Free Radical Co-Founder Cautions Against Kickstarter

[josemlopes]

Who said you had to make the next Timesplitters look like Modern Warfare 3, Free Radical? If we gave you the same budget that Tim Schafer got, does that mean you could make a new Timesplitters with N64 graphics?

For that you have the Perfect Dark remake on the 360, it plays exactly the same as Timesplitters 2 and has superior visuals then the N64.


OT: For anyone that is attacking him, please pay attention that he isnt saying that ALL games there are bad, infact most games there havent even released so a lot of what he says does apply.

 

[sethisjimmy]

He completely misses the point of Kickstarter. This isn't funding by people who don't understand the risks of the industry, it's being funded by people who know the risks, and know that publishers absolutely HATE to take risks, and thus opt to take that risk themselves, as a group.

Common sense would tell you that a mix of success and disappointment is FAR better than just pure bland mediocrity. It's this massive fear of disappointment that holds gaming back.

 

[Entitled]

Thanks, Captain Obvious.

In other news, if you are shopping for anything on the Internet, the product might not even be real if it's a scam. When you put your money in a bank, they don't keep it in a safe, if everyone asks for their money back at the same time, they might not be able to give it back.

For that matter, your paper money itself isn't worth anything, it's just a printed fabric, the economy might collapse and then it's value is lost as soon as people start to doubt that it was ever there.


There is always a healty amount of scepticism regarding new, untested financial systems, and business models that are depending on trust in the the organization that is using them.

...And then, there is pointless repeating of the fact that "it's not even tangible money/product, so things can theoretically go wrong!" ad nauseam, to the people who already heard it in the first day of hearing about Kickstarter, and spent the past months debating about it.

 

[lacktheknack]

I don't treat Kickstarter like a store, I treat it like an investment recommendation site.

Some things will go big, some things will fizzle and die. The risk is part of the fun!

And then, of course, we sometimes get amazing games out of it. See: FTL.

 

[airwolfe591]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Don't put any more money into a Kickstarter project than you can afford to throw out the window of a moving vehicle. Excitement is fun, but perspective will do you a lot more good in the long run.

This is the reason that I haven't backed anything yet on kickstarter, with as many projects that have interested me, I just don't have money to, as you say, throw out of the window of a moving vehicle. I swear though, that one day, there will be a project that I will back.

 

[theultimateend]

That's why I refuse to support any kickstarters, I'm not going to give a guy my money just based on the idea of a game. I'll wait till I actually see gameplay and wait for the reviews before I even think of buying any of the games supported by kickstarter.

If it is any consolation, every thing I've gotten from Kickstarter has been of a quality rivaling anything I've ever purchased.

Zombicide in particular is so damn polished, it is like they made sweet love to a 3D printer or something.

Magic, that is the only way I can explain it.

I don't treat Kickstarter like a store, I treat it like an investment recommendation site.

Some things will go big, some things will fizzle and die. The risk is part of the fun!

And then, of course, we sometimes get amazing games out of it. See: FTL.

FTL is another fantastic friggen example.

Maybe because the people who DO "understand" the risks and challenges of the industry don't have the balls to take a chance on a new idea? -_^

 

[OldNewNewOld]

"While I'm happy to see some interesting projects raise funding that they wouldn't have been able to raise through other methods, the fact that they couldn't raise funding through other methods ought to be a red flag to anyone who contributes,"

Maybe the other methods had some unreasonable conditions? Like giving up all the IP rights, all the rights to change things, giving all the power to the publisher. Giving your soul and body to EA.

Also, the "disappointments" that he speaks about aren't even disappointments. People give insignificant amounts of money. At least the majority. If the project fails, well, shit happens. If it succeeds, you get a game that you wanted.

The amount if invested money per individual and the amount of invested money in a AAA game are two different worlds.

 

[fractured_sanity]

I wonder who he's talking to. Most people know already that using Kickstarter is high risk.
If people lost too much to Kickstarter they'd naturally stop using it and go back to old publishing methods.
If it's actually working and publishers saw it as a threat they'd send more people out like this to scare people back to them.
Now I don't think he's shrilling to get people to stop using it, I just find it odd that he took the time out to state what everyone already knows.

--After reading the source interview it made a bit more sense

 

[Yopaz]

A game that needs crowd funding should raise a red flag?

What about a game that needs funding from EA? I have seen what was intended to be a survival horror game turn into Gear of War from the look of this year's E3.

I have seen Nintendo throw out Super Mario games with hardly any changes form the previous one.

Kickstarter is a risk and most of us know that. The game might suck or not make it to release. There's no guarantee that a game that was developed with the backing of a publisher will be good either. Yes, we shouldn't act like Kickstarter is a store, but we shouldn't be afraid of taking risks either. My steam library is a testament to the risks I have taken with games. A lot of them turned out to be wasted money, some turned out to be awesome.

 

[Schadrach]

As several people have already pointed out, FTL is a grand example of how wrong this guy is. SMRPG is also pretty good. On the board game side, Zombicide certainly was popular with my friends too.

College Ruled Universe, Banner Saga, Valdis Story and Anonymous Agony (this is not going to be any kind of technical masterpiece, but the concept is something that no publisher would touch with someone else's 10 foot pole) have all been showing signs of progress, though not release just yet.

