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Reminder that Ron Gilbert is still the best: Also this is relevant: 
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Feb 10, 2012 02:23
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emoticon posted:Sure, okay. So is selling 9.3 million copies of CoD3 on the first day, $1 billion dollars in sales the first week or so. Spending a Lot of Money on Advertising to sell the Latest Iteration a Popular Franchise is not really "unprecedented" in the way I'm using it here.
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Feb 10, 2012 02:26
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Gamers are weird. On one hand, they bemoan the lack of originality in video games.Yet, when something like this happens, people demand that we get a new DotT or Grim Fandango. The old games are fine as they are. If we wanted Tim to just do sequels, we would never have had some of the great games he made in the most recent era of his career. Plus, Double Fine rocks at creating worlds and characters. The more universes they create, the better.
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Feb 10, 2012 02:35
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This reminds me of Radiohead's idea in 07, the pay what you want plan. And I think it's great but it only works if you're a well-known brand like Radiohead or Tim Schafter. I don't think it's going to change the industry that much unless you're popular enough to dictate terms. Now the hard part begins with creating an adventure game that fits that budget. Is ~$1mil the average budget in developing a video game? I have no idea. COUNTIN THE BILLIES fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Feb 10, 2012 |
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Feb 10, 2012 02:37
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Dorepoll posted:Yet, when something like this happens, people demand that we get a new DotT or Grim Fandango. I would hope those people are just the incredibly vocal minority. Most are just happy to have something new by Tim Schafer.
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Feb 10, 2012 02:37
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DEAD MAN'S SHOE posted:I loved psychonauts, DOTT etc so bad and I hope this encourages them to do bigger and bigger projects in the same way. Well this might just convince them smaller is better to be honest. That wouldn't be the worst thing honestly. The game industry needs a lot of change, from the crazy grind of 4+ years to make publisher-driven 'big' products, to a gender bias that's pretty huge, to lack of appreciation for even network TV level quality storytelling. I think there was no chance in hell of making a real network of alternatives pop up in the normal system but crowd funded games have amazing potential.
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Feb 10, 2012 02:37
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What the gently caress? I only just noticed this thread and they already have a million dollars? Is this for real?
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Feb 10, 2012 02:44
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Cost of other Tim Schafer games, to put this in perspective. Monkey Island-$150,000 Full Throttle-$1,000,000 Psychonauts-$15,000,000 Brutal Legend-$24,000,000 Granted some of the costs are costs incurred through using a publisher, like publisher salaries. I would say that to make a AAA adventure game nowadays it would run around 10 million.
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Feb 10, 2012 02:52
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Davoren posted:What the gently caress? I only just noticed this thread and they already have a million dollars? Is this for real? No. It's all a dream. You'll wake up and check and it will be 3 million.
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Feb 10, 2012 02:52
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theblackw0lf posted:Cost of other Tim Schafer games, to put this in perspective. I'm curious what Telltale runs since they reuse a lot of assets. Monkey Island and Full Throttle required heavy modifications to SCUMM and Psychonauts and Brutal Legend used custom built engines which is expensive as gently caress. Psychonauts and Brutal Legend had horribly problematic development cycles. Psychonauts took something like 4 years to develop and they lost Microsoft as a publisher before being picked up by lovely Majesco. Brutal Legend started as a multiplayer game, was forced into a single-player Guitar Hero tie-in by Activision, shelved for a year, then picked up by EA later. Trenched and the later titles probably cost considerably less without all the publisher fuckings that went on with those two games.
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Feb 10, 2012 03:03
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al-azad posted:Brutal Legend started as a multiplayer game, was forced into a single-player Guitar Hero tie-in by Activision, shelved for a year, then picked up by EA later. Trenched and the later titles probably cost considerably less without all the publisher fuckings that went on with those two games. Id imagine all that licensed music is a big part of what drove up the budget, too.
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Feb 10, 2012 03:07
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r1ngwthszzors posted:Is all of the money getting invested into the project? I can't read Tim Schafer's mind, but this may not matter as much for this particular project. Lost sales matter when you're needing to recoup money to pay off your initial investment. With Kickstarter, they have enough money to guarantee they won't lose anything developing the game, because it's already been paid for; there's no initial investment to pay off and no risk of a loss by Double Fine. They get to make (presumably) a game with a new IP that they will wholly own and can develop on their own terms, and any actual sales they make upon release are just money in the bank.
