Gaming Legends Discuss Using Kickstarter For Their Next Projects 112
Nerval's Lobster writes "Just as the Internet fundamentally altered the way games are distributed from publishers to players, crowdfunding has upended the traditional models of raising money for gaming development, and some of the most storied people in the industry are taking notice. Chris Roberts, who created the well-known Wing Commander series in 1990, managed to raise millions of dollars on Kickstarter last fall for his upcoming Star Citizen, eventually collecting so much money from individual backers that he could return the budget he'd taken from "formal" investment firms. "Even nice investors, they want a return at some point. They have a slightly diff agenda than I do," Roberts told Slashdot. "My agenda is to build the coolest game possible." He's not the only famed developer getting into the crowdfunding game: Wasteland director Brian Fargo spent years wanting to make a sequel to his popular role-playing game, eventually accomplishing that goal via Kickstarter. And for every famous game creator who uses the power of crowds to produce a new masterwork, dozens of talented amateurs are also financing their first games via Kickstarter and similar services. But that doesn't mean there are occasional high-profile implosions, like CLANG."
Feature creep, delays? (Score:3)
I read TFA (don't judge) and all I could see is feature creep and delays written all over the project. EA's death marches to release should be avoided at all costs, but polar opposite is not any better.
Re:Feature creep, delays? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yea a quote like this "My agenda is to build the coolest game possible." is nice in theory, but deadlines with budget constraints have an effect of pushing products to market. I'm assuming the Duke Nukem Forever team had similar goals.
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Yea a quote like this "My agenda is to build the coolest game possible." is nice in theory, but deadlines with budget constraints have an effect of pushing products to market. I'm assuming the Duke Nukem Forever team had similar goals.
There is a need for someone who can look at your game objectively ---
particularly when "coolness" is defined by a character or genre that has been dormant for ten to fifteen years or more.
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Yea a quote like this "My agenda is to build the coolest game possible." is nice in theory, but deadlines with budget constraints have an effect of pushing products to market. I'm assuming the Duke Nukem Forever team had similar goals.
Exactly. Back in the early 90s, a bunch of the biggest names in comics decided they were sick of the commercial constraints and lack of creative control they were getting from Marvel and DC, so set out to make a bunch of independent studios all published under a single brand: Image Comics.
When some of the new titles slowed to publishing once every six months, the creators defended themselves by stating they wanted to create the best comic possible, and weren't going to release an inferior product, just to m
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But isn't this just a question of developer competence?
I agree it seems to be more of a bane in the games industry somewhat because the games industry has been historically lagging in terms of good software engineering practices, but this is a problem that's well understood and exists in pretty much every software project ever conceived and even some non-software projects.
There's no reason for example that games should be more prone to feature creep and delays than the Pebble Smart Watch at the end of the d
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IT depends on your point of view.
If you ignore the kickstarter and only buy the game once it's made, EA's death marches gives you shitty games every time, while the polar opposite gives you failed projects (which you just ignore) and great games (which you can then buy).
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Spoilers (Score:2)
What I don't like about Kickstarter is the long time before I start wanting something and I get it.
I like it to exist. It allows many projects that would otherwise be abandoned. I just don't want to know about them until they are ready to ship the product.
Knowing about the amazing toys I may have in a year's time makes me appreciate less those I've got right now.
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Same for me, seems people who I know that frequently kickstart, take the stance that they do enough so that it's staggered out.
One month they'll get a get, then two months later another game, and two months later another game, etc...
Star Citizen crossing the $20 million mark... (Score:1)
Star Citizen is an abberation (Score:4, Insightful)
At the rate Star Citizen is raising money, it's going to have an AAA budget before it comes out. It happened to hit the sweet spot of a known creator with a proven track record, good timing, and a genre with a lot of fans starved for a game. It's been marketed well, and the early previews have been good to wet the appetite (there's no meat available yet).
The sheer amount of money they've got (almost $20 million) makes it so unusual that it doesn't make a good example. Even if the game is a resounding success (and I sure hope it is) it's not a good example to follow because so few crowdfunded projects can get even close to that in funding.
What other projects CAN learn from them is to not stop fundraising just because your Kickstarter is over. Beyond that, it's just too weird to draw any kind of conclusions from.
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Mighty No. 9... Shantae...
These are two other success stories along the same lines.
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In terms of general success, yes they are comparable and there are quite a few. But in terms of money not so much.
SC has raised over 40x times it's initial budget request, while MN9 has thus far not even reached 3x. Could change but it's rate has been slowing.
