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Why are some great adventures underperforming at Kickstarter?

Total Posts: 6

Joined 2007-08-22

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Bill Tiller (MI3) has been having problems to kickstart his last games (he did manage to fund his last one, but couldn´t do it with Vampire Story 2), also the wonderful looking “The new adventures of Dog Mendoza and Pizza boy” seems to be underperforming(it´s still running though):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/942343365/the-interactive-adventures-of-dog-mendonca-and-piz
what´s amazing is that other games that don´t seem to have much to offer have been fully founded.
I´m trying to develop my own project, and it´s very difficult to come with something that looks as good as this “Dog Mendoza” project (great 2D graphics, amazing animations and a darkhorse comic IP), I mean, what else could you ask for?
So, I was wondering if some of you knew the secret pattern of why some games that have it all perform so bad in kickstart

     
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Total Posts: 2653

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KS projects are most of the time about people finding projects about products they’ve been wanting for some time or something they just realize they want. In short demand is a factor. When adventures became big there was not onlya a demand for adventure games as such, but there also was a nostalgic demand for the old devs to come back to the genre in either making true sequels or spiritual ones to their previous work.

When people pledge they pledge for an idea. If the idea is something they can live without it doesn’t matter how good something looks. Also it needs to be acknowledged that KS pledges are down by half from last year, while there’s more projects, so less money, more takers.

     
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Total Posts: 966

Joined 2005-11-29

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Bill Tiller has been trying to Kickstart episodic games at non-episodic prices, which is not very appealing, as much as I’d like to see those games get made.

Kickstarter as a whole has been slumping a lot. Part of that is that a lot of the high profile projects have already happened, and there’s just less attention on the site as a whole.

Part of it is also that there’s less naive optimism. In the adventure community, we’ve seen some pretty visible disappointments (Moebius, SpaceVenture, even Broken Age if you ask some people) and people are just more cautious in general.

Personally, I still believe in KS, and I’m pretty happy with what KS has yielded for this genre, but I also don’t feel as much need to get behind yet another adventure when I’ve backed so many already, and several have still not been completed. In another year when all those games are out, I might be more interested.

     

Total Posts: 930

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I think people are turned off of Kickstarter for a number of reasons.
They contribute thinking they are going to get a game of the same quality as what they were able to buy in the 1990’s, only with better graphics and 2014 production values. Instead they get either a much shorter game or one with graphics shortcomings/animation problems, and/or with a lot of bugs (not that some 1990’s games didn’t need patches at first release, but people tend to forget about that).

Some people contribute an extra $100 or more per Kickstarter in order to get the overpriced “boxed version” or other physical extras—something that would have been standard with a game from the 1990’s (or at least included with the Collector’s edition)—yet in most cases the boxed version is a long time coming—if it comes at all—and updates on its situation are vague. If you want a physical copy, you are often treated like scum. Sometimes boxed versions require Steam, and are useless as archives, yet this is undisclosed in the description. It makes you want to give up on games—or at least to stop gambling away more of your money on Kickstarters.

Some people contribute to what is described as a “DRM-free” game and then find out the developers’ idea of DRM-free is not the same as theirs. No one can trust what “DRM-free” means any more. It may mean you have to have the Steam client installed and a Steam account in order to download the game. It may mean having to sign up and give your email and possibly other personal information to a 3rd party site you’ve never heard of before (and want nothing to do with). It doesn’t necessarily mean a key for a well-known site like GOG or even a download direct from the developer’s website. So when the Kickstarter for Dog Mendonca and Pizza Boy says “Backers will get a 100% DRM-free version and Steam key!” I have no idea what that actually means. How are they planning to provide the DRM-free copy? They need to be more specific, because at this point I can’t be bothered to write to them and ask—and neither can a lot of others.

     

Total Posts: 1891

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lennon - 23 October 2014 11:50 PM

I mean, what else could you ask for?

the kickstarter allure has died down and the reality has set in that most of these kickstarters struggle greatly to produce what they aimed to, and often times the product comes out muuuuuch later than stated, and often times the finished product suffers from technical issues. And the possibility that the product never finishes is very real. The best kickstarter projects are the ones that didnt need kickstarter to make their game (for example, book of unwritten tales 2).

     
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Total Posts: 7109

Joined 2005-09-29

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Still i have seen some successful campaigns, like Pathologic and
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/molassesflood/the-flame-in-the-flood

You can see the game and rightaway tell the potential.

I think KS itself is good indicator of need (even after dried down fad), if there is need for certain game, backers will come like flies.

For your game put it on KS with reasonable target, if people want it they will come.

How you promote it also can do wonders.

     
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lennon - 23 October 2014 11:50 PM

So, I was wondering if some of you knew the secret pattern of why some games that have it all perform so bad in kickstart

I beats me, but it is a question I have asked myself for a very long time.

As many has pointed out, right now is not the best time for a new kickstarter, but that some has failed and others succeeded without any apparent differences, apart from a few high profile campaigns, is something that has been happening almost since the beginning of kickstarter.

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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Total Posts: 1555

Joined 2005-12-06

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I guess some projects just don’t get the same hype as the others do. Part of it is of course about how they present their product and how they promote it, but in these days it can be the smallest thing that makes you suddenly very visible in the net and then loads of people swarm in to throw money at you. And some projects just don’t hit that. I’ve been disappointed a few times when a very interesting game just doesn’t seem to get the support.

