpose does it serve? monster on a stick fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 20:13
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Sigma-X posted:If they had the money in hand already to quit their jobs and work on the thing for 80 hours a week, why the gently caress would they ask kickstarter for money? I think the only advantage is if you treat the money as a guaranteed pre-order (once the checks clear) and to gauge interest in the game you are making.
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Jul 30, 2013 03:24
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PotatoManJack posted:For example, I work in the Not For Profit field. I'd make more working for a corporate, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice for better work life balance and feeling good about what I do. Similarly, for someone who is going to do something that they enjoy, people start to see that as part of their overall compensation, and so when someone says 'I want to do something I enjoy, and make the same money I'd make in a normal job' that's when potential backers start thinking that the proposal is unreasonable. People also see the potential payout at the end of it, and take that into consideration which leads to the next point... One big reason I quit the game industry is that employers would say "hey you are working in games, which is fun so we can pay you less." Even though most game developers work many more hours than normal, the position requires the same level of technical ability that is required in the tech industry, and frankly working in games is more hard work than fun. When Kickstarter backers say the same thing or at least something similar ("5K for 4 months means 15K/year which is plenty since this is a game"), it's just depressing.
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Jul 30, 2013 08:11
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Wezlar posted:I like to see a basic breakdown of what the money is going to just to get an idea of how well they've budgeted their project. Honestly I'd rather see part f the budget for living expenses. If Double Fine provided a budget for "Broken Age" during their Kickstarter, would the backers now ask for a detailed accounting of how the money was spent and what the planned budget was to release the game now? At some point the only difference between using a publisher and Kickstarter is that the publisher tries to figure out if they will make money off the game, and KS has a ton of backers posting on reddit.
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Jul 30, 2013 20:38
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Al Baron posted:So I hope you weren't looking forward to Super Retro Squad being done anytime soon. quote:Why You Should Help Us Maybe I missed something. I am not saying that game developers should be homeless, but I do not get the logic of why moving across the country and buying a house says anything about the dedication of game developers.
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Aug 1, 2013 06:35
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Drifter posted:Living expenses, you know. It's perfectly acceptable. I like this comment for the original Kickstarter project: quote:Well I watched the video update. I have to say I don't feel like us kickstarters have been treated like stakeholders in the project. I would have liked to have had some input on the decisions you all have made with the project. This person knows more about software development than Exploding Rabbit.
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Aug 1, 2013 06:52
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:I mistook the situation at first, but after realizing what's going on and reading that post, yeah, these guys are definitely way out of their league. They're basically now trying to develop a drastically different game from what they at first promised and are asking for even more money to do it. You may as well consider the old game canceled and a new one being proposed in its wake. That's kind of a bullshit thing to do. It's worse than that. If you click on the link that says "we bought a house so we are serious game developers", you can see their blog which has some things (in the SA meaning of the word.) First let's look at http://www.explodingrabbit.com/news/the-exploding-rabbit-team-version-2-0: 1) This is one weird announcement. It's supposed to be about their final team but if you read not-so-carefully you'll see that they decided to move into a house together what could possibly go wrong) 2) Team member descriptions include "I’m not sure what Catie will do on the game" and "Mike is a programmer, and I don’t really know that much else about him yet." 3) Team members working on music include Jay ("writing music"), Jesse ("he'll also be working on music"), Jean-Marc ("he'll be doing programming and music"), and Fabien ("awesome graphics and music"). Games I've worked on have had one music guy. I cannot see what can go right with four self-proclaimed musicians in the room. Welp, maybe the team gets back on track by what's this a Metroid Fusion LP from the guy who runs the company because why not. Four episodes of that, one of "hey we are doing work see", and then back to LPs!
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Aug 1, 2013 07:34
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:A lot of that is really terrible and reflects poorly on them and betrays their lack of experience. I really do not anticipate anything worthwhile coming from them. However, I don't really see what's wrong with making an LP while also making a game. It's not like those take huge amounts of time or effort or anything. I'm not sure I'd agree that making an LP doesn't take a large amount of time/effort (how long does it take to play the game vs. how long does the game's corresponding LP take here?) Also, there is a matter of perception - it's one thing when Chris Avellone is doing his Arcanum LP (which was a stretch goal of PE), but it's another when your Kickstarter update says "yeah I've been superbusy with this game and the other game" and then you post LPs.
