Balance of Power Creator Says Kickstarter Used To Be Cool

[Ragsnstitches]

I guess I need to clarify again. People will fund stuff that looks like something that they already like. If I was to put something on Kickstarter claiming it to be "Minecraft with guns" or something similar to that it would get funding. This could possibly lead to people starting kickstaters to a game that is not nessisarily innovative because they just want to get their name out there. I know Kickstater right now is a breeding ground for a new direction of gaming but I'm saying that it could easily be abused to fund games that are just clones of a popular game. Also, Indie Go Go is a service that does the exact same thing but it seems like people have taken to begging for money to fund a youtube channel, I know it hasn't happened yet and I hope it doesn't happen, I'm just saying that there always is the possibility of Kickstarter funding counter-innovative games.

The "death" of innovation was a little bit sensationalist you have to admit.

But your point still doesn't make sense. First off, what does innovate mean? Its to "Make changes in something established, esp. by introducing new methods, ideas, or products".

Minecraft with guns is innovative. It might not be ground breaking or revolutionary, but it IS innovative. Ice cream is delicious, so are bananas, combine the 2 and BAM, Banana split. Before this remarkable feat, we never could appreciate the joys of highly processed dairy and sugar combined with selectively bred (cultivated?) fruit. Innovation is not hard to achieve. It isn't something that has to drastically alter the way we view things. The difficulty is seeing what is worthwhile and what isn't.

What you're thinking of is something that is entirely different... and rare. Invention (not the same as innovation). There is no environment that can truly cultivate the creation of something completely unseen before, especially if its asking for money to do so.

Kickstarter enables Creators to take more risks, since they are the sole dictator of what happens. The only reason a potentially innovative project will flop, is that the person proposing it can't engage investors (or it's too niche to garner enough investors to meet the target).

It can't take away from innovation, it just can't. That is a physical impossibility. Innovation will stop when people stop wanting or needing innovation... if that happens, it happens regardless of Kickstarter, not because of it.

What's more, the incentive for people to use kickstarter, is so they can try things that cautious investors will pass over something safer. People go there with ideas to make something different or something they feel needs to be seen/done... they don't go there to appeal to demographics. That comes afterwards, after market research, where to try to assess how many people might want their product and how big a budget they will need to meet their projects goals.

Since kickstarter enables projects with niche appeal to exist, it means it can only add to the industry, not take away. Bringing back dead or dieing genres might stimulate innovation in the future, by revitalising interest in the old style of games.

EDIT: Invention, Pure creation, the forging of something entirely new, happens despite financial investments. They have to happen before people will invest in it. The Marx brothers (citation needed, I'm not a history buff) didn't create the first functioning flying machine on a public budget or under with support of business moguls. They did it themselves, with massive amounts of trial and error, money out of their own pocket (maybe family and friends) and a large helping of mathematical theory.

EDIT EDIT: Wright Brothers* not marx brothers... too many famous bros!

 

[elvor0]

-snip-

EDIT: Invention, Pure creation, the forging of something entirely new, happens despite financial investments. They have to happen before people will invest in it. The Marx brothers (citation needed, I'm not a history buff) didn't create the first functioning flying machine on a public budget or under with support of business moguls. They did it themselves, with massive amounts of trial and error, money out of their own pocket (maybe family and friends) and a large helping of mathematical theory.

Hehe, it was the Wright Brothers that invented the aircraft, the Marx Brothers were a comedy quartet

But yeah, agree with what you said otherwise, refining and making things better is still good, even if it isn't something entirely new. There's been loads of stuff I've donated to on kickstarter that takes established ideas and blends them with others, games that take something and polish it, etc etc. There's plenty of genres and games that I love that ain't gonna get funded otherwise, and I really enjoy watching them come along in this way, as the designers can do what they love, without CEOs breathing down their neck. If a game looks good, even if it's not pushing the envelope, I'll donate if it interests me because I want to play it.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

-snip-

EDIT: Invention, Pure creation, the forging of something entirely new, happens despite financial investments. They have to happen before people will invest in it. The Marx brothers (citation needed, I'm not a history buff) didn't create the first functioning flying machine on a public budget or under with support of business moguls. They did it themselves, with massive amounts of trial and error, money out of their own pocket (maybe family and friends) and a large helping of mathematical theory.

