[zane]

Originally Posted by Terabin

Why is it that Leisure Suit Larry can meet a 500,000 dollar goal advertising a remake of a remake and Jane is slogging towards a modest 300,000 dollar goal with a fresh and inventive IP?

Theres a very simple answer to this question:

Sex sells

[After a brisk nap]

The other projects (DFA, Tex Murphy, LSL) are all about bringing back a beloved creator/character who hasn't done an adventure game for more than a decade. With Gray Matter having been published quite recently (and to mixed reception), there probably isn't that much pent-up demand for a new Jane Jensen adventure among the public at large.

Besides, I really think Tim Schafer's rules for a successful KS pitch are true, and they really come down to telling an attention-grabbing, simple story to get people excited and convince them that supporting your project is important. The CSG campaign didn't really do that, particularly in the initial announcement.

That's not to say that Jensen's campaign should have been more like DoubleFine's (after all, one of the things you want to emphasize is how your project is unique and stands out from the rest), but that by applying the same principles the campaign might have had a better starting point.

[zane]

Originally Posted by After a brisk nap

The other projects (DFA, Tex Murphy, LSL) are all about bringing back a beloved creator/character who hasn't done an adventure game for more than a decade. With Gray Matter having been published quite recently (and to mixed reception), there probably isn't that much pent-up demand for a new Jane Jensen adventure among the public at large.

Besides, I really think Tim Schafer's rules for a successful KS pitch are true, and they really come down to telling an attention-grabbing, simple story to get people excited and convince them that supporting your project is important. The CSG campaign didn't really do that, particularly in the initial announcement.

Youre making the rather unfortunate assumption that Tex is going to produce faster than jane.
Also, Larry's KS doesnt adhere to "tim's rules" at all. They just said "make larry come again!" and thousands of people giggled and gave the minimum tier. Theres nothing "critical" in the least about making a remake of a remake that they already announced last october.
Schafer's success is largely thanks to a combination of: the recent reputation theyv built with doublefine, his fame from lucasarts, the cult following of psychonauts and the buzz about a psychonauts 2 directly before the KS started (with an icon like notch tweeting about it).

EDIT: more on ranting about larry.... i just saw that they set the new goal of 750,000 and what theyd do if they got that much includes... adding an animated intro! 500,000 isnt enough to add an intro video to a remake!!!! Embarrassing.

[MoP]

Originally Posted by zane

EDIT: more on ranting about larry.... i just saw that they set the new goal of 750,000 and what theyd do if they got that much includes... adding an animated intro! 500,000 isnt enough to add an intro video to a remake!!!! Embarrassing.

Let's quote the whole thing though:

Some of the features we'd desperately love to add are: animated intro and cinematic cutscenes, maps, dialogues, more speech, foreign languages, Easter Eggs, minigames (in the LSL tradition: fun to play, easy to skip), new puzzles, new girls, new locations...and that's just the top of the list.

Josho Mandels last video update mentioned "rewarding exploration", like responses for trying to do things, combining items etc. I really like that, getting a funny response instead of a "I can't do that".

Getting back to Jane, apart from the apparently confusing pitch (that's the embarrassing part if you ask me, people get confused by a simple concept?), I think high price levels are what hold this one down. Around 100$ is what most successful projects ask for a "collectors boxed edition", 200$ in Janes case is just too much. This of course doesn't count the fact, that we could get two games here, so two boxes (so higher expenses), but I guess that's where the confusion comes in again. And you're not gonna get millions with 15$ pledges.

[zane]

Originally Posted by MoP

Let's quote the whole thing though:
Josho Mandels last video update mentioned "rewarding exploration", like responses for trying to do things, combining items etc. I really like that, getting a funny response instead of a "I can't do that".

Also personally find it insulting that they dont have enough money for "eastereggs" and "adding responses". This is all basic stuff you should expect to be added for what was a very short game (maybe 2 hours). So "oh my goodness, we should be so lucky if they get to add any content at all for 500k!!"

Yeah, it winds me up.

[Jatsie]

Originally Posted by MoP

Getting back to Jane, apart from the apparently confusing pitch (that's the embarrassing part if you ask me, people get confused by a simple concept?), I think high price levels are what hold this one down. Around 100$ is what most successful projects ask for a "collector's boxed edition", 200$ in Janes case is just too much. This of course doesn't count the fact, that we could get two games here, so two boxes (so higher expenses), but I guess that's where the confusion comes in again. And you're not gonna get millions with 15$ pledges.

