Adventure Gamers - Forums

wilco - 02 October 2014 03:42 AM

Everybody was aware of the decline in kickstarter game pledges but there was a study to confirm it:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-02-kickstarter-games-in-2014-are-making-less-than-half-what-they-did-last-year

$27,023,480 in comparison to last year $57,934,417.

another article of same content:
Funding for Kickstarter Games in 2014 Drops by More Than Half
http://news.yahoo.com/funding-kickstarter-games-2014-drops-172600896.html

^ Perfectly understandable. This is exactly why Stasis is the only game I’ve backed on Kickstarter. It’s original, and it looks amazing. Granted, I’d been following the development for a while before the Kickstarter campaign, but still.
It’s also why The St. Christopher’s School Lockdown is one of my most anticipated games. It looks fresh, like they’re trying something just a little different with the genre.

That’s also why I feel that Kickstarter should really be for the small indie devs who are sitting on innovative concepts…

more than three years ago i asked this question and the most answers were different than i expected now how does it feel, does it feel the same,  would any support the ones he/she did before again with new projects, (that if there is)?

Well, I would still back any project that really rings close to my heart.

Luckily for me, all major projects I’ve backed have already delivered the product they’ve promised - well the games themselves, at least - whether they were everything I hoped for… is a subject for a different occasion.

Last year I backed only 3 crowdfunding projects. One of them was by a developer who has delivered on his promises at leas in my opinion. The other two were low level, under 10 dollar, pledges on games I thought looked promising and seem to be on good track. But all in all I’d say crowdfunding doesn’t do it for me anymore: I don’t skim proposed projects in order to find something interesting, I largely just don’t care about them anymore.

The last pledge I made was in last november and even that was a 50/50 call if I’d cancel it. In the end I just forgot that I had made it and I don’t even follow the project. Before I was active in taking part in forum discussions about the development and what not, but now I’ll just let the ship do its sailing as I know the company that’s making it will get something done, but I’m just not that interested in following it anymore just like I’m not that interested in following the developement of the two other projects I backed back in last May.

In fact the only project I’ve been monitoring more closely is Thimbleweed Park, but all others I don’t care that much at the moment as in reality most developers don’t really have that much of interesting things to say. And all this has lead into a conclusion from my part: as a whole the idea of crowdfunding has lost its appeal to me.  It was fun and exiting in the beginning as it was great to see inside a production. But now that I’ve seen it I’d rather just wait for a game to be developed and buy it when it’s done.

I ve read all thread again and i like what you (tomimt) have said finally, not that you supported my side of the observation but because you have been true with yourself thru all your posts, you weren’t really decided or on any side, whether the side that say “its the greatest thing that happened for long time’.. nor ” they all nothing but some hoax” you were only evaluating the matter with caution..

the point of supporting new Kickstarters isn’t case to discuss now.. its already hardly can happen on the scale of 6 zeros again (for adventure games) , i think what happening now is real; as in a way that these Kickstarters were supposed to work, to be handled; small or moderate projects that are already working on something and needs what can make it to be finished..happen! like Gibbous for example (chapeau).

the phenomena that happened wasn’t there to stay, and whatever i want to call it, it have reached the state of this phenomena had been milked to dry, and whether the big guys who rushed in knew what was gonna happen and took some justified advantages of it, it doesn’t matter now.

I think Thimbleweed Park alone - the campaign but especially the amazing follow-up blog posts and podcasts - proved that yes, crowdfunding is a thing that can very much work in the right hands.

Also, one of the most highly regarded (and best selling!) adventures in recent memory, Fran Bow, was funded on IndieGoGo of all places.

My philosophy is, never spend money you wouldn’t afford losing (or drinking in a couple of nights, in some cases ) on a crowd funded game and you should be alright. I mean I feel just fine kicking the equivalent of a few nights out toward a dev I think will do a good job with it.

What would be nice would be for the industry to become such an adventure-friendly place that there’d be investors lining up to fund them so we wouldn’t need Kickstarter, but eeeeh… Also, from the perspective of someone making a Kickstarted game (thanks again to everyone who contributed!) the creative freedom it allows for is second to none, and really shines through in some campaigns.

I’d hate to see a game like e.g. Fran Bow have to undergo publisher meddling in the process of it being made because the publisher thinks it knows best. It would never have come out as raw and quirky and original as it did.

So I guess the conclusion is try and look into how experienced, serious and most of all passionate the people behind the campaign are, if at all possible, and don’t just get hypnotized by pretty pictures, like we’re all tempted to most of the times

nomadsoul - 18 January 2017 07:10 AM

Mr Underhill - 18 January 2017 07:03 AM

the creative freedom it allows for is second to none, and really shines through in some campaigns

But now Publishers are replaced with Fans who put money in the game
And they get a lot of pressure, grilling and arguments from them too

Yeah, true… I’ve been reading a lot of Kickstarter horror stories and 90% of them stem from lack of communication with the backers, or outright ignoring them. You don’t want to spam them with updates every week, but keeping radio silence for months on end is just inconceivable.

E.g. we update either monthly or every two months, and people are complaining it’s not often enough That’s why I want to add a blog feature to our website and post there weekly, and I totally understand that curiosity, I feel it as well when I’m constantly checking my Thimbleweed Park shortcut to see if there’s anything new there

There’s also another aspect to making a narrative-based game - you can only show so much each week without completely spoiling your story, especially when you have only two people working on the artistic side of things, so you can’t compare the output with that of a team of 10 or 15.

So yeah communication is key.

And please please if you Kickstart you game DO NOT change the game into not what the people paid money for, like these guys:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chillcrow/kologeon/posts/1775277

...What the heck were they thinking? Or at least ask first! I understand artistic freedom etc. but when you do a complete 180, even if that wasn’t your intention, it looks like a bait & switch. Stick with what the people were sold on!

As for weighing publishers against backers I’d still prefer backers. You need to treat them with the same respect and consideration you would your publisher, evidently, but the difference is that the vast majority of the backers will just trust you to do a good job and not ask to interfere in the creation of the game (unless the creator invites them, of course).

We’ve been blessed with not only a successful campaign but some of the nicest and most enthusiastic backers we could hope for, and keeping them constantly in the know about where we are in the project and what cool stuff we’re adding generates enough confidence to just let us do our thing and trust us. And it’s great.

The one big downside is I get less and less time to browse and post in my favorite forums. What ya gonna do… But when I do post, I POST A LOT

Yeaaah… I’m very torn about Jeremy Soule.

I didn’t back that Kickstarter but his music is just magical. I can’t count how many times I’ve just woken up with one of his Skyrim themes playing in my head. It really sucks that he’s neglecting the Kickstarter. From what I recall his defense was “good things take time”, but I think it’s more like the project falling by the wayside because he has more important (to him) paid work. Which, if it’s so, sucks big time because it somehow says backer money isn’t as good, and that’s just a toxic attitude.

So yeah, maybe add to the list “back if the project is funded enough that the creator ONLY focuses on the project, nothing else”.

Although I have backed stuff like Mabel & the Wood which is coming along nicely but the one-man-team dev can’t afford to give up his dayjob because he’s a responsible husband and father, which I totally respect.