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The Kickstarter Blues
Blackthorne:
Well - it's really going into full swing. The Kickstarter Blues.
I'm seeing more and more larger projects go up to the plate for a big swing - and coming back wanting pretty hard.
A lot of us knew this was coming; the budgets asked by people for Kickstarters started getting out of control, and the system (and fans) couldn't sustain it. It sucks, because there's a few projects out there I'd love see succeed - but I just don't think they have the chutzpah to raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars they want for it.
Our little project got lucky - sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to it. I'd like to think we did a good job - presenting information, having a decent playable demo and I tried to be available for people and to put a face to our group.
So - most of the people here are Kickstarter veterans. What do you think of the current KS trends?
Bt
Lupin:
It is exactly as you say, there are some project's out there that are just asking too much. I think part of the reason might be because Kickstarter has proven to be so successful with quite a lot of large budgets. Tim Schafer's project famously raising over $3 million. So people think that "If $3 million can be raised, so could $50,000" not realising that in those cases, there were huge fans of the people behind such projects, so that is why the money was raised.
But naturally, there is also the fact that crowdfunding is an easy way out for a lot of people. Rather then go to the banks and get a loan, or investors into your project, you can plead to the public with minor rewards offered.
But then, I really only look at the books and games sections of Kickstarter, so I do not know what the rest of the projects are asking for and offering in return.
Intendant S:
The biggest problem is that Kickstarter fatigue has slowly been setting in. Lots of people want to back lots of projects, but most of them are so close to each other. Add to that the fact that some projects are asking for a LOT of money. I'm backing Through the Fire, which is a movie project being done by Michael Dorn and a few other Star Trek alums. They're asking for $750K, an amount that seems like too much. They're not doing so well. Even smaller projects like Reincarnation and Detective Grimoire had a hard time selling their products. After the School for Heroes project comes and goes I'm pretty much tapped out. I really should have stopped after QFI, to tell you the truth.
Lambonius:
I think there's something to be said also for the amount of high-profile projects that were technically abusing what Kickstarter was supposed to be all about. First you had Jane Jensen's "Send me a ton of money to launch a studio that might create an as-yet-unspecified adventure game," and then the worst of it was the Penny Arcade Kickstarter to make their site ad-free, which was basically the Penny Arcade guys playing a joke at Kickstarter's expense--except that they gladly took the money when it turned out to be successful. That project, for me, was the moment that Kickstarter itself essentially sold out---they allowed the project, which was a blatant violation of their Terms of Use, to go forward because Penny Arcade was a high profile company and they knew they'd get a nice fat cut of the funds raised. That kind of shit gives the whole crowd-funding process a bad name, and makes people not want to support it.
Frankly, I think Kickstarter itself is kind of full of shit--but it did work out well for us, though, so I guess I can't be too irritated by it. Then again, we are EXACTLY the type of gaming project that Kickstarter was created to support, so go figure.
Blackthorne:
Oh yeah - I forgot about that Penny Arcade debacle. That was $528,000+ of public shaming of Kickstarter. Which meant $25,000 for Kickstarter themselves. Think of that. OUYA made 8,000,000+ - that's a whopping $400,000 cut for them! Their 5% cut of OUYA was more than many projects made!!!!
Yeah - I feel bad, because "the little guys" get boned on this.
Bt
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