Only 1/3 of Kickstarter video games deliver the game

[Lias]

http://evilasahobby.com/2014/01/18/kickstander-only-around-a-third-of-kickstarted-video-game-projects-fully-deliver-to-their-backers/

Pretty good reason to consider Kickstarter projects as a lottery. Don't expect to see a return, and if you do, be happy.

[han16]

Kick starter has always just seamed like a way to enable peoples whims.

Personally I prefer to pay for a finished or near finished product (lol battlefield 4).

[Speakman]

Interesting, although can't say I'm surprised. Would love to see a similar stat for all projects, rather than just games

[Clin]

You don't pay a builder up front.

[Mayhem_Lee]

Star Citizen..... https://robertsspaceindustries.com/about-the-game

[prolax]

lol that funding

I pledged :/

[Clin]

I thought star citizen was coming along nicely?

[Arseynimz]

I hate to say it, but I would never pay for Kickstarter software. The ability for the product you want to be oversold is far too high, where all the items I have kickstarted have been nothing but exactly or more than what was offered.

I personally think the game developer logic for non-AAA titles tends to sway towards "if I can make this game I can get a job with a dev company, and work it from there". Of course there exceptions, but so many of the "indie" titles you look at, just turn to shit. That's just my view of kickstarter titles though - Steam Greenlight is a different and awesome thing; regulation on a platform makes a shit load of difference.

[Mayhem_Lee]

lol that funding

I pledged :/

I also have pledged.... and splurged. RSI Constellation and Anvil Gladiator for my Space Planes

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

Star citizen looks awesome. But I've always found kick-starter to be a bit of a scam. It's a good concept, and there are worthy projects on there, but there are also a lot of people just wanting to make a quick buck.

[prolax]

Star citizen looks awesome. But I've always found kick-starter to be a bit of a scam. It's a good concept, and there are worthy projects on there, but there are also a lot of people just wanting to make a quick buck.

Yeah definitely seems to be the case.

Star Citizen seems to be making millions on an ideal vision of a space-mmo, I just hope it lives up to the legendary hype. I pledged as little as I could just to get me Alpha access – that'll be the day.


@arseynimz

Steam is removing greenlight

EDIT sauce: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-looking-to-discontinue-steam-greenlight-and-steam-os-may-have-exclusives/1100-6417155/

[Arseynimz]

@arseynimz

Steam is removing greenlight

Well fuck.

[Lias]

@arseynimz

Steam is removing greenlight

Well fuck.

No they aren't.

Gabe said “Our goal is to make Greenlight go away,” said Newell. “Not because it’s not useful, but because we’re evolving.”

From what I've read they want to make it easier to self publish games, even in very early stages of development, so that the whole community voting side "aka greenlight" goes away, because publishing with steam is so easy that dev's dont need to get public votes to do it.

[Tiwaking!]

Pff I already called BS on Kickstarter

Kickstarter encourages people with no planning skills think they can be successful without any talent, idea, or skills

The weird thing is when BIG NAMES IN GAMING use Kickstarter as their own personal begging ground, PETER MOLYNEAUX and you too TIM SCHAFER

Then again, Im a big curmudgeon and dislike the whole idea of e-Begging. Yahtzee "Ben Crowshaw"'s video on early release brought out a whole bunch of stupid in the Escapist forums

A large percentage of the comments are "Yahtzee shouldnt have done this to games that arent finished!" blissfully ignoring the fact that:
a) If you sell something for money, it better be worth it.
b) If you promise something for money, then you better make good on your promise.

Kickstarter skips step A, gets to step B and then just straight out cashes in

edit: Tim Schafer is ten times worse than Levine

[DarkVirus]

Should have kickstarted getsome, i could do with a beer.

[kilabee]

You don't pay a builder up front.

No you get him to fund your entire renovation and make him wait for months for payment. Fuck you S. B****** of ellerslie.

[Bounty Hunter]

This is the stupidest shit I have ever seen:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/quebee/quebee-your-own-personal-cameraman?ref=live

[Tiwaking!]

Early on in YouTube history people would (ab)use Kickstarter by linking their videos with Kickstarter accounts and trying to get people to pledge. What for? To pay their living expenses so they can continue 'making content' of course!

There was one dude who wanted money to go on a trip to New York for "motivational experience". He lived in Boston. Boston is 346.6 km away from New York. That is 3 hours and 37 minutes distance for all you thickies out there.

However, all this electronic panhandling is completely against YouTube rules which forbid such ebegging so most of the accounts either got banned or stopped doing it

Should have kickstarted getsome, i could do with a beer.

That is a good idea! Why hasnt anyone else thought of that yet?!

This is the stupidest shit I have ever seen:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/quebee/quebee-your-own-personal-cameraman?ref=live

It hurts me to think this is the future somebody out there invested in

[Bounty Hunter]

This is how I imagine most kick starter developers

[Plasma]

lol that funding

I pledged :/

I also have pledged.... and splurged. RSI Constellation and Anvil Gladiator for my Space Planes

I may have pledged a bit.



Banu Merchantman, F7C-M Super Hornet,F7A Military Hornet Upgrade, Freelancer Physical package, Lightspeed  package, 1 T-Shirt, 1 Polo Shirt + subs

[Tiwaking!]

I may have pledged a bit.



Banu Merchantman, F7C-M Super Hornet,F7A Military Hornet Upgrade, Freelancer Physical package, Lightspeed  package, 1 T-Shirt, 1 Polo Shirt + subs

Woah. I thought the people who made Naruto - Minecraft were crazy for offering to let people play as Uchiha for $20 USD

Compared to them, Star Citizen must print money

[Plasma]

I may have pledged a bit.