Hehe, it was the Wright Brothers that invented the aircraft, the Marx Brothers were a comedy quartet

And I knew that and all... I had a brain fart moment mid sentence and I couldn't think of any other "brothers" other then Marx Brothers and Mario Brothers (yes, the iconic plumber). Thanks for correcting me.

 

[thethird0611]

Honestly, I think that he is pouting that his project didnt make it, but it seems to me Kickstarter is just a way for gamers to become EA. Why?

Well we are given the chance to green light projects with the service. Look back at alot of games being made. Sequels, games similar to ones we already enjoy, or the such.

Double Fine Adventures
Wasteland 2
Shadowrun sequel
Ouya (Android pretty much)
Penny Arcade's ad's

The top 4 are the only 'games' that broke a million. Sequels or 'safe' investments. I will say Ouya is a good creative risk though. But look at that, from the list of when it was 'sensationalized', 4 out of 5 of the big funded projects are sequels or 'safe' investments. Im not saying its a bad thing, but there are so many people out there that are calling out publishers/developers for only making sequels, and look at what was funded.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Maybe it's because he's making a game no one is interested in playing? That's a possibility, right?

 

[Whispering Death]

Kickstarter is going to be the death of innovation. People like what is familiar so they will throw money at remakes of old games, minecraft variations, and other non-imaginative games. I know this may not be true but based on the games that are currently being largely donated to, it seems like this may end up becoming the truth.

Kickstarter will never be popular enough to kill anything. At the very least Kickstarter is remaking games no one else will - that the big studios won't. So at the very least Kickstarter is helping gaming by remaking games no one else will remake.

If that is the floor of what it can be, it's still a positive. If it can achieve its potential, it's a game-changer.

 

[Evil Smurf]

oh, why do people always sound like douchebags on the internet? "Kickstarter used to be cool, then it got popular." Ughhh grow up

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Maybe it's because he's making a game no one is interested in playing? That's a possibility, right?

actually id play it. but its a kickstarter with a bad pitch video not intune to the subject matter, it wasnt advertsised at all. heck searching kickstarter didnt even bring it up for most people. im not suprised its failed

"No one" is an exaggeration. By no one I mean very few people, as far as gamer demographics go, would put their money in this project. People only have so much money to spend, and there are more games more people are more likely to want to play, and thus, their money goes to those kickstarters.

 

[Bathyscaphe]

Any credibility he may have had to talk about what Kickstarter used to be like is lost when you look at his profile on Kickstarter: 0 projects backed.

 

[Alterego-X]

Kickstarter is going to be the death of innovation. People like what is familiar so they will throw money at remakes of old games, minecraft variations, and other non-imaginative games. I know this may not be true but based on the games that are currently being largely donated to, it seems like this may end up becoming the truth.

People like what is familiar?

Well, as far as I know we are all people around here, so now just explained why Kickstarter is a great thing that will give us the games that we want to see the most.

Oh, wait, no you didn't. You are just using elitist buzzwords that will sound terrifyingly bleak to the very "people" who are supposedly ging to kill innovation.

Preference of innovation is not an on/off switch, where "People" hate innovation, while only you, My Valiant Fighter For Creativity, want to protect it alone.

It's a sliding scale, where EVERYONE expects enough innovation that at least they will keep entertained and a game won't feel like an uninterrupted looping of the precvious one, and at the same time EVERYONE expects enough familiarity that they can at least relate to a game.

The scale's arguable part is between casual gamers who don't want to waste their time learning new mechanics, or wrapping their head around new stories, and elitists, the kind who actually care about standing up for gaming as an art form, and debating a game's merits based on how much it contributes to the art, how innovative it is, not just how much they enjoyed it as a product.

From that perspective, Kickstarter is already a rather innovation-friendly system, after all it relies mostly on the kind of niche gamers who actively read gaming news, who are dissatisfied with the mainstream gaming industry, and who are ready to give their money for promises of some games, as opposed to general audiences who buy whatever they run into in a shop. In other words, it is pandering to elitists.

That you can STILL phrase it like Kickstarter games are "non-imaginative", is only because of the sliding scale nature of innovation. No matter HOW elitist and innovative and niche a certain system is, you can always portray it as if it ought to be EVEN MORE SO.

 

[Carnagath]

I personally would have no interest in playing an "educational game" in this day and age. I work long hours, when I come back home I have earned my couple of hours of entertainment, and when I want them to be educational I'll read a book instead of playing a bad game. I don't think I'm alone in this.