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Aug 1, 2013 16:08
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MikeJF posted:Hmm, what's the best way to murder a kickstarter? I know, let's make it OUYA exclusive for the first six months and release for other Android (and eventually other platforms) after that! What a pretentious pitch. Also $50K seems low for what they want to do by next spring.
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Aug 11, 2013 17:00
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Fergus Mac Roich posted:Why sit on an emergency injection? Are people more likely to donate if it looks like a kickstarter won't make it? Why would you even inject money into your own KS? Seems like you are fooling yourself over the amount of interest in your game and you should try something else.
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Aug 11, 2013 17:11
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Rinkles posted:Actually, it was $28 short of a 50k goal. The $500K Kickstarter happened first. So they reduced the amount of money they said they needed and got even less (which makes sense because not many people get "yeah we can make that game for 1/10th of what we said it would cost.")
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Aug 15, 2013 17:21
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Shalinor posted:I can sympathize, but... seriously. Come on. The reason everyone says the last 10% is the hardest is because you DO start to run down - but you just push through. You don't tell all your pre-orders "well gosh, I'm just not passionate about this anymore, I think I'll move on - you guys don't mind getting an open-source library instead of a game, right?". I'm skeptical of that 10% number anyway. I've heard "I'm 90% done!" too many times and it turns out that they are maybe half done, thinking that performance/testing/fixing bugs/polish/etc. will only take up a small amount of time.
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Aug 23, 2013 18:12
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First there was Assassin's Creed. Then there was Assassin's Creed 2. Then all those other Assassin's Creed games. Now comes... Redneck Assassin quote:RedNeck Assassain is a classic assassin's tale. You play as Hirsch Deer, who is shot down & left for dead by a gang of RedNeck Hunters. Barely alive, you are found in the woods by the legendary Sasquatch. After recovering from years in a coma Hirsch goes through an intense training session & Sasquatch teaches Hirsch in the way of stealth assassination. Any stretch goals? quote:(Other Levels) ---Stretch Stretch Goal--- So who is behind this? quote:I was born, I aged, but I never grew up. Found a woman I love, had a kid, live in the suburbs of Seattle, started an Indie Game Company, living the American Dream. Making ideas from my head into a reality takes alot effort, but I have an inexhaustible passion for it. My path in life. GAME DEVELOPER!!!!
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Sep 2, 2013 06:40
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Fedule posted:I feel I ought to reiterate how much of a crime it is that Video Games Live isn't funded yet. I do like this: quote:The album track list will consist of NEVER BEFORE RELEASED Video Games Live music arrangements from potential game franchises
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Sep 4, 2013 00:43
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Peas and Rice posted:Well, Super Retro Squad officially imploded today. Backer-only update. Kotaku (yes I know) had an article recently about Kickstarters involving other people's IP, e.g. the Metroid fan film. Choice quote: quote:Nintendo has been permissive with enthusiast works that involve their copyrights and characters. Its CEO has himself said the company would not "criminalize" things borne of obvious admiration for the games they represent. But I'm sure they draw the line at money changing hands. It's why Exploding Rabbit's outstanding Super Mario Bros. Crossover, a bona fide labor of love (no money was raised to create it) exists. It's also why Exploding Rabbit, the studio behind that flash game, must develop an entirely original idea for a video game if they want to make money off the work they've done so far. So was SRS a glorified scam to raise money for developing SMBC?
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Sep 5, 2013 06:53
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Bruceski posted:No, that was Elementary My Dear Holmes that made the score of fake accounts, and has now been canned. Gridiron Thunder had a deal with OUYA that OUYA backed out of when they decided to go the "funding indies through kickstarter" route. So they're putting in the money they had from other funders to get the money out of OUYA again. Shady, possibly wrong, but not nearly as bad as Holmes. I may be incorrect, but I thought the Gridiron guys were paying another dev studio to do the work? That's against Kickstarter guidelines: quote:Kickstarter cannot be used to fund software projects not run by the developers themselves.