Banu Merchantman, F7C-M Super Hornet,F7A Military Hornet Upgrade, Freelancer Physical package, Lightspeed  package, 1 T-Shirt, 1 Polo Shirt + subs

Woah. I thought the people who made Naruto - Minecraft were crazy for offering to let people play as Uchiha for $20 USD

Compared to them, Star Citizen must print money

It prints money like crazy, during the sale in November on the 26th and 27th they pulled in $1.1m each day in funding.

[BeNZene]

http://evilasahobby.com/2014/01/18/kickstander-only-around-a-third-of-kickstarted-video-game-projects-fully-deliver-to-their-backers/

Pretty good reason to consider Kickstarter projects as a lottery. Don't expect to see a return, and if you do, be happy.

You are looking at it slightly wrong. This is not a lottery, and not really pre-ordering a product. It is small scale venture capital investment to fund a business. The whole point of kickstarter is to enable small firms to obtain funding at an early stage from fans, rather than having to convince VC firms, banks or large game developers.  They will almost certainly need further injections of funding from those sources, but once they have the product underway then its much easier.

But overall most new business ventures fail.  In something as speculative as media, I think 1/3 getting made would be a pretty good strike rate. Peter Theil made a shitload of money investing VC money in Facebook at an early stage.  But for every startup that made money, I bet he funded 10 that didn't.  (Wikipedia gives a list of 23, not counting his investment in Xero...)

So, view your money as a speculative investment with a 1/3 chance of paying off.

[Pyromanik]

Everyone is missing the point (except Benzene who's post I just read).

Kickstarter is not 'pre-ordering' something.
It's donating money to give something a chance at existing in the first place. The idea is that you think "oh yeah, this might be cool" and flick a couple of bucks it's way. Not that you go "oh wow this will be magic when it's made, I'll pre-order now & get even more free shit than others because I'm a greedy self serving twat." and then giving a full market value for a finished product of ilk.

Now, many many software companies often provide a pre-order type situation as an incentive to pledge. But in reality anyone who EXPECTS a game in return is just foolish. It's not a pre-order, and this mentality is doing it VERY wrong (to the detriment of crowd funding everywhere).

As far as I'm aware there doesn't need to be this kind of incentive or reward for reaching goal at all. You could just get a personalised thank you card from the dev. But this is the way things have turned because the folks hitting kickstarter are generally too stupid to think in other terms (being consumers rather than investors) and because they've generally found the page by thinking "What do I want" rather than "what would be cool to have available".

Moving on to star citizen... Yes this is a very successful project, it's raised a tonne of capital and has made good on many of it's incentives already. Most include a mere portion of the game, ie a free ship, etc. even though I think it's a 'pre-order' type arrangement in general.

So people look at folks who spend uber dollars on this and go "how fucking sad" and "wtf that's waaaaaaay too much to spend on a game!" etc. And that's COMPLETELY the wrong way to look at this. They're not 'buying the game' at all. They're investing to help it reach fruition at all (not that it really needs much more at this point but that's beside the point). The amount that has been invested (overall or by any individual) isn't a measure of how they're printing money, it's a measure of how MUCH the community want to see this succeed.

And then people start going on about what a waste it is to buy something that is essentially just known as DLC in other circles (with DLC's many negative connotations attached if you have that mindset).
And I too was guilty of this, until one day I thought about it a lot.
Yes, you're buying an in-game spaceship, something that you can never touch, never show other people unless you're in game, and may not be all that persistent in the long run.
Then I thought about train sets. The kind of folks who spend mega bucks to set up a miniature life like resemblence of real lines, or realistic townships with a station, etc. It's not all that much different. It's stashed away in a room and isn't all that portable at all. You can only show someone if they come over to see, etc.

Star Citizen (and others like it) are basically modern day train sets.

And Kickstarter isn't about providing a whole pre-assembled and painted set that's too big to get into your house.

Kickstarter IS an investment tool for simultaneously both gaining funding AND prooving a market niche that needs to be filled at the same time.

[toofast]

http://evilasahobby.com/2014/01/18/kickstander-only-around-a-third-of-kickstarted-video-game-projects-fully-deliver-to-their-backers/

Pretty good reason to consider Kickstarter projects as a lottery. Don't expect to see a return, and if you do, be happy.

You are looking at it slightly wrong. This is not a lottery, and not really pre-ordering a product. It is small scale venture capital investment to fund a business. The whole point of kickstarter is to enable small firms to obtain funding at an early stage from fans, rather than having to convince VC firms, banks or large game developers.  They will almost certainly need further injections of funding from those sources, but once they have the product underway then its much easier.

But overall most new business ventures fail.  In something as speculative as media, I think 1/3 getting made would be a pretty good strike rate. Peter Theil made a shitload of money investing VC money in Facebook at an early stage.  But for every startup that made money, I bet he funded 10 that didn't.  (Wikipedia gives a list of 23, not counting his investment in Xero...)

So, view your money as a speculative investment with a 1/3 chance of paying off.

I think its also a case of being smart with the projects. I found electronics projects generally deliver (if not at a much later date), because they usually have a working prototype and have actually put the time into how to build the production models (often they even have a few prod ones made up, and just need money for dies etc). Furthermore anyone looking to make big runs often works in the electronics industry themselves and knows exactly how to get stuff to market/have the knowledge of how to do it.

In contrast games seem to have a fairly bad streak because people underestimate how hard it is to make a game. And from what i have read (read a lot of the why kickstarter project x failed), people don't know how to manage money for things like this. There's no 10k invoice to pay a manufacturer for parts, so people spend it on stuff like promo gear, or flying people places etc. Then realize they are short of money to pay for things they need to complete the project.