David Jaffe's Motorgun Kickstarter Sputters

IanDavis

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Aug 18, 2012
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David Jaffe's Motorgun Kickstarter Sputters



The indie vehicular combat game cancels its Kickstarter with weeks to go.

"Interstate '76 meets World of Tanks". That was the pitch for [a href=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1517270521/motorgun-return-of-the-auto-duel]Motorgun[/a]. Like every Kickstarter hopeful, Pixelbionic had big plans. Multiple factions, a single-player campaign, deformable models and localized damage. Had its $650,000 crowdfunding campaign succeeded, it even would have brought Twisted Metal creator David Jaffe and Interstate '76's Zack Norman onboard. However, after barely scraping up a tenth of its original goal, Pixelbionic has decided to can the game for the time being.

"Kickstarter is a harsh mistress," developers Michael "Maxx" Kaufman and Mike Arkin [a href=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1517270521/motorgun-return-of-the-auto-duel/posts]posted[/a] in an update. "Lots of projects are pitched to the community and sometimes they resonate and sometimes they don't. In this case, what we were pitching wasn't exactly what you guys wanted. So, as a result we're making the tough decision to not drag it out and we're going to cancel the campaign[.]"

This doesn't mean that Motorgun is gone. Instead, Pixelbionic is going to rethink their design and work on a new pitch, one more formulated to what their fans want. "We're going to change our pitch and change the game," the post continues, "so keep talking, we're still listening!" Those interested in following the project's redesign can do so on [a href=http://www.pixelbionic.com/]Pixelbionic's forums[/a].

Even though its campaign fell through, it doesn't blame Kickstarter. "Games are being made now that could never be made in the old system, and it's because you are voting with your dollars and your comments and your feedback," Kaufman and Arkin write. "Keep it up, you're changing the world one game at a time."

Source: [a href=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1517270521/motorgun-return-of-the-auto-duel]Kickstarter[/a]

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Jadwick

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Jan 4, 2013
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Looks like it died the death of no publicity. This is the first I'm hearing about it, but then again, I don't go to kickstarter and look for projects either.

Shame, I enjoy these types of games too.
 

ThunderCavalier

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Nov 21, 2009
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All I'm getting from recent news is that the Kickstarter craze is starting to die down as the people who couldn't deliver on their Kickstarter projects start pulling out.

I hope this doesn't kill off Kickstarter entirely, as competent developers have shown that Kickstarter works. Still, with one of the biggest Kickstarter busts so far, the Ouya, in people's minds, I can't say that Kickstarter's looking any better right now.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Ya they just didn't get the word out in time, I never came across this and I would have given them all the moneys because vehicular combat is once of my very favorite things.

Hopefully they can find a deal somewhere else, hell Wargaming (guys behind WoT) has been throwing out cash for new IPs like mad these days... try them.
 

Entitled

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Aug 27, 2012
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ThunderCavalier said:
All I'm getting from recent news is that the Kickstarter craze is starting to die down as the people who couldn't deliver on their Kickstarter projects start pulling out.

I hope this doesn't kill off Kickstarter entirely, as competent developers have shown that Kickstarter works. Still, with one of the biggest Kickstarter busts so far, the Ouya, in people's minds, I can't say that Kickstarter's looking any better right now.
It's a news media perception thing, "x fails" is simply more enjoyable news in a schadenfreude way than "x succeeds", especially when x is some obscure niche thing that wouldn't have that many fans on a general gaming site in the first place.

Just looking through this summer in the past two months, we had four successes in the million dollar tier, Massive Chalice finishing with $1,2m, HEX earning $2,2m, WARMACHINE: TACTICS being funded with $1m, with 14 days yet to go, and Armikrog with 0.97m.

For comparison, in the three months from March to May we had 5 examples of million dollar project (counting Divinity's $0.94m). In the winter months, we had two (Elite and Pathfinder), between 2012 September and November we had four, between last June and August we had one (The Ouya), and between last March and May we had three (Shadowrun, Doublefine, and Wasteland).

The Ouya itself more or less delivered what it promised, it's criticised in mainstream news basically for not being an Xbox-killer.

Kickstarter is not going to conquer the whole mass market that sites like The Escapist appeal to any time soon, but it's continuing strong to do what it has been doing since the "craze".
 

LordMonty

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Jul 2, 2008
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I call this positive, they've gone away to build a better pitch/idea/plan. But hope more publicity is thrown at kickstarter maybe that'll help as well.

To keep the theme go look at this syndicate spiritual sucessor with only 50hours left on kickstarter already funded but could use more!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/5livesstudios/satellite-reign
 

Kuilui

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Apr 1, 2010
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*spits out drink*I never even heard of this project of theirs. I LOVE Twisted Metal and this looks fantastic. I'll definitely be throwing my money at this next kickstarter. Just looking at it I was having an internal struggle about spending 100 bucks for all the cool stuff and alpha access to help test.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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I'm all in favour of less David Jaffe, and Kickstarter is a breeding ground for Molyneux-level promises. This strikes me as win-win.
 

Zeckt

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Nov 10, 2010
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The problem is how often do people sit down and bring up kickstarter thinking "time to donate to an unheard of project" and make the effort to look through the site? probably close to none, as I know I don't care enough to make that sort of effort. If there is no word of mouth, no one will hear of the projects and they of course will not get funded.
 

Weaver

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Apr 28, 2008
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Jaffe is an asshole and I'd like to think the project failed because people saw his name associated with it, because that would be kinda funny.
 

piinyouri

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Mar 18, 2012
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First I'm hearing of it, and that's a shame. Vehicular combat needs to return. I miss it so.
*fires up Vigilante 8*