     

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Total Posts: 8998

Joined 2004-01-05

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I think a big part is having the luck/connections/friends to have your game advertised in sites with large number of hits.

     
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Total Posts: 38

Joined 2014-10-24

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wilco - 24 October 2014 07:38 PM

I think a big part is having the luck/connections/friends to have your game advertised in sites with large number of hits.

Personally I do think the biggest factor in success with anything in life is down to your connections, Kickstarter is no different. Absolutely the public interest (in games specifically) on Kickstarter has slumped quite a bit of late, however there are still projects getting 5000 odd backers and it’s no surprise that these are the ones getting the most press attention because of their connections already in the industry. Nevertheless I think this means that Kickstarter as a platform is still a great thing to get games made that otherwise wouldn’t, however only a few will succeed.

This is obviously quite personal as we ourselves are trying to Kickstart our own adventure game at the moment. We’re well aware however that we’re nobodies, with limited resources and connections. We believe in our idea I the vast majority of people that see the game are won over by it but we’ve really struggled to get any press attention because, well, as one Microsoft employee told us recently, as far as they’re concerned we’re ‘hobbyists’, to small for them to be concerned about.

We are well aware that we are going to have an uphill struggle but there’s no point being bitter about it, you’ve just got to try and convince folks like yourselves to get behind our campaign.

     
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Total Posts: 8471

Joined 2011-10-21

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@ WillBarr: I guess in your case you already have the advantage of having done a (failed) Kickstarter campaign before. The visibility that it gave you seems to have worked on your new campaign, so you’re already as far after two days as you were after the entire previous campaign…
Of course, it also helps that you have more to show now that we’re a year further on in development.

     

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Total Posts: 38

Joined 2014-10-24

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What failed Kickstarter???... Sealed Lips

I’ve done all I can to block that horrendous experience from my memory! Tongue

Yes, this time things have started considerably better than before, this is mostly thanks to so many of our previous backers coming out to support us again, although now that they’re onboard we need to go through the same arduous process of trying to get the press to cover us again. One website that has covered us loads is one called Pocket Gamer, and this I would attribute largely to the fact that ‘m friends with one of their former editors. He hasn’t written the articles himself (for obvious conflict of interest purposes), however he has obviously mentioned us to his colleagues who’ve then looked at our stuff where in many other places it would have fallen on deaf ears.

I’m not saying that the press will cover you just because you know someone, however very often that’s how you get noticed above all the other noise. Your stuff has to be good enough for them to justify covering of course, but this is often a big hurdle, particularly for indie devs who typically don’t do the whole networking thing all that well! (I know I’m terrible at it, find it very awkward)

     
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WillBarr - 25 October 2014 02:35 PM

What failed Kickstarter???... Sealed Lips

I’ve done all I can to block that horrendous experience from my memory! Tongue

Just think of yourselves as the Rocky movies - you may have lost the first round, but you lost with grace and now you’ll turn it around and stand victorious in the sequel!

     
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Total Posts: 95

Joined 2010-11-01

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Early access has taken a lot of the potential Kickstarter crowd. Goes up on Steam, you buy it, and play it during alpha/beta/whatever. It’s also proof that the game will actually exist… in some form, though a few developers stopped updating with their game in a poor state.

I last pledged to a Kickstarter in December (The Mandate), mostly for financial reasons but I’d still find the spare cash if there was something that *really* interested me like Jane Jensen and Broken Sword KS’ did.

Currently playing Divinity: Original Sin which I pledged to and which is living proof of how good Kickstarters can be. What a fantastic game, as I thought Broken Sword 5 also was.

     
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Total Posts: 38

Joined 2014-10-24

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Stuart - 25 October 2014 05:08 PM

Early access has taken a lot of the potential Kickstarter crowd…

Totally agree with that Stuart, and for most genres of games (certainly ones that are more mechanic driven) this is a fantastic way to get your game to people and pay for development. Everyone wins (provided you actually follow through with development of course, that or you’re just ripping people off).

This doesn’t really work for adventure games though, from our point of view, we want to tell a really amusing story, but a joke the second time around is never as funny as the first and it would be very dull for players having them play iterations of your story throughout development.

That being said Stuart we do have a demo of our game you can play…

... Perhaps if you have a play of that it’ll draw you back to Kickstarter Wink

     

Total Posts: 6

Joined 2007-08-22

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Well, congrats, Willbar, I see your team did it.
It also seems that DogMedoza did it too.

I´ve learned a lot with this thread.
Frogacuda your complains make a lot of sense and it gave me the “backer” perspective.
One other aspect that came here is that you can kickstarting twice (I thought you couldn´t).
Another thing I´ve been seeing is that some people seems to get there at the last minute, even when it really looks like they won´t. It looks like they put the money their selves when they get to a certain amount.
I´ve even found a few projects whos maths didn´t made sense (it said they were founded, but when you added all the backers the numbers didn´t add up).

I still think that many of the current renassance of graphic adventure games lays in
1.the return to pixelated art (wich is much much cheaper),
2.episodic delivery (good for financing but not that good for playing)
3.KS, wich seems to me pretty flawed as a system, since it puts the “backers” in a weird position wich force the developers to made stupid rewards instead of giving them the actual roll they should have (shareholders). I really don´t like how it has been used, I´m one of those people that thought that broken age -regardless of the quality of the game- was a rip off in several ways.
PS: I don´t think I´ll use KS for the moment.

     

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