Haven't been involved in any KS that seems to be an outright scam or outright failure to deliver, even if my dice are 6 months late (last update suggested mine are being made in the next two weeks or so, he got a *lot* more orders from KS than expected, and equipment breakages)...

 

[MetalMagpie]

I said it before, I'll say it again: It's investment.

I see it more like charity. Most of the things I've funded on Kickstarter I've only given small amounts of money to and I haven't asked for a reward. They were just projects I thought deserved to happen.

Investors own a stake in the company/enterprise/etc. that they help to fund. Funding a project on Kickstarter doesn't make you a shareholder.

What of developers who simply don't want to work with typical publishers? I know if I made a game with a small group of maybe 10 people, worked on it for a long time and poured my heart into it, the last thing I'd want to do is give up the IP rights so that a large publisher could pump out uninspired sequels without my input. I think it's unfair to assume the only reason a game would be on Kickstarter is because they couldn't find someone to publish the game. Maybe they simply wanted to keep it in-house

That may very well be the case. But it's a bit like self-published books on the Amazon Kindle store. Sure some of those books are absolutely fantastic. It's just that they were too "risky" for a traditional publisher, or the writer just didn't want to go through the arduous process to get their book out there in print. But many of them haven't been published by traditional means because they're just crap.

I don't think Steve Ellis is in any way insisting that Kickstarter-funded games will necessarily be bad or not finished. He's just warning people not to get too overenthusiastic and spend loads of money on something that may not work out.

One of the reasons Kickstarter is so much fun is that it's all about looking at people's pitches and making an evaluation of a) how good the project idea is and b) how capable of pulling it off the team are.

So far I've funded an interactive coffee table, a card game, and a science kit for kids.

 

[Andrewtheeviscerator]

That's why I refuse to support any kickstarters, I'm not going to give a guy my money just based on the idea of a game. I'll wait till I actually see gameplay and wait for the reviews before I even think of buying any of the games supported by kickstarter.

If it is any consolation, every thing I've gotten from Kickstarter has been of a quality rivaling anything I've ever purchased.

Zombicide in particular is so damn polished, it is like they made sweet love to a 3D printer or something.

Magic, that is the only way I can explain it.

I'm not saying that the kickstarter games are going to be or are bad, I just don't believe in paying for something if all the creator has come up with is a concept, I'm willing to try them once I actually see what the game is like. Also a lot of kickstarters I see are just putting a lot of buzz words in their pitch to drag people in and I don't buy into that BS.

 

[theultimateend]

I'm not saying that the kickstarter games are going to be or are bad, I just don't believe in paying for something if all the creator has come up with is a concept, I'm willing to try them once I actually see what the game is like. Also a lot of kickstarters I see are just putting a lot of buzz words in their pitch to drag people in and I don't buy into that BS.

It's a fair view, I wasn't challenging it. Same reason I try to never preorder real games.

But so far I've had good luck, I spent money on Terraria before it was really a thing, Minecraft, Zombicide, FTL, and others.

So far the worst luck I'm having in the last 5 or so years is with known entities, EA, Activision, etc. Bethesda has done me well and while I loathe them usually Obsidian has made some games that have consumed my life.

Overall I 'get it' I'm just happy to say I haven't lost any money yet.

 

[Murmillos]

A good majority of games on Kickstarter are there because publishers didn't want to publish those games in the first place, mostly because they know those games can't be turned into money milking cash cows...

Brian Fargo's Wasteland 2 is a good example. He could have either made a game that would have been muddled and muted that wasn't his vision that would have appealed to a "broader market", or get the funds from the people directly who would want a game just as he envisions it, with no publishing "dumbing down" compromise.

Funding a kickstarter into a game with only concept by unknowns; risky as fuck.

Funding a kickstarter into a game with only concepts, but by well known people who have made, developed and released largely successful games; less risky - but still some as an 11th issue could tank the still strong/good development team.

Funding a kickstarter into a game is nearly done but needs that final push for that polish, code tightening and adding extra content, but could still be released and be perfectly playable today; good deal.

So yea, you can't lump all kickstarter games into one group. And even my 3 examples covers just only most of what you'll find on kickstarter.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Fuck this guy. He sounds like he was hired to ruin Kickstarter's PR and sabotage the competition.

 

[Tony2077]

well all i know is without kickstarter nexus 2 wouldn't even be a possibility so i'm open minded about them

 

[Something Amyss]

Yes, Kickstarter is more risky than going into a shop, but it simply isn't true that every game on Kickstarter is there because they were turned down by traditional publishers, many have chosen Kickstarter first.

Which is kind of moot, because the scope of games publishers will support is getting narrower and narrower. So a publisher turning down something that's not a safe high yield deal doesn't mean it's necessarily bad.

Oh, what a strange world where I am actually defending Kickstarter.

 

[MrBrightside919]

Yes, Kickstarter is more risky than going into a shop, but it simply isn't true that every game on Kickstarter is there because they were turned down by traditional publishers, many have chosen Kickstarter first.

Which is kind of moot, because the scope of games publishers will support is getting narrower and narrower. So a publisher turning down something that's not a safe high yield deal doesn't mean it's necessarily bad.

Oh, what a strange world where I am actually defending Kickstarter.

Pretty much this^

Double Fine is a great example of this...