I don't think that it's confusing so much, but more that it's a case of people being inherently lazy when they approach things like this.

When you first present someone with a Kickstarter page, for example, they start off by skimming it to see if they can glean any information which will pique their interest sufficiently for them to read it all. They'll look at the title, the first few reward levels, the first couple of paragraphs. The problem was that the page wasn't set up in a way which aided this process; The title was just "Pinkerton Road Studio", the reward levels just mentioned "CSG", it wasn't until a long way down the page that they actually bothered to explain what the "CSG" was, or even mention the game they were planning. I know they've since updated it, but the page didn't make a good first impression; it didn't immediately captivate or excite the audience, and it's incredibly easy to lose people if you don't grab them straight away. The other game pages came across as much more punchy; they knew what they were doing, they told you what they were doing, and within a couple of seconds there was no doubt. Contrast this with Jane's, and the adjective I've heard most applied to it is "vague."

I agree with you on the reward tiers though; they don't seem that well planned out, nor good value for money. For $16 you can get 4 updates a year, or for $50 you can get 12 updates and some other digital junk that you might click through once. Double Fine, in contrast, gave away access to all the video updates at the $15 tier. If and when I eventually pledge I don't think I'm going to be inspired enough by what's on offer to give more than the minimum required to get the game.

[fov]

for $50 you can get 12 updates and some other digital junk that you might click through once

Including two ebooks of novels that regularly sell for $40+ each on eBay... if you can even find them.

The more physical stuff that's added to lower tiers, the more Pinkerton Road has to produce and ship. That costs money and could effectively cancel out the pledge. (And I'm not just talking about shipping and production costs, but also the manpower of getting items made and sent out - it's just her and Bob working there, remember!) Jane said in one of her updates that she realizes the $50 tier is most attractive if Pinkerton Road makes two games this year, and she's still looking for ways to do that even if the Kickstarter funds only fund one, but even in the absence of a second game I think she's gone out of her way to include non-tangibles that make the tier more attractive.

I hate to compare the two projects because they're really very different, but I have to point out that Double Fine didn't have any physical items below the $100 tier, either.

(I'm not trying to convince anyone - people should pledge what they feel comfortable pledging, if anything. The only reason I pledged $100 to Double Fine was to get the big box and I felt kind of guilty about it afterward, because I would normally never spend that much on a game and didn't really care about the other rewards... but that was my choice to make, just like pledging $50 or not based on the goodies Jane's offering is every individual's choice to make. It has the most backers so far, so it seems plenty of people are okay with it.)

[zane]

For anyone whos a DFA backer, theyr having a poll for their next official playthrough chat. Gabriel knight is behind about 12 votes at the moment
Alot of good other choices to vote for too though.

[Kicktraq]

Originally Posted by zane

kicktraq is slow and incredibly simple, it hasnt taken all of sundays results yet into account (which was a slight incline from saturday)
Anyway, as iv been saying all along, 300k is going to be a fight. And the heart of the battle is about to begin

EDIT: Also, i'd like to supply this simple formula for anyone enamoured with kicktraq, so you dont have to give them traffic and can see their number yourself

Take the total $, divide it by the number of days the project has been going on. Multiply that by the number of days left. And then add that to the current $ total. There, now you have your own highly innacurate number without kicktraq

A tad harsh calling it "highly inaccurate". The criticism feels a little unfair. The trend, as a trend, is absolutely accurate. However, I explain in detail why trends are not projections, and I never claim the trend to be a projection, but highly inaccurate it is not. I could just call it a projection and be done with it, but I explain in complete detail why this isn't the case and post it on every single project page under the trend block: http://blog.kicktraq.com/why-you-sho...grain-of-salt/

I've only been online for less than a month, and I've spent a lot of it trying to give people what the want (Firefox/Chrome add-ons, additional metrics on the project pages, category listings, fast searching and browsing, RSS) as well as working through building weighted models based on project data I've been able to gather in the last few weeks. Then, not just taking them as a blanket set of data but weighting them with various types of gamma and weibull distributions specific to categories and pledge modeling to produce a little more reasonable projections vs just relying on trending information. Take that and span it across almost a thousand active projects, and you see what I've been doing with my time for the last few weeks.