 

[theultimateend]

That promotional video is the worst. I went from not knowing who he was to wanting to stomp on his face inside the first minute.

His entire presentation is quite poor honestly :/.

I personally would have no interest in playing an "educational game" in this day and age. I work long hours, when I come back home I have earned my couple of hours of entertainment, and when I want them to be educational I'll read a book instead of playing a bad game. I don't think I'm alone in this.

Educational games have evolved. Education should never be boring because learning is not boring.

A good example is that Civ II game someone was playing. Creating a strategy game that takes into account real world environmental changes would be educational and entertaining.

 

[luckshot]

another problem aside from the boring concept is i didnt really get into gaming until after 2000...so all his early hits are completely unknown to me.

he comes late to a party and brings a can of cheeze whiz and complains that there is hardly any beer left

 

[MetalMagpie]

Also, was Kickstarter ever 'Semi-Charitable?' I don't know its history that well but I thought the 'no charities' thing was always there.

When I first came across Kickstarter, the impression I was given is that it was trying to encourage people to throw a few pounds/dollars/etc. at a project that they thought really deserved to succeed. So I gave £5 to Zen Table, because it was a cool product that had clearly taken a lot of work and I thought it would be a shame if it failed to make it to market. That's the "charitable" idea. I didn't expect to get anything back for my £5.

There seem to be more an more projects now (especially in some areas) that use Kickstarter mainly to take pre-orders. This is still not a bad thing. Being able to get people's money up front like that can be invaluable for getting a product into production, especially when the alternative is going cap-in-hand to the bank and asking for a business lone. Mantic Games have a great Kickstarter running at the moment that actually offers really good value for money on their plastic miniatures

 

[Sqrt(-1)]

I've always been told that if I don't have anything nice to say, then I shouldn't say anything. So...

His Bullwinkle impersonation was decent.
Watching his video made me laugh.
His shirt reminded me of Seinfeld.

Spoiler: Something like this would have REALLY helped.

 

[mrverbal]

Well of course the most funded things on kickstarter are those done by big name (well, big small name) companies. People like to know when they back something it will succeed, and/or not suck at the other end.

Would you, if you had a hundred bucks, back a game by the creator of psychonauts or some old guy who thinks he is funny and isn't?

Is this a hard question?

 

[Winthrop]

Honestly, I think that he is pouting that his project didnt make it, but it seems to me Kickstarter is just a way for gamers to become EA. Why?

Well we are given the chance to green light projects with the service. Look back at alot of games being made. Sequels, games similar to ones we already enjoy, or the such.

Double Fine Adventures
Wasteland 2
Shadowrun sequel
Ouya (Android pretty much)
Penny Arcade's ad's

The top 4 are the only 'games' that broke a million. Sequels or 'safe' investments. I will say Ouya is a good creative risk though. But look at that, from the list of when it was 'sensationalized', 4 out of 5 of the big funded projects are sequels or 'safe' investments. Im not saying its a bad thing, but there are so many people out there that are calling out publishers/developers for only making sequels, and look at what was funded.

Shadowrun returns isn't a sequel, its just named in a way that makes it sound like one. There were older shadowrun games, but none of them were even the same genre. The "returns" refers to the setting from the table top RPG called shadowrun as it has lost a lot of popularity and this may bring back the setting. It looks more like fallout to me in terms of gameplay than anything else. I'm not sure, but that is how I understand the page. Sorry if I am being nitpicky.

Also, Ouya is not "pretty much Android." I see people say that all the time. It uses a modified version of an android operating system. Do a quick search for things that run on Linux. They are not all the same thing. You might think of Linux as used for computers, but its used for high speed trains, things that milk cows, nuclear submarines, and particle accelerators. These all serve vastly different functions. Theoretically, Ouya is no more similar to an android phone than any of those to each other. It will make porting games easier, but it isn't the same thing.

Not that you don't have a point. Its easier for people to jump on board with a genre that already exists. I mean being the first person to make any sort of thing is difficult. Imagine the guy who made the first horror movie. It must have been ridiculously difficult, everyone would think he was a crazy person. Same with videogame genres. Still, I don't think there is anything wrong with making games in unpopular genres that would have difficulty finding an audience otherwise.