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Issue is you then risk making a game by committee, and we've seen it happen many times by traditional Devs that it's rarely a good thing, and at best are medicore. Often times games with a clear and inspired vision end up being or the better or bombing terribly.
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The thing I am loving about Star Citizen is that there *is* meat already. The final game is a long way off, but there is already a hangar module where several of the early ships can be seen and interacted with if you have contributed toward the game. By doing this they are keeping backers interested, and also involving us in the development process. We can send feedback, find bugs, etc *way* before any sort of formal open beta would begin.
They are also doing a really great job of feeding tidbits about the p
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The thing I am loving about Star Citizen is that there *is* meat already. The final game is a long way off, but there is already a hangar module where several of the early ships can be seen and interacted with if you have contributed toward the game. By doing this they are keeping backers interested, and also involving us in the development process. We can send feedback, find bugs, etc *way* before any sort of formal open beta would begin.
I have too problems with this.
1: all the information being given to backers is of even more interest to potential backers. They're still asking people to chip in effectively blind, even though there is material they could be demonstrating.
2: A few moving models in a bought-in engine?? That sounds like smoke and mirrors, giving the illusion of progress by doing something that looks impressive, but is essentially trivial.
Crowdfunding could be the future (Score:4, Informative)
Although Kickstarter and its ilk have plenty of flaws (for instance, that you probably will never see any returns on your investments), I see crowdfunding as having an important place in the information age. It takes the money and power from the big publishers, and gives it back to the developers and customers, respectively. And it allows the existence of niche projects which most companies would deem as "too risky".
I see the same kind of thing happening with music as well, with sites like bandcamp. As I recall, Radiohead made much more money selling pay-what-you-want copies of "In Rainbows" than they did with all their previous albums put together. Realistically, I don't see the recording industry dying any time soon, but at least we now have financially viable alternatives. It allows things to exist that simply could not have existed otherwise.
No it won't be the future (Score:2)
It'll be part of it, but not THE future. There is still plenty of room for publishers. There is a demand, a large one, for big, well produced, titles. People like the stuff you can get from a game that has a $20-50 million budget (or even more), that you just don't see from crowd funding. Publishers are very useful for funding titles that have a widespread appeal. They can risk a bunch of money because the chance on return is good since the games have a broad enough appeal.
Crowd funding is more for titles t
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Kickstarter for video games is problematic, because it's not a nice easy 'do to this will cost that' system. For board games, it's great - the game is ready to be put into production and kickstarter lets the publisher fund the bit that needs to be paid out to a third party to make 1000 nice duplicates of their rough cardboard prototype. If demand is high, the quality and number of components can go up, if it's too low to make production worthwhile, then investors lose nothing.
For video games it's not so cle
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As I recall, Radiohead made much more money selling pay-what-you-want copies of "In Rainbows" than they did with all their previous albums put together.
Uhhh then you recalled incorrectly. They made more on OK Computer alone than from In Rainbows.
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I'm positive I read the Radiohead thing somewhere, although I can't find the reference any more... Meh.
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Different Viewpoint (Score:3)
Chris Roberts, who created the well-known Wing Commander series in 1990, managed to raise millions of dollars on Kickstarter last fall for his upcoming Star Citizen, eventually collecting so much money from individual backers that he could return the budget he'd taken from "formal" investment firms. "Even nice investors, they want a return at some point. They have a slightly diff agenda than I do," Roberts told Slashdot. "My agenda is to build the coolest game possible."
Herein lies the difference. Kickstarter backers are not seen as actual investors in the project by the project owners, but rather as a way to informally fund games that the developers want to work on without feeling like there is any real obligation to those who funded it. To paraphrase what Chris Roberts stated, he couldn't care less if it ever makes any money as long as he gets to build the "coolest game possible". Without the incentive/pressure of investors looking for a return however, there will always be "just one or two more things" to finish up and the game will never actually get released.
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It's a risk. I've backed five or six crowdfunded projects, the ones that funded seem to be doing okay. If one of them fails, well, that's the risk that I took. I'll be disappointed, I'll ask questons, but in the end it was my decision to risk the money.
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Yes, but what exactly are you getting for assuming this risk? If the game fails, you're out the money, but the developer still got his living expenses paid for a number of months. If the game succeeds, he makes a ton of money and you get squat. Kickstarter funders are basically assuming all of the risk and getting none of the oppurtunities.
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Besides an early release of the game you mean.
Honestly they should release even earlier. Lets see alphas being given out to the backers.
