The Kickstarter Blues

[Lambonius]

My question is how much any of these games will sell once they're made, considering that most people who want copies will already have paid for theirs via the Kickstarters. It might well be that that initial funding is all they'll ever earn for the games.

True--that's definitely a concern.  The PC/Mac market is already somewhat limited compared to consoles and mobile devices.  For us, we had a significantly smaller amount of backers than the amount of money our Kickstarter ended up raising--many of our backers pledged much more than the amount necessary for the lowest reward tier.  During the height of the remake scene, a lot of those games had well over a million downloads.  Sure, they were free, but we've gotta hope that at least some of the market would be there.  You also have to remember that most people are going to be a lot quicker to put money down for something that is already available and they can start playing immediately, rather than something they have to wait a year or so to be developed.

[rugged]

I think people will still be willing to back a sequel on Kickstarter as long as they LOVE the first game. One of the big problems I see is that people have invested more then they usual in some cases this will have raised expectations to an unrealistic level and almost anything that is delivered will be a disapointment.

The other thing I see happening with some of these projects is they going way over time. Some of the timeframes of the big projects are very ambitious. While they see the positives of being free from publisher restrictions I can't help but wonder if in some cases the creative juices may run wild and end up with big delays. Wiithout a publisher cracking the whip I can see may updates saying "Their is another delay due to us being committed to giving you the best possible game".

[Blackthorne]

Yeah, getting a game done in a time-frame is really a concern.  It'll be interesting to see how it all shapes up with all the other adventure game groups that got funding this year - but, for example, Phoenix Online had a Kickstarter last fall - October or November off the top of my head, and they are just about to release Episode 1 of "Cognition".


Bt

[Lambonius]

for example, Phoenix Online had a Kickstarter last fall - October or November off the top of my head, and they are just about to release Episode 1 of "Cognition".

They also have a publisher behind them now, too, though.  I have to wonder how much of a difference that made.

[Lupin]

And now we have publishers basically telling game designers to use Kickstarter to get money for them.

"We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter," CEO Feargus Urquhart wrote on the Project Eternity Kickstarter forum. "I said to them 'So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for [you], using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don't get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits?' They said, 'Yes'."

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119668-Obsidian-CEO-Publishers-Are-Trying-to-Sneak-Into-Kickstarter

[Corrigan]

They are right about it being a generous assumption that their suggestion was driven by ignorance more than "evil".  If you're in the business of publishing games and something as threatening to your practice as KS comes along, you don't remain ignorant if you don't want to end up bankrupt.  It takes about 5mins of reading to understand the basic concept of the Kickstarter funding model.  So the idea that a publisher would approach a games company with a proposal, without having bothered to do that is a bit far fetched.  Sneaky buggers.

[Lambonius]

Wow.  That's enough to boil the blood.  And I thought Jane Jensen's kickstarter was annoying!  haha

[Collector]

If you get enough to fund the development of a game via KS, why would anyone hand their game over to a disinterested publisher? Sounds like a good reason for someone to start a third party digital distribution business for indies that just charges a cut of the profits per sale and let the developers to keep their IPs.

[Blackthorne]

Ugh.  Yeah, this kind of stuff, business-wise, was inevitable.  I'd be interested to see what Kickstarter is, for video games, a year from now.


Bt

[nidoking]

If you get enough to fund the development of a game via KS, why would anyone hand their game over to a disinterested publisher? Sounds like a good reason for someone to start a third party digital distribution business for indies that just charges a cut of the profits per sale and let the developers to keep their IPs.

I expect GOG would be happy to do that. They've already started distributing recent games by other publishers as well as recent indie games. What's to stop them from becoming the sole publisher of certain indie games, aside from maybe some random legality I'm not aware of, never having created or published a game myself?

[Intendant S]

If you get enough to fund the development of a game via KS, why would anyone hand their game over to a disinterested publisher? Sounds like a good reason for someone to start a third party digital distribution business for indies that just charges a cut of the profits per sale and let the developers to keep their IPs.

I expect GOG would be happy to do that. They've already started distributing recent games by other publishers as well as recent indie games. What's to stop them from becoming the sole publisher of certain indie games, aside from maybe some random legality I'm not aware of, never having created or published a game myself?

There's also Steam.  They seem to be pretty indie-friendly.

[Blackthorne]

Yeah - GoG and Steam are great in that they don't limit you to selling exclusively with them.


Bt

[rugged]

Was amazed that Broken Sword hit 770k! At some point the Kickstarter buzz has to die but it is going strong at the moment. Amazing that it out funded Larry, Space Venture and Pinkerton Road. Hero U (the project from the coles) will launch their KS next month what is your  guess on what they will make? They are after 400k, could they match Broken Sword. Personally of the classics that are being rereleased Hero U is the one I would most want to contribute too.  Are you likely to donate more to Hero U the you have to other Sierra franchises, or are you kick started out?

[Klytos]

I'm not very likely to donate to Hero U at this stage because there's not much information about it, except that it's a top down RPG style computer with "threads" of ideas from QFG but completely new and original. Once the KS launches then I'll re-examine where I'm at with it.

I'm not surprised Broken Sword did so well. It's a great series and has been consistent over more recent years than the Sierra titles. Larry is just a remake, sure it's one I'm looking forward to playing, but this will be the third version of LSL1 so there's not much new stuff to look at. Except to support Al Lowe and Josh Mandel. Space Venture is the one I'm most excited about and the one I donated the most money to, because Scott Murphy is one of my favorite people in this community and has been very supportive of us as well as being someone I really respect and look up to. Mark and Scott back together will be awesome. As for Pinkerton Road, well I didn't support it for a number of reasons, one of which is that they didn't actually tell us what game they were making until half way through the KS. Just felt wrong to me.

Now if someone did a Manhunter Remake in a 3D rendered Myst style, then I would support that to the max.

[Intendant S]

Considering that I've backed pretty much every adventure game project since Larry, I'm sure to give a little something.  It certainly won't be as much as SpaceVenture, Larry, or possibly even QFI, but I do like the QFG series enough to at least look at it.