Kickstarters and Gaming

[FourCartridge]

NOTE: This is not the topic to plug in Kickstarters. It's meant to be a discussion on Kickstarter's effect on the industry.

Kickstarter is an American-based private for-profit company founded in 2009 that provides tools to raise funds for creative projects via crowd funding through its website. Ever since a rash of Kickstarters has dominated gaming news the past few weeks, the website has been all the rage as enough games to fill a console's launch have been put up. It's been called "the people's version of the NEA", and has gotten to the point where established names in the industry have turned to it to fulfill pet/dream games.

Some of them soar to popularity. Some count themselves lucky to have met the initial stretch goal. Some walk away empty handed, dreams crushed. Some run out of money halfway in development. Some fail commercially despite massive funding. The fates of something on the site are many.

Escapists, what say you on Kickstarter and it's effects on the gaming industry? Is it viable? Does it have a future? Will it eventually replace some models of publishing we have? Is it simply a fad?

 

[Neverhoodian]

Thanks to Kickstarter, Armikrog [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/armikrog/armikrog] is in the works. That alone makes it pretty much a godsend for me. Yes there have been a number of notable failures, but that's pretty much to be expected when a fair amount of risk is involved. To that I say "no risk, no reward."

While Kickstarter provides a way for budding hopefuls to get their feet wet with titles like FTL [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light], I believe its biggest impact has been giving a voice to series and genres that have been ignored or forgotten by the mainstream game industry. For example, we've heard rhetoric for years that space sims aren't popular, thus they aren't a profitable venture. That assumption has been blown out of the water by the enthusiasm and funding generated for titles like Star Citizen [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen?ref=live].

Kickstarter and similar crowdfunding sites provide the option for bringing such neglected gaming experiences back while simultaneously revealing just how close-minded, hypocritical and by-the-numbers the mainstream industry has become. With any luck, this may help to provide the kick in the pants triple-A publishers need. If not, then at least crowdfunding provides a good alternative.

 

[Sandjube]

It's great. It lets people create the games they want to make without the need for a publisher taking all their money while fucking them. So I reiterate; it's great.

 

[aozgolo]

While I generally like Kickstarters for providing an alternate route for developers to get published, I urge caution to pushing it too much as a "replacement" for traditional publishing.

It's no surprise that publishers in general like to "meddle" in a game's development, cutting content, censoring things, rushing the product, or changing it's entire focus into something else. Kickstarter allows developers to get back control over their product and design the game according to THEIR vision... for now.

The current model allows content creators to create the games "they" want and get funded, but despite a recent boost in popularity, the game market is by no means become "saturated" by kickstarters.

Let's fast forward a bit in time and assume that this model of game funding continues on it's current rate of growth and popularity. What will happen? Well we may experience an actual "shift" in the type of games being pushed through Kickstarter, we're already seeing non-indie companies using the service to fund their games, what if a larger majority began to do it?

Well despite the fact that you remove "meddlesome publishers" from the mix, you introduce a new problem of "majority market rules" where game sales dictate a game's "worthiness of being published". Most indie games won't be affected so much since they usually require smaller budgets, but what about AAA games?

Almost every gamer has a special game they can mention that is considered a "commercial flop" that they liked. Well imagine if a game relied on the publishing revenue only from future consumers. Planescape: Torment, is a game receiving some new life with a spiritual successor via a successful kickstarter campaign, a game with despite widespread critical acclaim it barely made any profit when originally released making it not economically feasible to pitch to most game publishers for a follow-up. In walks Kickstarter to save the day. What if Kickstarter is saturated though with games by studios who go traditional publishing routes? Well not all of them will get funded, with the huge budgets they require and gamers becoming more discerning in which games are worth their dollar, they will take on the publisher mindset and want to "minimize risks" by going with the same kind of games they already know and like.

Planescape: Torment pushed boundaries, it created a new type of RPG we seldom see, one with a very intricate and story-based way of playing that wasn't all combat. The fans spoke and are finally being given more. But without investors willing to make the risky bet on a new title like this, how will we get the next "new thing" like Torment with this model? We will get more of the games we want but the developers who want to try something new, something groundbreaking that goes into risky or strange territory are less likely to get customer's money than tried and true game franchises that they already enjoy.

Game publishers still need to exist to balance out the load so that Kickstarter doesn't lose it's competitive edge for indie developers to push new innovation.

It's possible I could be seen as the crazy guy on the corner prophesying "The End is Coming" but I think being made aware of this potential "worst case scenario" is imperative if we are to avoid the mistakes that would lead to it.

Do I think Publishers could learn a lot about meeting their customer's needs from Kickstarter? Sure! Do I think that Kickstarter should replace standard Game Publishing Methods? Absolutely not!

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

While Kickstarter provides a way for budding hopefuls to get their feet wet with titles like FTL [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light], I believe its biggest impact has been giving a voice to series and genres that have been ignored or forgotten by the mainstream game industry. For example, we've heard rhetoric for years that space sims aren't popular, thus they aren't a profitable venture. That assumption has been blown out of the water by the enthusiasm and funding generated for titles like Star Citizen [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen?ref=live].

Kickstarter and similar crowdfunding sites provide the option for bringing such neglected gaming experiences back while simultaneously revealing just how close-minded, hypocritical and by-the-numbers the mainstream industry has become. With any luck, this may help to provide the kick in the pants triple-A publishers need. If not, then at least crowdfunding provides a good alternative.

This, so many genres have been left by the wayside in the pursuit of big AAA profits.

It'll never completely replace the publisher model, but it provides a desperately needed alternate source of funding for both big names and smaller developers alike.

 

[Corven]

I think kickstarter is a good thing and I'm glad that it exists to allow people to have a way to show that there is interest in games that wouldn't exist otherwise, that being said I have only ever back one project (double fine's adventure game) and since them I've been reticent to back anything else, instead I've been taking the approach of "I'll buy the finished product rather than risk my money now" since even though the game was successfully created there still needs to be people at the end who buy it so it actually makes a profit.