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If the game succeeds, you get a game you would not otherwise have.
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If the game suceeds, I'll be able to get the game anyways, even though I haven't contributed a dime to the kickstarter.
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First, if enough potential backers think like you do, the game won't get funded, and you won't get the game.
Also, backers may get the game cheaper and may get early alpha/beta access and the ability to give feedback that helps improve the game.
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I'm going to take a pot-shot and guess you haven't been closely following what has been happening with Star Citizen?
So far they have released the update-platform and hanger module on their self-imposed deadline. Updates have come out to these modules a couple of times a week. They contenue to put out updates both technical and in-lore information on (business) daily basis. Chris has been one of the most responsible-to-the-community developers I have ever seen.
Second, the majority of this is an online game,
Other good projects (Score:1)
There are a few other projects that I feel very "involved" with in terms of how the devs communicate with backers.
These ones have regular progress updates to backers, and - more importantly - the updates give the impression that the devs are quite passionate about their work
* Mighty #9 is fairly fresh but updates are nearly daily
* Leadwerks/Linux gets regular updates
* Planetary Annihilation has good progress and updates, and is steadily moving from Alpha through to Beta
* Openshot is pretty good at passing u
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"Without the incentive/pressure of investors looking for a return however, there will always be "just one or two more things" to finish up and the game will never actually get released."
Sure, but the other side of that coin is that Chris Roberts retains full creative control over the project.
No focus groups or market testing to ensure that the game will be as profitable as possible (and, as a side effect, water down the game).
Similarly, with movies, I can't think of an example of a movie where I liked the theatrical release better than the director's cut.
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> Without the incentive/pressure of investors looking for a return however, there will always be "just one or two more things" to finish up and the game will never actually get released.
This isn't necessarily true given modern indy game release patterns, though. There's always "just one or two more things" but you can always add those on in a later patch. Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress are both games that still add "just one or two more things" on a semi-regular basis, despite having first been released
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This is exactly why the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
It is? Why the hell aren't we banning Kickstarter then? We could have this wealth-disparity problem licked in a year!
CLANG? (Score:2)
CLANG was started by the author Neil Stephenson, and people are surprised how, by golly, the guy doesn't know the intricacies of game development (and its costs)?
I found it incredibly strange to see how succesful that Kickstarter was, since it's the same as a reknown gamedesigner asking money to write a book...
The other examples are people who have been veterans in the gamedesign industry, and whereas not automatically flawless, they wil
Other favorite developers on Kickstarter? (Score:1)
Bad trend (Score:3)
I think Kickstarter is having a negative effect on game developers, and it's certainly not doing any favors for gamers.
When it becomes easier to collect money for promising a game than it does to do the hard work and actually produce and release a good game, you'll see what's happening now: a regression in PC gaming.
Over the past several years, there has been something of a renaissance in PC gaming. Skyrim, Far Cry 3, Dishonored, etc. Big games that deliver plenty of value to the consumer. Games, like Skyrim and Far Cry 3 that you can easily put 50-100 hours (or more) and still enjoy. Games that fire up a whole community.
2013 has been an awful year for PC gaming. Look at the list of GOTY candidates from a year ago, and ask yourself if there are any games that have been released this year that are nearly as good, or will provide such good value. I believe, though I don't really have any hard data, that the rise of Kickstarter has convinced a lot of AAA developers to just put out their dream game on Kickstarter and start collecting money. It's a hell of a lot easier than dealing with a big game company and all the hassles, plus when you go that route, the company actually expects you to release something.
Instead, we have a list of promises. Trailers. Trailers announcing the release of a new trailer. Where are the AAA sim racing games this year? Where is the big blockbuster like GTA V for PC this year. Everything is "later". Has there ever been a Kickstarted game that released on schedule?
At least when you give your money to a game company, you get a game, not a promise. If the Kickstarter campaign doesn't produce a game, what do you get besides a new item on your credit card?
If you're going to give somebody money up front, you need to get more than a promise. We have a very well-known system for doing that, it's called "investing". If I'm going to give somebody my money up front so they can make a game, I want a share, however small, of the profits. Besides the novelty, there is absolutely no incentive to donate to a Kickstarted game. Zero. If the game's worth making, then do the work and find backing. But not donations...real backing. You can do it using crowd-funding, but give people real value for the risk they're taking, not just a promise that they'll get a copy of an alpha release when and if the game ever comes out.
I liked Kickstarter for games at first. Thought it was innovative and could produce games that could never be made otherwise. Because there is no accountability, that hasn't happened.