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Feb 10, 2012 03:18
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It's not a lost sale when the alternative was to never get the game off the ground in the process. From the sound of it, it's very much a side project, with the rest of Double Fine performing their regular duties on something else. Ron Gilbert is working on a separate game, for instance. But let's assume that the the 15,166 backers who coughed up $15 are lost sales. There are still 13,360 who pledged $30 or more for a grand total of $834,800, thanks to the expensive higher tiers. Take out $15x13360 and its still $634k of profit. The $100 backers alone have covered the cost of giving the game for free to the $15 donaters. If the backers weren't investing in something, and the game simply went up on Steam, and the standard edition was $15 and the "Deluxe edition" with nothing more than a soundtrack and downloadable documentary double the price, do you really think almost half of gamers would choose the $30 option? frumpsnake fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Feb 10, 2012 |
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Feb 10, 2012 03:33
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I'm not quite understanding the "$15 is a lost sale" thing. Considering that's probably around how much the game would be priced anyway, couldn't those $15 purchases be simply considered pre-orders? *Donated $30 here, I had to resist the urge to give more. hellocruelworld fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Feb 10, 2012 |
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Feb 10, 2012 03:47
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Yeah, I don't even understand what r1ngwthszzors means by "lost sale"
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Feb 10, 2012 03:51
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Assuming pre-orders account for maybe 10% of a game's lifelong sales, then the 15,000 kickstarter backers who pledged the bare minimum for the game are probably 1% of the lifelong sales. Considering the ignorance of how Kickstarter works in general (I'm investing but getting nothing in return/why should I foot the bill for a theoretical project/My rear end itches/blahblahblah), there's probably a huge audience of potential buyers who are in the "wait and see" crowd. Either way, they've doubled their goal and then some. Any "lost sale" can be written off immediately.
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Feb 10, 2012 03:55
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They aren't lost sales either. A publisher may offer a royalty per unit of 15%. Now this is per unit minus retail and distributor cuts, and cost of goods. So this may be as little in real terms as $5 per unit. However, a developer generally won't see a penny if this until the dev advance cost has been recouped, using that royalty amount per unit, meaning that once released if the game cost $1,000,000 to make, the developer won't see a penny until it has sold ~400,000 copies (assuming cost of goods, retail and distribution is %50 of retail - guessing). By this point the publisher has brought in $5.5m from their initial $1m investment. So, fully funded from day 1, with pure profit (minus Steam's share). That's pretty good really. Games don't cost 1m to make, and as such generally do not recoup. It's the same with the book publishing and music industry so far as I'm aware too. suesehT fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Feb 10, 2012 |
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Feb 10, 2012 03:55
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I don't even like adventure games but I'm sure the documentary alone will be worth $15.
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Feb 10, 2012 04:03
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suesehT posted:So, fully funded from day 1, with pure profit (minus Steam's share). That's pretty good really. http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creating%20a%20project#Fees
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Feb 10, 2012 04:08
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:Don't forget Kickstarter and Amazon's share too. Kickstarter gets a flat 5% of the money and Amazon takes 3-5% in credit processing fees. Sure, but if the proportion LOST in processing fees is similar to the the amount the devs would actually GET once the publisher and distribution network took their cut, that's really not half bad.
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Feb 10, 2012 04:10
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Tossed my $30 in, just happy to contribute to (hopefully) a new Schafer game happening - and the documentary's going to be worth that in & of itself in my opinion. Pretty amazed and happy at the support people have thrown at it - sure, it might not spark a revolution in game funding with the way game budgets have exploded in the past decade but that wasn't the point of the project in the first place.
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Feb 10, 2012 04:10
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Fatkraken posted:Sure, but if the proportion LOST in processing fees is similar to the the amount the devs would actually GET once the publisher and distribution network took their cut, that's really not half bad. Publishers and distribution get a lot more than 5-8%. Likely, Publisher gets most or all of the money except for contracts with developers that amount to bonuses or percentages and distributors probably get between 10-30%. Retail might get more than that but I'm not sure exactly.
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Feb 10, 2012 04:28
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retail - almost always close to exactly 20%, they have a lot of overhead costs involved with brick and mortar distribution - 4-12% publisher - everything else, minus packaging, marketing and overhead etc developer - whatever the publisher will give them. this varies widely and can be a fixed amount, too.
