Kickstarter and dev transparency

[Pedro The Hutt]

It's occured to me that it's now been over ten months since the (in)famous Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter ended, and since then we've learned absolutely nothing about this unnamed, unspecified point & click game Schafer's supposedly making. Although personally I'm starting to have my suspicion a lot of the money's gone into funding the Amnesia Fortnight...

Anyhow, I find it a bit peculiar that with most other Kickstarted games, supporters start grumbling if no updates happen in a month, and have gone as far as accusing the developer of being a fraud who ran off with their money if they go without updates for three months. So how come, especially since the estimated delivery date of the game was October 2012, that no one is knocking on Double Fine's door and asking Mr. Schafer just when we'll get to know at least what the title or the premise of this game will be?

Furthermore, should there be a standardised (or at the least a heavily encouraged) update regime for devs making crowdfunded games to abide by, along with financial reports so backers can see just what their money is being spent on? Much like you'd see devs do with their publishers, and publishers with their shareholders, really.

 

[tippy2k2]

Well for Double Fine, I would guess people are giving them the benefit of the doubt since they are a proven developer versus so many other Kickstarter projects.

As to your broad question, this is why I don't do any Kickstarter projects. I don't have any clue what they're doing with the money; I don't have any clue if anything is actually going to be done; I don't have any clue who this person is who is taking my money; and so on.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

It's occured to me that it's now been over ten months since the (in)famous Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter ended, and since then we've learned absolutely nothing about this unnamed, unspecified point & click game Schafer's supposedly making. Although personally I'm starting to have my suspicion a lot of the money's gone into funding the Amnesia Fortnight...

Completely untrue. Sure, there hasn't been a lot of information given to non backers (an oversight for sure, but the game is still a ways off), but people who backed the kickstarter have gotten a ton of information, in the form of regular development updates, discussion on the backer forums, and episodes of the documentary series. In fact, I never saw this kind of developer openness before kickstarter.

So basically, the reason people aren't angry of a lack of information is that there is an abundance of information.

Oh, if you're wondering why they didn't meet their initial deadline, it's because the large amount of backer money dramatically increased the scope of the project, and there have been expected development delays. Plus, at this point, they feel that this game will decide the future of Double Fine, and want to make sure that it is as good as possible.

 

[BrotherRool]

Apart from anything else, it's just a missed opportunity. The dev reports by themselves were easily worth chipping a few pounds into Project Eternity.

Still I wouldn't want regulation, but companies should aim for some level of transparency. Double Fine are a big enough and famous enough company that I'll trust them to actually deliver though. Worst comes to worst they'd just call one of their others games 'it' and give it massive publicity.

As for the money, most of the money in game development goes to employ the people working on it. So it paying for amnesia fortnight isn't very likely, because that meant they only received enough money to employ people for 2 weeks. I'm not sure if it'd be particularly fair to publish those details online because that would involve revealing the wages of a lot of people and putting it out their for the internet to see.

And the other stuff, licensing etc, they've probably signed contracts that don't allow them to release their information. Youtube video creators aren't allowed to say how much they're paid, I could easily imagine Disney not letting people know how much licensing is worth

EDIT: Sorry didn't realise the OP wasn't a backer. I think it's only fair that backers get dev updates and the other people don't, it's a reward for trusting them

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

While backers should definitely be the first to get updates, ten months is a long time to be quiet to "outsiders" about it, even Obsidian has at least talked to the press a few times about how Project Eternity is coming along. Plus I'm rather surprised none of these updates have been leaked to gaming sites considering how big of a deal the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter was. But at least it's something of a comfort to know that Schafer isn't using the Kickstarter money to finance other pet projects.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I have to agree slightly with the OP here. While I do think backers should get the hogs share of information updates and whatnot, I still feel it's important to release information to those outside of that group. It's more out of respect to the crowd funding service than anything else seeing as how these projects wouldn't be where they are without it.

For exaple, let's say that I'm thinking of backing a newly announced project. If I have any doubts about the process, my first thought would be to see how those other big Kickstarted projects are coming along. Oh wait, I can't because I didn't back them. That leaves me in a tough spot where I'm just as likely to not bother funding anything as I am to kick some money in.

Developers who have been helped out by Kickstarter enrich the future of the entire service when they're more open to everyone, not just their backers.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I don't really see how they need to keep you up to date, they have the obligation to tell you what and when you get the product payed for but that is about it, everything else is their good will.
Since Double Fine did promise a running documentary that is understandable and even more understandable they made it exclusive.
But I don't expect others to do this sort of media circus, that shit takes a lot of time that should be going into the games so I primarily want them to shut their traps and do the bloody work.

I would however advise regulation on the submission part, near all these large projects came selling hot air alone, no concept, no project, just dropping their name and give us the damn money... not even garage devs come in with such wonky shit.