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Fair enough. What's the best game that you've ever gotten through donating to Kickstarter?
What's the best game that was ever created using Kickstarter funding?
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I hope those two games prove me wrong about Kickstarter. I'm not convinced they could not have been made using normal funding though.
We'll just have to see.
One thing Kickstarter definitely lacks is an incentive to deliver a game on time. "It's ready when it's ready" is only a good business model when you've already built up great customer loyalty, like Half-Life 3. If you look at the list of Kickstarter games that were supposed to have been released already that have been pushed back to Q3 and Q4 of 2014
What time of year is it? (Score:2)
You might note that all the games you listed were released later in the year. This is normal. The top flight titles come near Christmas since they sell better. October and November and December are the big release times. Checking my little OS clock, we don't seem to be in October yet.
There's also the additional issue of the new console releases, which devs will hold games for since that is a big money thing in more ways than one.
I haven't seen this year as being bad.
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I didn't say how it mattered how long it took my to "finish" a game. I was referring to how long I spent playing it. There have been games that I've finished in 20 hours, but went back to time and again. Or went further into side missions, or online play.
The length of the main campaign isn't that important (although, there has never been a game so awesome that a 6-hour campaign was worth the $60 that AAA titles now go for). For example, as interesting as the story was, Bioshock Infinite was a total rip
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"Over the past several years, there has been something of a renaissance in PC gaming. Skyrim, Far Cry 3, Dishonored, etc. Big games that deliver plenty of value to the consumer."
But here's the problem, those were first and foremost (perhaps with the exception of Skyrim) developed as console titles.
Gaming in general now seems tied to the consoles, my hardware from 2008 is still capable of playing just about every PC game that comes out to 1920x1200 resolution on my monitor with high or highest detail. Back i
Good luck (Score:2)
I sincerely hope it's successful. Chris Roberts has a reasonably awesome game-CV behind him (Wing Commander, Strike Commander, etc). I believe he can do it.
However....
While the ongoing waterfall of funding comes in, one of the things Kickstarter projects to is 'stretch goals' - funding hits a big benchmark, some new thing will be added to the scope of the project.
That makes it hard right now to discern whether the 'stretch goals' are reasonable, or a sign of nascent project bloat. I'm reminded of many ve
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The article missed a LOT out... (Score:1)
Crowdfunding = mortal threat to Wall Street (Score:1)
Consider that a typical ownership cut demanded by venture capitalists in California (3000 Sand Hill Road types) is 30 to 50 percent. Kickstarter or Kickstarter clones could do very well just by saying if you (the individual) invest in XYZ and it pans out, you'll get your share of the 10 percent equity slice reserved for investors. So it could be easy for know
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Fans = Fanatics. (Score:1)
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting money from a different source that leads to a more open development process=excessive greed?
Sometimes you should explain your opinions.
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I like the idea of Kickstarter, but I think a lot of people have co-opted it and it's becoming much less useful for finding really nifty projects. Too many corporate "we're too lazy to handle our own preorders" stuff on it these days.
Maybe that's a feature, not a bug, to the Kickstarter people but it's turned me off from browsing. Finding the diamonds in the rough is a lot harder with the corporate invaders adding so much more rough.
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're complaining about is the inability to find the projects that are interesting to you and I have the same complaint about kickstarter. Several times I've heard about a project that didn't reach it's funding goal I would have loved to have backed but for whatever reason I didn't discover it until it was too late.
Every digital marketplace has this problem to some extent. The good ones seem to have a good recommendation engine like amazon and netflix or they're heavily curated like steam and Xbox Arcade. Then there are places like kickstarter and iOS where they highlight the best 40 or so and let the rest remain obscure.
Discover-ability is a real problem that is only going to get worse as digital markets get more popular and larger. And I'm guessing that any company that can solve that problem will be the next tech service monopoly.
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The problem is when people who DON'T need kickstarter clog the pipe up. Spoiled brat kids of overpaid, undertalented music acts "kickstarting" their 2nd or 3rd album for instance. James Franco wanting people to "kickstart" his vanity-movie project.
Shit like this [wsj.com] clutters up the site and makes it impossible to find the people who have interesting projects that actually need the help.
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I think there's another issue in there:
Most of the arts projects are essentially looking for a platform, and the artists do the campaigning legwork themselves, directing potential backers on their mailing lists to site to pay. But many of the technology projects look to the site to draw investment in.
