Ex-BioShock Devs' The Black Glove Shelved

[Steven Bogos]

Ex-BioShock Devs' The Black Glove Shelved

The Black Glove - the debut project of several former Irrational Games employees, has been shelved.

When Take-Two The Black Glove [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132317-Irrational-Games-to-Close-After-BioShock-Infinite-DLC-Update]. Unfortunately, The Black Glove has now been shelved indefinitely following a failed Kickstarter.

"We've decided to shelve The Black Glove for now," said Day for Night Games' creative director Joe Fielder in a blog post. [http://dayfornightgames.com/a-message-from-day-for-night-games] "We garnered some interest, but didn't find the perfect glass slipper we were looking for and, understandably, began to lose key people to full-time work elsewhere," he explained.

He did, however, add that "We've invested thousands of hours and considerable thought and emotion into the project, so it's hard to step away, but it's not forever," giving hope that we may see the psychedelic narrative-focused game return at some point in the future.

"Design legend Paul Neurath said to us recently, 'In my experience, good ideas don't have expiration dates.' They're words we've really taken to heart, so we intend to return to The Black Glove later when we can do it right."

But don't feel too bad for the fine folks at Day for Night Games, as pretty much all of their members are busy with other projects. Fielder and fellow writer Charles Soule contributed to Human Head's iOS horror game Lost, Within; artist Robb Waters is working on Underworld Ascendant alongside Fielder, who's now a design director at OtherSide Entertainment; and animator Pete Paquette is developing a narrative/puzzle game at Wolf Island Games.

Source: Eurogamer [http://dayfornightgames.com/a-message-from-day-for-night-games]

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[sephthewind]

Wow, this news comes at a bit of a strange time for me as just the day before yesterday I started replaying Irrational's old Freedom Force series after not touching them for about a decade. Almost definitely my favorite super hero series to date, I was just thinking earlier that it was too bad they'd been shut down and never made a third.

When I saw this Kickstarter for the first time back in October I remember thinking that it sounded like an interesting concept, but (looking at the progress at the time) it already looked like it would struggle to get funded. Oh well, it sounds like they're all taking it with a positive attitude towards their future. So long as these guys get to put their talent to good use somewhere this isn't the worst news.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Oh no! Not Bioshock 4!

But then again the last Burial under the Sea episode of Infinite was too amazing to top. I'm okay with letting this franchise rest in peace.

 

[Exterminas]

Oh no! Not Bioshock 4!

But then again the last Burial under the Sea episode of Infinite was too amazing to top. I'm okay with letting this franchise rest in peace.

They closed the developer. Not the Franchise. Trust me, we are going to see more Bioshock Games, made by whoever wants in on that sweet gravy train

 

[Kristoffer]

This looks like it could've been the best one yet

 

[seris]

if only they would have made something people wanted they would have gotten funding *cough*system shock 3*cough*

 

[Wasted]

I found Bioshock: Infinite to be one of the most disappointing games I ever played. It was not bad, it was just painfully mediocre. It failed to live up to the initial trailers in nearly every major way. That being said I never heard of this project and wish them the best of luck because at the very least their art department is phenomenal.

 

[jhoroz]

Bummer. To me, the least interesting aspect of the Bioshock games has always been the shooting, so to see these guys making a game that focuses primarily on the atmosphere and environmental interactions of those games was really exciting. They can make fantastic, gorgeous and unforgettable worlds, so to see this fall apart is really disappointing.

 

[Callate]

$550,000 is an awful lot of money for a new developer to expect for a new property from crowdfunding, even if that group is composed of industry veterans. Maybe if Levine himself was part of the group, you could ask for that kind of money; as 'tis, in the current environment (including successful Kickstarter campaigns that never yielded a product, or had to cut back on expectations), not so much... The "gold rush" days are pretty much over.

 

[maninahat]

I am disappointed this hasn't seen the light of day. It offered a lot of really weird and interesting looking stuff, designed at a level of quality rarely seen outside the AAA market.

 

[Uhuru N'Uru]

The mistake these sort of projects keep making is using Kickstarter as the means of projects CrowdFunding. It's just about the worst method, relying solely on gaining public attention in a very short period of time. It's the very worst method of CrowdFunding a game ever thought of.

Early Acces on Steam is much better, yet still pretty awful for various other reasons.
Primary amongst them being Valve taking a very large slice of the money.

The best method of CrowdFunding any game is the most successful method ever used.

Star Citizen's method is the way to do any game CrowdFunding.
To head off the inevitable, "but it was a Kickstarter" posts.
RSI had already raised $2 Million and Kickstarter hype was then at it's maximum.
The backers asked RSI to take advantage of the hype and another $4 Million was raised.
The crucial fact is that a failed Kickstarter wouldn't have stopped development.
Currently Star Citizen is backed by $70+ Million.

The RSI CrowdFunding method is a proven success. Even if the Game never releases.
Despite those who would claim backers have been ripped off, paying too much for ships/game, the reality is all backers haxe invested in an idea and a proven developers reputation.
The successful return for that investment will be a great game. However all investments are risky and if it fails then backers would get no return. No-one ever bought any ships at all and backers must be prepared to lose that money.

So why did Star Citizen do so well?
Firstly, no time limit was set to raise the funding. This is crucial, when the project starts is the absolute worst time to set make or break limits. Having a project starting target is fine. Taking the money plege,d only once this target is reached. The one thing a project should never do is stop taking the money when offered due to an artificial time limit.

Stretch Goals is another thing RSI did right, they started out Great and got worse as more money was raised.
Until they finally stopped completely, but fund raising never stopped.
This seems to be the wrong way round, but it's not. Stretch goals must be substantial early on to help raise interest and enthusiasm (hype). These will be fully costed and funded. Later ones will not be fully costed and funded, if they are bigger and better each time. They will cost more than has been raised and the dreaded feature creep issue is the result.
By promising a smaller reward each time, more and more of the money is "spare" and can becomes the contingency fund for the entire project. There will always be unforseen costs and anything left over can fund extra bonus content.
The project should at least break even at release, the backers get the return of their investment and actual sales become pure profit, this is when using Steam or in my preffered option GOG, to actually sell the game is viable. The biggest issue with early access is backers funds are going to the retailer, not to making the game.

The biggest thing RSI did right is the open development involving the investors in the process from the start.
Consider this, Bethesda Game Studios started working on Fallout 4 at the same time as RSI started Star Citizen, we all know it, yet even now we must wait for E3, before they actually announce the fact.
Star Citizen's investors are involved in testing every aspect. Even providing content for it.

BGS gets modders fixing their broken game after release, if at all.
RSI involves modders in testing and fixing their game before it's add released. Allowing them to just add more content afterwards.

The final key aspect is keeping the workforce size in check. RSI was just Chris Roberts at the start. Many of RSI's key staff joined after the money to pay them was available, though I'm certain they knew well in advance and may even have done some of the groundwork.

Now I don't expect most games to match or beat RSI's CrowdFunding World Record, by using these methods, however if it's ever beaten it will be using those methods.
Whatever a projects size, to succeed the investors require confidence. This is the model to use to provide that confidence. Without investor confidence, the projects destined to fail to raise the funds.
That applies, whether it's a crowdfunded project or not.

Kickstarter is a blind bet, now the hype has gone, against the odds.
Independent and open project CrowdFunding is still a bet, but one where the cards are shown to all involved.