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Sep 9, 2013 02:02
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Kerzoro posted:... say, what's Desura? the e-mail makes it sound like a Steam-like platform? Judging from the quality of the VGL I attended last year (read: crappy crap) they shouldn't get a dime. The music was provided by a cheap local orchestra that was one step removed from a high school band.
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Sep 10, 2013 00:45
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The latest space 4x game, with an interesting tie-in:quote:Parallax will be a turn-based strategy game in keeping with the classic 4X genre (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate). The player, as the leader of a fledgling interstellar civilization, will direct just about every aspect of their civilization’s development, including galactic exploration, expansion of the empire, exploitation of resources and technologies, and extermination of any competitors that refuse to join their empire. Zahn of course is the writer of what is widely considered to be the best of the Star Wars novels, the "Heir to the Empire" trilogy (aka Admiral Thrawn.) First thoughts from reading this: * Hey this could be a decent MOO successor * Wait, on a cell phone? * Where's the concept art? * Holy crap he wants 500K? The game developer claims he wants to crowdsource everything - including who gets to do the art, which is why there isn't any concept art. In fact the whole pitch boils down to "I dunno what this game will be, you decide!" Crowdsourcing the design of a $500K game where everyone who backs at the $10 level has some say seems insane. Asking for that much when there isn't a team outside of the pitcher/developer who appears to have one mobile game to his credit is even crazier. It's not even clear what Zahn is bringing to the table, outside of licensing for some of his alien races and some consulting work. I can't see this getting funded. EDIT: also if you want to help beta test it's only $250 monster on a stick fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 02:58
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Megazver posted:So a charity's collecting money to buy a special computer for disabled kids who can only play video games using their eyes: They do more than that; I'd like to see this as a charity on a Humble Bundle.
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Sep 17, 2013 15:43
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Wow, I am really conflicted on Neverending Nightmares. I'm a sucker for the Edward Gorey style art. The video is a bit  but I have to admire the guy for talking about this publicly. And sadly I don't think it will make it. 
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Sep 25, 2013 14:09
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Well, Neverending Nightmares doesn't get funded, it won't be on my watch. In.
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Sep 25, 2013 16:01
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Death Road to Canada made it to the finish line with $42K of the $25K they asked for. Also Neverending Nightmares has gotten some big bumps recently (both number of backers and cash) but it's still only 78% funded with less than a day and a half to go. I think the combination of starting off as an OUYA-exclusive and having the misfortune to be up at the same time as Mighty No. 9/Hyper Light Drifter/Shantae/Sunless Sea/etc. isn't helping.
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Sep 28, 2013 16:20
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Shalinor posted:There's a preview article on RPS where he goes into detail on that, explaining that's part of why he did the KS. This way, he has people involved from day one, giving him feedback on the game, telling him when he really needs to move on beyond polishing this one pixel shader. I don't think the solution to his problem is having the (many many) backers look over his shoulder. That seems like a poor way to design a game. Even though I backed the project early on, mostly because of the artwork and my sympathy towards the developer, I realized this wasn't my kind of game So I funded Hot Tin Roof instead, which I am looking forward to.
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Sep 30, 2013 21:31
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I've never played any of the Shantae games, what are they comparable to?A Fancy 400 lbs posted:No one will ever play it because it's an MMO being made by people with no game development experience. Why don't people understand how hard MMOs are to even make, much less be successful? I've worked on two so maybe I'm jaded.
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Oct 2, 2013 18:16
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chumbler posted:They're platformers with some combat elements, so Mega Man games are a decent comparison. There's some exploration, but nothing on the level of Super Metroid. They're not particularly fast paced and really are pretty easy, if that influences your position Give money to Shantae. Don't go into it expecting a revolutionary epic that will transform gaming forever. They're just cute, competent games with good art that are a fun way to kill some time. So a bit like Dust but with less combat and more shapeshifting? Hmmm.
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Oct 2, 2013 18:43
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If superhero games were still cursed, none of this would be a problem.