So there's nothing wrong with arts/vanity projects per se, but there is the problem that mixing the two classes of campaign together means the swarm of vanity projects underserving of marketplace promotion crow
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So go ahead and make your own Kickstarter-like website that would filter out such projects.
Why, you could even get the funding for such a thing through Kickstarter. ~
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting money from a different source that leads to a more open development process=excessive greed?
Sometimes you should explain your opinions.
I think his point, and I don't know if I agree or disagree, is that more and more wealthy people are using kickstarter as a way of starting projects. These are people unwilling to risk their own fortunes and instead wish to use yours and mine. If they believed in their project so much they would use their own money to back it, but they don't.
I don't know if this is one of those situations but if these people are "gaming legends" as the article implies then one would assume, rightly or wrongly, that they are wealthy but unwilling to back their own project.
I believe kickstarter should be used for the up and comers, the idealists who are just getting started. When I see a wealthy person using kickstarter I just see greed and a complete lack of dedication to their own ideas and abilities.
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More likely they simply want more assurance that they can succeed. Kickstarter lets them know their are paying customers lined up for a product.
I will not spend money on kickstarter for the up and comers as they are quite likely to just run off with the money as we have seen so many times.
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I will not spend money on kickstarter for the up and comers as they are quite likely to just run off with the money as we have seen so many times.
How many times have we seen that with Kickstarter?
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When I see a wealthy person using kickstarter I just see greed and a complete lack of dedication to their own ideas and abilities.
Isn't it awesome how sweeping generalizations like that are so accurate?
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I think his point...
...is to make a statement that is both somewhat inflammatory but sufficiently vague to allow people to read into it whatever they want. You really need to learn the art of a good troll. The less you say, the better it works.
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:4, Funny)
If they believed in their project so much they would use their own money to back it, but they don't.
With the tiny big difference that if they invest their fortune, once the project is finished they have to sell the product.
Kickstarter "only" guarantees buyers. It doesn't matter how amazingly rich you are, knowing that you've got buyers is always good.
For example, Microsoft could have kickstarted their surface 2 to check if there's still enough... clients.
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Max: The two cardinal rules of producing. One: Never put your own money in the show.
Leo: And two?
Max: NEVER PUT YOUR OWN MONEY IN THE SHOW!
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That's an interesting perspective, and one I had not considered. It's not unlike trying to get a small business loan for a start-up. No traditional model lending institution is going to loan you money if you aren't willing to risk any of your own. Gambling with house money can cause people to take risks that they otherwise may not, thus increasing the chances of a poor return on investment. Conversely, few success stories ever come out of people playing it safe, and Kickstarter may afford a designer or deve
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OK:
Translation: WHAT??? You mean those people who gave me the funding for this project actually want something out of it??? Well, fuck that, I'll just go beg from the community in a way that ensures I don't have to give them dick in return for their hard-earned dollars!"
Dude had the funding, but he didn't want to share his profits with the people that were giving him money. Ergo, exces
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:5, Informative)
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Ergo, creative control.
Bullshit - you want 'creative control' over your project, you pay for it your own goddamn self; for reference, see: every independent artist ever, prior to the creation of websites like Kickstarter.
He never acted as if it was outrageous that investors want something for their money, that's an interesting bit of fantasy on your part.
Fantasy? That's a direct quote from TFS: "Even nice investors, they want a return at some point." Sure sounds like bitching to me. WTF do you mean, "nice investors?" Are you saying that investors who actually expect a gain from their investment in you are dicks or something?
That's the sort of attitude a selfish t
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even the "nice" investors still want a _monetary_ return, and if that means watering down the game's ambitions so they can pump up the ROI a few points, they're going to push for that.
Which is different from getting your funding from the players, who would be delighted to push for the complete opposite, because they want an _entertainment_ return.
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, no. That's not his point at all. His point was this: he wants to make a video game. One that is well-made, fun, and follows his vision. The investors simply want money. The means of getting that money are irrelevant (so long as it's legal... well, most investors care about that. Well, the nice ones do, anyways). When you follow the former, you end up with games that are original, interesting, and usually quite fun (Braid, Bastion, Portal, etc.). Sometimes these make money, sometimes they don't. When you follow the latter, you end up with Call of Duty: 2013. This often makes you a lot of money, but it also makes for rather terrible games and stagnation in the industry. Hence, the massive amounts of re-hashed expensive shit that gets shoved out by most of the AAA studios while the actually interesting and novel ideas are relegated to being made on a shoe-string budget in someones garage (usually: not always).