This isn't stuff you can just whip up in an afternoon, let alone hope it will be accurate considering you're trying to project a countless array of unknowns (marketing, news exposure, kickstarter highlighting, etc). But, I'm doing the best I can, and I ask nothing in return. Well, maybe asking to not call it "highly inaccurate", but I digress.

Originally Posted by zane

Well few things. First if those are kicktraqs numbers theyr actualy wrong (if you add up all their backers by date it doesnt even add up anywhere close to the actual total. Their average backer per day is right because thats just one simple divison)

That's because it's not one of our "Day-1" projects so we don't show the first day because it throws the whole daily chart off and we didn't want to track partial days. Again, they're not "wrong", they're as accurate as we can manage them to be when we don't have project data from the very first day.

Regardless, here's the Jane Jensen project using the new modeling data to give you an example:


... and here's the convergence chart showing the trend deviation as the project progresses:


If you'd like, you can keep track using the new experimental charts by visiting the project page and clicking the π symbol at the bottom.

Enjoy, and I welcome any and all criticism (truly)!

[zane]

Originally Posted by Kicktraq

A tad harsh calling it "highly inaccurate". The criticism feels a little unfair. The trend, as a trend, is absolutely accurate. However, I explain in detail why trends are not projections, and I never claim the trend to be a projection, but highly inaccurate it is not.

That frustration came from me having to repeatedly correct people in other forums that kept going "look such and such is going to make 800k because this site said so!" So really its more peoples interpretation of it that i was calling inaccurate
Iv since seen the disclaimer and i do appreciate the frankness and the aim towards improving
The approach iv been trying to take when watching these is to try and get a sense of what the average $ per backer is going to be by the end and how many backers theyll need.. watching the backers per day is usually pretty predictable, since the $ in a day could swing wildly with 1 persons donation. (of course who knows what will happen in the last hours)
(Also, a disclaimer warning when a project isnt a day 1 wouldnt hurt!)

[Kicktraq]

Originally Posted by zane

That frustration came from me having to repeatedly correct people in other forums that kept going "look such and such is going to make 800k because this site said so!" So really its more peoples interpretation of it that i was calling inaccurate

Oh believe me, I completely understand. That's the first thing I address in that disclaimer article.

Originally Posted by zane

Iv since seen the disclaimer and i do appreciate the frankness and the aim towards improving
The approach iv been trying to take when watching these is to try and get a sense of what the average $ per backer is going to be by the end and how many backers theyll need.. watching the backers per day is usually pretty predictable, since the $ in a day could swing wildly with 1 persons donation. (of course who knows what will happen in the last hours)

The last 3 days of a project are the most hard to pin down for me as well. Even with the data I have, I'm not sure that will ever truly be predictable!

Originally Posted by zane

(Also, a disclaimer warning when a project isnt a day 1 wouldnt hurt!)

This is going to sound stupid, but I'd never even thought of that :/. That seems like a no-brainer. I'll add that soon. Let me know if you notice anything else that seems off kilter. Happy to take a peek, even if it seems fine .

[fov]

Originally Posted by zane

For anyone whos a DFA backer, theyr having a poll for their next official playthrough chat. Gabriel knight is behind about 12 votes at the moment

Thanks for the heads-up, I voted for it!

[teme]

Originally Posted by MoP

Getting back to Jane, apart from the apparently confusing pitch (that's the embarrassing part if you ask me, people get confused by a simple concept?), I think high price levels are what hold this one down. Around 100$ is what most successful projects ask for a "collectors boxed edition", 200$ in Janes case is just too much. This of course doesn't count the fact, that we could get two games here, so two boxes (so higher expenses), but I guess that's where the confusion comes in again. And you're not gonna get millions with 15$ pledges.

I doubt that. Jane's project already has really generous backers, and for example DFA got over 40% of their $3,336,371 from $15 and $30 backers. In my opinion, the low amount of backers is the main problem with Jane's project, not the rewards or pledge ties ($16 and $30 pledges which usually attract most backers are quite similar in Jane's project than in other KC game projects). Also for example, Larry is getting about 250-300 new backers every day, while Jane's project only gets about 50-100 new backers every day.

