211 - Is Kickstarter Dead?

Developer diaries about creating Neverending Nightmares.
ranger_lennier
Posts: 250
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 5:37 pm

Re: 211 - Is Kickstarter Dead?

Post by ranger_lennier »

matt wrote:It is REALLY tough to plan a reasonable ship date and stick to it. It was a real challenge to get Neverending Nightmares out on time, and it's something we totally failed to do on Retro/Grade. In hindsight, we probably should have cancelled Retro/Grade, but had we taken kickstarter money, that would have been really challenging.
I don't know that you should have cancelled it. It sounds like you had a good game well before it actually shipped, but just couldn't seem to send it out into the world. I know you've talked about lots of things that took up a lot of time while rarely being used by players, like the various challenges and supporting so many controllers. And maybe the biggest thing, it sounded like to me, was all the cycles of reworking the graphics. As pretty as the backgrounds were, at times I actually found them to be so busy that they made the gameplay more difficult.

Perhaps in the alternate universe with a Kickstarted Retro/Grade, there would have been more pressure to at least roughly stick to the original schedule and budget, and you'd have made a game that was nearly as good in half the time or less.
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evilkinggumby
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Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 8:41 pm

Re: 211 - Is Kickstarter Dead?

Post by evilkinggumby »

I checked a rev iew of Retro/Grade and it seemed pretty kool. I am not as into buying schmups, nor rythm games, so nothing there for me to appreciate first hand, but the design, concept, and execution look really well done. It's hard to believe you made that and this game.

Here is likely an unpopular idea to toss out there.. Since Kickstarter is a fundraising method, what if they added a policy so that major backers had the right to pull funding if the project seemed to go south in a significant way (stall, fraud, mismanagement of resources, etc). Or for lower tier funders, a 'petition' could be signed, similar to a class action lawsuit, where if enough funders collectively chose to "pull out" the dev would be forced to forfeit a chunk of those petitioners funding at say 60% face value. So if 1000 people were up in arms with a game's direction/development and chose to pull their $10 investment, they'd get a refund of $6. It would make the "risk" a lot higher for the dev's, but it also could weed out a lot of the smallest folk throwing their hat in the ring without risking much of their own money on a successful campaign.

It would also mark some very interesting reports and situations where a studio banking millions could potentially lose large bits of funding if they try and pull a dick move and put out a lackluster game, a game nothing like they promised, or a game missing major features that were promised at release. :)

Like I said, I am sure dev's would HATE this change, but it'd add more risk and potential accountability to the mix. This would, of course, actually require KS intervention to some degree, so there'd be very specific policy changes to any divisions of KS that would be related. It wouldn't necessarily be locked to game design, as this could apply to all kinds of fundraisers.

Or alternately, KS locks in a set percentage of the total raised (15% as an example) and places it in an account, holding it for the initial 6 months to 1 year of the project, then reviews the petition file for backers to see if there is enough people up in arms to use it as a 'refund pool' and if no one is griping, it is released to the fundraisers. KS would be able to collect interest while holding the funds, which in itself could be substantial. That would generally require less oversight, and would at least give SOME backers a method to refund (again, likely at a loss) but the fundraisers would know of the potential and could accommodate. losing that 15% would suck, but not as much as the red mark on their rep for future work.
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matt
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Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:48 am

Re: 211 - Is Kickstarter Dead?

Post by matt »

As pretty as the backgrounds were, at times I actually found them to be so busy that they made the gameplay more difficult.
Yeah... I know what you mean. That was a common complaint. I kind of knew it would be an issue, but I didn't really want to admit it because we spent so much time on the effects and everything.. :-/

I don't think anything like that would work for kickstarter. Kickstarter gets a cut from Amazon and then washes their hands of it. The project creators get everything in one lump sum and is free to budget things as they choose. I don't think kickstarter would want to do any sort of management because I imagine then they could be legally liable. It would be a change that both creators and kickstarter would not like, so I can't see that happening ever.

I think crowdfunding will always have inherent risk for the crowd. I don't think there can be any system that really protects backers. Even if you are professional investor, you can lose your money on a bad investment...
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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