Anyways, Roberts does give the community something, namely, the game. Not money, but what they (and he) actually want. When everyone involved in the project actually wants the same thing, you can focus on that. If he had investors, he'd need to focus at least somewhat on making a game that could earn money. As it stands, even if the game sells zero copies after release, it doesn't matter so long as the gameplay satisfies the crowdfunders.
Re:Excessive greed. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Dude had the funding, but he didn't want to share his profits with the people that were giving him money. Ergo, excessive greed."
At this point, many of us old gamers could give less of a fuck. Publishers have single handledly:
-Dumbed down games
-Stopped making many genre's that used to exist in the past
Gamers are throwing money at projects because we know nothing will get made otherwise. We know some projects will fail, some will take our money, etc. But how's that different from publishers, DRM, Steam, etc? These people have taken our money and fucked us anyway with DRM and all sorts of onerous bullshit rules.
At this point we could care less, the whole gaming world is just once giant exploitation circle jerk with MMO's, F2P and DRM.
When games like wow and diablo 3 are selling virtual items, and Diablo 3 has single player lag... just how exactly are we not getting fucked six ways to sunday?
I didn't buy any of these games, but kids, illiterates and dumbasses who feed corporations aren't going to stop. So what choice to gamers who want games not being made have?
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Fair enough; I can understand the viewpoint of the funders (we want games that don't suck), but I'm hard pressed to believe that the dev's rationale is as altruistic as some people seem to want to think. He's in it for personal gain, just like any other capitalist.
Publishers have single handledly:
-Dumbed down games
-Stopped making many genre's that used to exist in the past
The first one is a given, but I'm curious about the second: what genres have ceased to exist? I'd like to see more TBS/RTS games like the Total War series, but that's not to say that there aren't any such games being made (although I can't name an
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"but I'm curious about the second: what genres have ceased to exist?"
What I mean by this is : GOOD GAMES in these genre's have ceased to exist, aka, if you have a constant stream of bad low budget, low quality (unfinished) games in niche genre's, that's the same as having no genre at all. Because it's been reduced to niche status because the people publishing crap there aren't competent or have enough finances to build and polish these games to sufficient quality.
It's all about quality. The word 'genre' c
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Of course there's personal gain involved. But calling someone greedy for not taking out a loan when they don't need to, thus avoid paying interest, is kinda stupid. Especially so when you call it "excessive" greed. Yes, he did this at least in part to not have to pay investors back with interest for the money they lent. And I, just today, bought a computer with money out of my pocket rather than agreeing to the stores financing plan. Calling me *excessively* greedy for not taking out a loan when I didn
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Dude had the funding, but he didn't want to share his profits with the people that were giving him money.
Correction. Dude had the funding, but did not want to be constrained by the investor's definition of "turning a profit".
Very simplified, but there are three parties at play here. The Developer who is making the game, The Investor who is paying The Developer to make the game, and The Consumer who will buy the game. The Investor isn't giving away free money, they want a return on their investment. That generally translates into The Investor having a say in what kind of game The Developer makes, which ma
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Returns (Score:2)
Having those close to the "investors" setting parameter on technical/gameplay details has them tied to highest-possible financial returns instead of product quality.
In the case of certain big gaming studios, a bad release doesn't even seem a setback any more as they'll just buy out the (smaller) competing shops leaving you with no other choice.
You can create a great game that makes a good/great profit. The problem is that when you start involving those close to the "investors" they want to cut the razors ed
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So... kinda like this? [theoatmeal.com]
Fair enough.
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Somewhat, though in the case of the web design it's more a client who doesn't know crap about design VS in games where it's a producer who cares almost exclusively about profit and doesn't give a sh*t about design...
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They should take the kickstarter thing even further (and break thru the rut games are in these days)
Player created assets for the game. Not just objects, assemblages of objects , but quest scripts, tool plugins, tutorials, template of all of the above to make it easier for others to create....
Yes there will be legal issues and a heavy vetting process (and a community to organize for this scheme to be effective), but players have 1000X the creativity and imagination and potential effort that the games employees will have (really important if its to be a persistant MMORPG).
Have you played any FOSS games? They are mostly derivative clones of existing proprietary games, and the weaknesses aren't in the bits copied, but in the original assets. Last time I checked out Freedoom, the enemy sprites didn't go well together, some being cartoony hand-drawn sprites (as per Doom) and others being amateurish prerenders of 3D models. By far the worst thing, though, is level design. You may get some cracking levels out there, but they're bundled in among vast amounts of grinding through poo