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Feb 10, 2012 04:41
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suesehT posted:They aren't lost sales either. A publisher may offer a royalty per unit of 15%. Now this is per unit minus retail and distributor cuts, and cost of goods. So this may be as little in real terms as $5 per unit. However, a developer generally won't see a penny if this until the dev advance cost has been recouped, using that royalty amount per unit, meaning that once released if the game cost $1,000,000 to make, the developer won't see a penny until it has sold ~400,000 copies (assuming cost of goods, retail and distribution is %50 of retail - guessing). By this point the publisher has brought in $5.5m from their initial $1m investment. Don't forget $million+ administrative fees on recoupment costs and, worst of all, IP rights. That last one is the killer.
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Feb 10, 2012 04:50
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God, this thing is at over $1,134,000 and still going? What do you all think this thing will top out at? Seriously I think this is amazing and I am very excited about this project. I hope they spend more on the game than documentary though.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:05
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hellocruelworld posted:God, this thing is at over $1,134,000 and still going? What do you all think this thing will top out at? Under 2 mil, betting the 1.6 to 1.8 mil range.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:08
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hellocruelworld posted:God, this thing is at over $1,134,000 and still going? What do you all think this thing will top out at? In the pitch video Tim said he needed 30k for the game, and 10k for the documentors. Not only was the game the main focus of the money to begin with, but I doubt that more money to work on the game equals more work for the documentary guys, so chances are theyll still be getting 10k no matter what.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:08
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Under 2 mil, betting the 1.6 to 1.8 mil range. I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think that the upcoming media hype is going to get them to 2.5 mil. People are still donating at a pretty high rate. The donations increased by another $9,000 since my last post. I don't expect this success to be repeated anytime soon however.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:19
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Under 2 mil, betting the 1.6 to 1.8 mil range. With another 31 days to go?
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Feb 10, 2012 05:22
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Gaph posted:With another 31 days to go? To be fair to the previous poster, you have to expect a decline at some point. I think he is low-balling however.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:28
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It's probably not going to slow down until a week or so from now. Media coverage is just getting started. Kickstarter is a fairly well known site, and this just broke all their records. It seems like they could raise $2-3 million.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:35
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r1ngwthszzors posted:Do I hear ISOMETRIC RPG? Chris Avellone starts kickstarter to make a game, is sadly crushed under the metric ton of dollar, dollar bills I dump on him.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:35
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Dan Didio posted:Chris Avellone starts kickstarter to make a game, is sadly crushed under the metric ton of dollar, dollar bills I dump on him. It's okay we can use the money I'd dump on him to rebuild him. Or put his brain in a jar and hook it up to a computer. Avellone. 
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Feb 10, 2012 05:37
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I bet a sudden influx of a million dollars can change the nature of a man.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:39
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Gaspar Lewis posted:Executive Producer Maybe they could do it like the 1 minute movie and include the documentary on the credits.
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Feb 10, 2012 05:50
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hellocruelworld posted:I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think that the upcoming media hype is going to get them to 2.5 mil. People are still donating at a pretty high rate. The donations increased by another $9,000 since my last post. I don't expect this success to be repeated anytime soon however. Gaph posted:With another 31 days to go? hellocruelworld posted:To be fair to the previous poster, you have to expect a decline at some point. I think he is low-balling however. Maybe I'm expecting the decline too early. I'm just assuming that everyone who was super interested already donated, but if its still jumping like crazy I'll go with under 2.5 million.
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Feb 10, 2012 06:07
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Maybe I'm expecting the decline too early. I'm just assuming that everyone who was super interested already donated I didn't even hear about it until a few hours ago, so we'll just have to wait and see.
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Feb 10, 2012 06:28
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If this breaks 2 million I expect Tim Schaefer to act out all the parts, and I expect it to be rotoscoped.
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Feb 10, 2012 06:38
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Lots of People posted:Bunch of stuff about Chris Avellone and Planescape Torment 2 or whatever other RPG This is a thing to which I would contribute some money because that was my favourite game for the longest time.
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Feb 10, 2012 06:44
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Holy poo poo, this was at 600,000 when I went to sleep last night and nearly double that when I woke up. I love Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert and I'm glad this is working out for them. I think this really shows what kind of impact this could have on the (in this case only slightly) bigger players in industry, too, not just the indie scene.
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Feb 10, 2012 06:50
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