Free Radical Co-Founder Cautions Against Kickstarter

[Tumedus]

I would rather give $20 to a developer to make something different that I might enjoy and have them fail to deliver than give $60 to a publisher for yet another recycled lazy mass appeal game.

Even if they have been shorter, content wise, I have had more fun in the last couple of years with smaller projects and "indie" titles than I have with any of the big name stuff I have purchased.

Sure there are risks, but right now game publishing is broken. Far too many game franchises are being ruined by the publisher's mandate and you can't count on reviews to let you know whether something is actually worth it or not.

Dangers or not, we need alternatives and this is a great first step to wringing control from the big bads (e.g. EA).

 

[ArchAngelKira]

Kind of a kick-stopper

 

[grigjd3]

In other news, Steve Ellis believes that if you aren't making a shooter, fuck off!

 

[oldtaku]

I think it's more of a red flag that publishers don't want to fund anything but Call of Duty, or if they do they want all the rights to it.

Yes, be careful on Kickstarter, but so far I'm very happy with where mine have gone. Some failed to fund (fine, no money lost), about half of them have delivered what they promised, and the rest are, well, we'll see. It's certainly well worth $50 each to me for just the /chance/ to have a decent Wasteland 2 or a new Project Eternity game as good as Planescape:Torment or Baldur's Gate 2.

 

[Sartan0]

In other news, Steve Ellis believes that if you aren't making a shooter, fuck off!

In many ways that is the publishers talking. (With some exceptions) As someone who likes other types of games as well I support Indies and Kickstarter. (That said I can afford to)

 

[Scars Unseen]

Jesus christ, could you people miss the point more? He's not saying all kickstarter projects are bad or anything even remotely similar. This is not the corporations attacking indie devs this is just a guy warning people who haven't made a career out of investing of the dangers of investing. Publishers don't fund based on "omg that sounds awesome", the average person might. When he says there might be a reason it couldn't get funding elsewhere he doesn't mean based on the quality of the game he means based on the quality of the pitch. Making a proposal isn't just "Here's what we want to make and it'll cost 300k." You have to have a detailed proposal outlining costs explaining why it will cost that much. You need a detailed production schedule outlining the steps of development and a further breakdown of the costs of each step. Even then you'll probably just be given enough for the first few steps to prove you can meet the budget and deadlines. And that's just a really basic breakdown. You're also going to have to present the full story, any design documents and any other pre-production work you have done so far.

So put down the god damn pitchforks. Someone might have a good idea, doesn't mean they can actually produce it.

Actually it seems that you are the one missing the point. No one contributing to Kickstarters is investing. All that lovely information that you just posted about budgets and deadlines? Irrelevant. You don't get a say in what the developer does any more than you get parental control over starving children in Africa that you might have donated money to. Investors have a long term stake in the success of a product. Kickstarter contributors do not.

Pledging money to Kickstarter is making a currency-backed statement of support and nothing more. You do so because you believe in what they are trying to create, and because you know that the mainstream publishers treat anything that isn't mainstream like it's toxic until it hits a popular critical mass, at which point they want to control it and make it mainstream. As long as people adhere to Andy's advice at the end of the article, no one is getting burned financially, and comparisons to the risks that publishers spending Hollywood sized budgets on Call of Duty clones take are far off the mark.

And if nothing comes of it? Well I've had lousy dinners I spent more money on. Didn't get a refund for those either.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Jesus christ, could you people miss the point more? He's not saying all kickstarter projects are bad or anything even remotely similar. This is not the corporations attacking indie devs this is just a guy warning people who haven't made a career out of investing of the dangers of investing. Publishers don't fund based on "omg that sounds awesome", the average person might. When he says there might be a reason it couldn't get funding elsewhere he doesn't mean based on the quality of the game he means based on the quality of the pitch. Making a proposal isn't just "Here's what we want to make and it'll cost 300k." You have to have a detailed proposal outlining costs explaining why it will cost that much. You need a detailed production schedule outlining the steps of development and a further breakdown of the costs of each step. Even then you'll probably just be given enough for the first few steps to prove you can meet the budget and deadlines. And that's just a really basic breakdown. You're also going to have to present the full story, any design documents and any other pre-production work you have done so far.

So put down the god damn pitchforks. Someone might have a good idea, doesn't mean they can actually produce it.

Actually it seems that you are the one missing the point. No one contributing to Kickstarters is investing. All that lovely information that you just posted about budgets and deadlines? Irrelevant. You don't get a say in what the developer does any more than you get parental control over starving children in Africa that you might have donated money to. Investors have a long term stake in the success of a product. Kickstarter contributors do not.

Pledging money to Kickstarter is making a currency-backed statement of support and nothing more. You do so because you believe in what they are trying to create, and because you know that the mainstream publishers treat anything that isn't mainstream like it's toxic until it hits a popular critical mass, at which point they want to control it and make it mainstream. As long as people adhere to Andy's advice at the end of the article, no one is getting burned financially, and comparisons to the risks that publishers spending Hollywood sized budgets on Call of Duty clones take are far off the mark.

And if nothing comes of it? Well I've had lousy dinners I spent more money on. Didn't get a refund for those either.

Apologies, should have stuck to saying funding. The point still stands though, I was just saying that a dev not getting funding doesn't necessarily have to do with what they're making but whether it's likely they can actually deliver. That's all this is saying. Try to find out why a product couldn't get funding, it could be that the devs didn't have anything worthwhile to present rather than just publishers just want more CoD (the latter obviously happens a lot though).

Ah, so the standard caveat emptor? Yeah, that I can agree with. I've seen some Kickstarters that I haven't agreed with, certainly. The Pathfinder MMO comes to mind. Mostly because it wasn't trying to avoid investors, but rather to take advantage of Kickstarter to create a demo to attract investors. The contributors don't even get to see the demo except for one guy that pledged $2,000.

 

[Darkness665]

The problem with the fees that platforms want, that publishers charge, that everybody that isn't actually in the business to make a game actually decreases the cost of making a game. Gambling on Kickstarter is fine. I am done gambling on AAA (as if) games that deliver 6+ hours of single player and are not returnable. EA current boss says he hasn't green lighted a single player game. Odd, I haven't bought an EA game since that jackass has been in charge.

What is he doing today? Since he has no intention of doing TimeSplitters * HD then why is he crying on about Kickstarter? Really, who cares? He just sounds like typical entrenched industry crapper with no future potential.

Maybe he is writing a book.

 

[Daveman]

Well I think it's also often the case that these developers don't want to deal with publishers rather than the other way around.

 

[Something Amyss]

Pretty much this^

Double Fine is a great example of this...

One thing's for sure, they're not some dodgy fly-by-night organisation.