Crowdfunding in general

What do you guys think about crowdfunding? That its newest fad that will pass? That it has changed game industry by giving alternative to publishers and such as long you don't want to make high budget game or have old series to revive? That it will be abused at some point with scams or some highly funded game will flop completely and/or not even release the game?

Also, are there any noteworthy projects completed on crowdfunding and other crowdfunding sites than Kickstarter? I've heard about Rocket Hub but not sure what that is like.

There's also IndieGoGo. It seems to be the biggest choice for people without American bank accounts to put projects on.

I love crowdfunding. Not just for gaming but for all sorts of things. I hope this really takes off. I want to see a new kind of entrepreneurship emerging. There are attempts to change laws so that people who pledge to a crowdfunded project can actually receive shares of the profits, like they owed actual equity. It would be awesome if investment and entrepreneurship weren't completely dependent on mega VC firms. Hopefully the gaming "fad" will allow it to grow to so much more.

What's crowdfunding?

^Read wiki, you haven't heard of whole Kickstarter thing I guess?..

To make a long story short, crowdfunding is basically like shopping an idea around to publishers so that they can fund the game. Except replace publishers with Internet using public, and you've got the basis of crowdfunding.

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I think this guy says it best.

...speak of the devil:

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/22/kickstarter-alternative-gambitious-coming-to-europe-this-summe/

...hmm. Like I said I love the idea of "shares" in the game but aren't there legal issues involved? Especially considering this applies to all of Europe? I'll remain cautiously optimistic towards this.

Its kind of annoying how people forget that Kickstarter isn't just for funding games

Those Extra Credits guys are still around? Shit, I loathe them.

Kickstarter is pretty damn cool, but I feel that people should not rush into this so fast. There's a lot of cool stuff like Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun and that Doublefine game being funded, but at the same time there seems to be a lot of crappy game ideas being proposed by people who know jack shit about games. I have the feeling that if too much of the crappy stuff is sent forward, it'll discredit the whole thing and possibly put it into a coma, kind of like how really shitty 3D movies kept knocking 3D out of the theatres every single time it comes back.

edited 23rd Apr '12 4:40:39 AM by Kev-O

@Spooky Mask: This is video game subforum, after all...although there's now a design project that broke all records before...$3m in first day or 2 only...even Doublefine project is blown out of water...

Gambitious...I'm not quite sure on how well this will work...seems like if the backed project flops, you won't get anything, or just plain losing out...

edited 23rd Apr '12 5:42:38 AM by onyhow

Oh absolutely. While many of the 20 or so projects I helped fund were games, I think it's an awesome way to fund just about any sort of enterprise or creative venture and I don't want to see this just used for games. I thought about whether it would be beneficial to spin off the games section of Kickstarter to a different site but as the post Double Fine statistics showed, people brought in by these project do pledge for projects other than games and it wouldn't be fair to potentially cut off so much potential support.

There have been several mishaps with prior projects way before this (off the top of my head there was the film student that asked for money for his senior project and ended up plagiarizing a French film, a 350 dollars jellyfish tank that ended up killing the jellies, etc). Hell, even I had a bad experience once: No Time To Explain. The game looked awesome in the trailer but the end result looked like barely a step above the original Flash game. It even had some REALLY shoddily made sections, like having floating "water" that were literally floating blue squares. A HUGE disappointment.

Still, unless something really bad happens (on the magnitude of a product killing people or someone running off with several million dollars) I don't see this going away any time soon.

edited 23rd Apr '12 6:05:23 AM by Psyclone

@Kev-O: Whats wrong with Extra Credits btw? .-. You find them too analytical? Too positive? Too "Games are art"?

Eh, I don't really care about them being really positive, it's just that I disagree with what they think makes games "art" and that they really either state the obvious or overanalyze stuff. That video they did about the themes of fucking Missile Command was the worst video they've made that I have watched.

I think you missed the entire point of the show then....

Also they have a tendency to not know shit about certain genres and their examples of stuff tend to be really bad or just plain wrong.

But ignoring Extra Credits, I think crowdfunding can be a good idea as long as funders are informed enough to pick out scams and the developer doesn't succumb too badly to fan feedback.

I've seen one kickstarter where a big enough donation makes the backer a producer and the hardcore tactical shooter (Takedown?) had some tiers where backing would put you in a conference call where you'd give ideas to the developer and he'd incorporate them. Tiers like those are just silly and put the developer at the whim of some random people on the net which is sort of against the idea of crowdfunding in the first place (i.e. not being at the whim of marketing and people backing simply because they like the original idea). I'm not saying the developers shouldn't incorporate fan feedback, but there needs to be a good consensus on those ideas and the developer themselves should be the ones to decide whether it'll work in the context of their game.

As a business model I mainly see this working for established developers like Schafer and Fargo among others. Those are the guys that'll bring in the big money. For everyone else they'd either need a well known IP like Shadowrun or a lot of evidence of gameplay and screenshots etc like Banner Saga did (yeah I know those guys are exBioware but would they have gotten the same amount if it weren't for the fantastic art style?). Even then the lesser known guys will need to ask for less money, Banner Saga got quite a lot of money but they didn't get as much money as DFA, WL 2 or Shadowrun.

Overall I see this as a good idea to get devs to make the games they want (and the games the niche audiences want) without being forced to just follow the trends of AAA marketing.

edited 23rd Apr '12 5:56:30 PM by ShadowScythe

@Kev-O: Well, apparently whole nightmare thing over the game is true and Missile Command page is also treating it rather seriously

And objective analyzing kind of requires you to state the obvious And how so they are wrong about what makes games art? What YOU think makes games art or you think they aren't art?

Besides, isn't point of show to basically learn about how game industry works through funny pictures?

@Shadow Scythe: Only one I can think of is Fallout New Vegas. Really, its rather apparent they haven't played first two Fallout considering how they cite Fallout 3 for great writing

edited 23rd Apr '12 8:19:34 PM by SpookyMask