Some calculations:

Average pledge amount:
Pinkerton Road - 72 dollars
Larry - 44 dollars
DFA - 38 dollars

Backers with pledge under 50 dollars:
Pinkerton Road - 38% of total backers
Larry - 79% of total backers
DFA - 83% of total backers

[jaap]

For nostalgia sake,
I uploaded 2 old reviews of Gabriel Knight 1:
PC Gamer UK edition, 1:3, 1994, by Andy Butcher
PC Entertainment (predecessor of PC Gamer US) 7:2, 1994, by Matthew A Firme.
click for pdf (9.5 MB)

In addition to the original games in boxes I also collect old magazines with reviews. Silly me...

Both reviewers really seem to like it, but somehow are not willing to give it more than 80/100 as score.

anyway,

I hope you enjoy it!

Jaap

[Siddhi]

Originally Posted by Kicktraq

Regardless, here's the Jane Jensen project using the new modeling data to give you an example:

So according to this projection, unless backers increase dramatically there is only about a 50% chance of hitting the goal...

[millenia]

I would bet on a rise at the end though, to push it over if it's still under the goal, so the chances in reality should be much better than 50%. Lots of people are last minute types anyway.

[Kolorabi]

I have to admit I'm kinda worried. They need on average approx. 3000 dollars every day from here on and in, and right now I'm not entirely convinced they'll get that. Partly because there's been some good press lately, like the interview on RPS, that doesn't seem to have had much of an effect. I assume there will be a pretty decent boost towards the end, but there is also a risk that something may happen. Like the 10k backer pulling out.

Finger's crossed though. Really glad this Kickstarter takes place over such a long period compared to most others. Would have been difficult without the extra time, I think.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the reward tiers as they are now, though. I doubt it would be a good idea to add more physical stuff, the experience others seem to have with Kickstarters is that making/aquiring, packing and sending out the physical rewards is usually more expensive than expected.

Oh, and Kicktraq-guy: Great work so far, hoping for more graphs and projections later on (a good idea would perhaps be what I talked about earlier: Something showing the average daily amount the project would need to get in the days left, in order to succeed), but the actual info provided is very valuable.

Edit: Gah, in the time it took me to write this, the amount pledged went DOWN by more than 100 dollars (from 237,397 to 237,287).

[Siddhi]

It will be hugely disappointing if this does not make it, and I still dont understand why its so slow. OK so there was a bit of vagueness at the start, but it all got cleared up a while ago.

As things stand,

1) You will be backing a proven developer, who has been actively been in the industry all these years (not suddenly reappearing after fifteen years)

2) A brand new game, not a remake (of a remake). The game concept is concrete, with lots of information and illustrations, and the winning concept was the one that everyone wanted

3) I think the reward tiers are quite okay actually

4) The goal is only at 300K, supplemented by outside funding -- so no, its not an attempt by the developers to get the fans to take all the risk

5) Excellent communication, transparency and updates throughout the campaign so far

[VampireNaomi]

I'm surprised and disappointed by the slow flow of pledges, too. Where all the casual fans or people who've never played anything by her who could pledge $16 just out of interest? Everywhere I go, I only see die-hard Jensen fans talking about this project, but that crowd isn't enough.

I kind of fear Tex Murphy will be in the same situation once his time comes.

[inm8#2]

People are using Gray Matter's development problems, which were completely out of Jane's hands, against her when deciding to not support the kickstarter.

They're completely missing the point. Pinkerton Road is all about Jane having that control.

The backlash to Gray Matter and to this kickstarter are absurd. People are complaining the rewards aren't good enough. They're complaining the concept isn't clear enough. The video wasn't funny enough. The CSG model isn't clear enough.

All ridiculous, unfounded whining from what I've come to realize is a fanbase not as different from the rest of the entitled gaming community as I thought. The demands people have put out there are absurd.

I never would have imagined so many people in the AG community would be this negative toward the very thing they've been hoping for - more games from Jane and a possible move toward claiming the GK rights from Activision. The latter cannot happen if her projects don't show viable commercial success! And people somehow think that not supporting her is the path to GK4.

Most people on here and other AG forums are quite supportive. I'm talking about the broader AG base.

*ducks to avoid backlash from comments*