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Oct 2, 2013 22:20
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Warcabbit posted:Actually, CoH didn't trust the client. And we've not forgotten that lesson. That's part of why there isn't a grey server right now - getting through the encryption wasn't easy. If I remember right. I may not. It was a different team working on that, which I carefully learned as little about as possible. No MMO trusts the client. None that I've heard of. People can game the system even if they don't modify the client and/or packets directly. Do you have a plan for how to detect when the client is lying and how you are going to treat users who you suspect have hacked clients/etc.?
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Oct 3, 2013 02:27
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elf help book posted:I think the Hyper Light Drifter video makes it look nice but boring to actually play. Kinda like Bastion? Except less interesting, and I didn't find Bastions gameplay terribly interesting in the first place. Logan Cunningham should be the next stretch goal. The sample music track by Disasterpiece is awesome, close to his brilliant Fez OST.
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Oct 3, 2013 07:34
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Well crap I just backed Hyper Light Drifter and Shantaechumbler posted:I'll agree that Bastion's gameplay wasn't necessarily interesting or revolutionary, but it also wasn't really setting out to be that. It was very competent and felt good while giving many well balanced options for different play styles, and those things are more than can be said for a lot of modern games. You could probably ask 10 different people who have played Bastion what their favorite weapon combination was and get as many different answers, and that counts for a lot in my book. I liked Bastion's gameplay. I think the subtle key to your statement that "ask 10 people what their favorite weapon combination was and get as many different answers" is that the weapons were well-balanced; nothing was so outstanding as to be better than anything else. (Well maybe the cannon with the auto-targeting upgrade.) That takes a lot of work to do.
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Oct 3, 2013 07:45
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Jedit posted:I feel the same way, except I don't think it looks nice either. Also, gently caress them for charging $5 for the manual. $40 level to get the soundtrack is also a bit high.
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Oct 3, 2013 15:46
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Zaphod42 posted:I'm calling bullshit. Sorry. I have to agree. That's a shitload of art to knock out in a year, much less programming RTS/FPS/MOBA. Also, watching the video beginning at 2:09 - that's some kind of synthesized voice right? EDIT: also $20K to finish this? Yes I know that's the minimum with no stretch goals but bullshit. monster on a stick fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Oct 3, 2013 |
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Oct 3, 2013 19:19
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This is really weird.
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Megazver posted:Well, he has ten years in the industry as an artist according to LinkedIn and in an interview he mentions he bought assets in the Unity store and then edited them to suit his needs. Also, people who are saying that $20,000 isn't enough have no idea what the living costs are in Ukraine and for how much money and in what conditions Ukrainian and Russian developers are willing to work in to work on something they want. He says he has ten years in the industry. He claims he worked on Cities XL but his name is not in the credits. His name doesn't even pop up on MobyGames, which it should if he was a lead artist on shipped titles and worked for Monte Cristo. I even tried googling his name to see if something popped up on a published game and couldn't find anything. Also if he's going to be buying stock assets and modifying them, he should probably say so in the Kickstarter.
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Oct 3, 2013 21:40
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:It seems like he's going to finish it no matter what. He doesn't need the money to finish it. He needs it to finish it more quickly. I'm kind of surprised none of the backer levels include the novel this game is based on: quote:Storyline of Universum based on the book written by our project lead, Cyril Megem, created with deep sense and narrative. 
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Oct 3, 2013 22:15
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Also $10K until Shantae hits $700K.
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Oct 4, 2013 02:16
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Shalinor posted:Speaking as a developer and designer, you have no idea what you're talking about, and it's getting increasingly silly watching you defend this point. This former MMO developer agrees. From a pure 'code' perspective it's very difficult to get right - you have to do all the typical game stuff with graphics/physics/etc. but also have to worry about networking, cheating, the in-game economy if there is one, etc. So far you remind me of developers who think that everything will be OK because reasons, and that is just deluding yourself. Maybe if you had someone from ArenaNet (just down the street FYI) on the team or even in an advising role, I would take your gumption a bit more seriously, but right now you are setting yourself up for failure and a Gamasutra post-mortem.
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Oct 6, 2013 23:04
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