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Two Guys from Andromeda (Space Quest creators) on Kickstarter

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Total Posts: 506

Joined 2003-09-10

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Dienerstrasse - 29 May 2012 06:51 AM

I find random advert posts like the one above in a thread like this to be even more offensive than they’d be normally. Pan

Why? It’s on topic, it’s positive, and we don’t know for sure that he signed up just to post it seeing as all of our post counts were just reset… Tongue

Seriously, I think it’s great that there’s a community of SpaceVenture supporters “taking to the streets” so to speak (and it seems to be working to some extent, there were raises in funding this weekend after people put articles on Slashdot etc.) There are some places where “adverts” are inappropriate, sure, but if you can’t express your support for an adventure gaming Kickstarter project on Adventure Gamers, *in a thread devoted to that Kickstarter*, where can you?!

     

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Joined 2012-05-20

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fov - 29 May 2012 11:47 AM
Dienerstrasse - 29 May 2012 06:51 AM

I find random advert posts like the one above in a thread like this to be even more offensive than they’d be normally. Pan

Why? It’s on topic, it’s positive, and we don’t know for sure that he signed up just to post it seeing as all of our post counts were just reset… Tongue

Seriously, I think it’s great that there’s a community of SpaceVenture supporters “taking to the streets” so to speak (and it seems to be working to some extent, there were raises in funding this weekend after people put articles on Slashdot etc.) There are some places where “adverts” are inappropriate, sure, but if you can’t express your support for an adventure gaming Kickstarter project on Adventure Gamers, *in a thread devoted to that Kickstarter*, where can you?!

Oh, I’m all for promoting the Kickstarter campaign. I was talking about a spam post that wanted us to go to some UK store and buy shoes that has since been taken down (I reported it; maybe others did too). And to put something like that on a Kickstarter thread, where people are rallying and scrambling hard to see their passions realized, I find to be very poor taste indeed.

I should have probably quoted the post because mine makes no sense with it gone. I was just too annoyed to think of it, I guess. Wink

     
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Oh haha! Someone must have deleted it already. All righty then.  Gasp

     
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Joined 2006-09-24

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A big problem in my opinion is the amount of negativity and misinformation that’s coming from other places about these projects. You’d think the Double Fine forums, having a constituency of adventure game enthusiasts, would be equally enthusiastic toward other adventure kickstarters. Instead, there’s an incredible amount of misinformation, misrepresentation, and negativity towards anything that isn’t Double Fine Adventure.

I bring this up because there are 87000 some backers who are the prime source of funding for other projects, but most of those people disregard these projects as not showing enough concepts, not having cool enough videos, and other irrational things.

During the live chat last week Mark and Scott mentioned that they have to work really hard to keep up and grab people’s attention. People kept asking them about Double Fine, and you could sense the very valid, justified frustration they had. One guy says he wants to make an adventure game and gets $3.3 million. Others do the same, plus offering concept art, prototypes, story overviews, etc., and somehow THEY’RE the ones not putting enough effort into the kickstarters.

I’m bothered by this because the negativity spewing from the Double Fine base seems to really be stunting support for other projects based on all this negativity and misinformation. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, but certainly there are people who are choosing to not support Two Guys, Tex, and others because those projects don’t have the name Tim Schafer attached to them. The entitlement and arrogance over there are quite perplexing.

     
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Joined 2005-11-29

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No, you just have a goofy concept of negativity. Discussing things that they could do to improve their marketing is not negativity. Acknowledging that Double Fine succeeded in part because he was the first major studio to do it is not negativity.

I don’t think Tim Schafer did everything right with his campaign, and I don’t think others should just do what he did. I think he was very successful because it was a new story and it got everyone talking. That’s just not the case now, you really need to bring more than just your good name to the table.

The people making these criticisms are mostly backers who want to see this succeed. They’re trying to help.

     
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Joined 2011-12-15

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inm8#2 - 29 May 2012 03:29 PM

A big problem in my opinion is the amount of negativity and misinformation that’s coming from other places about these projects. You’d think the Double Fine forums, having a constituency of adventure game enthusiasts, would be equally enthusiastic toward other adventure kickstarters. Instead, there’s an incredible amount of misinformation, misrepresentation, and negativity towards anything that isn’t Double Fine Adventure.

I bring this up because there are 87000 some backers who are the prime source of funding for other projects, but most of those people disregard these projects as not showing enough concepts, not having cool enough videos, and other irrational things.

During the live chat last week Mark and Scott mentioned that they have to work really hard to keep up and grab people’s attention. People kept asking them about Double Fine, and you could sense the very valid, justified frustration they had. One guy says he wants to make an adventure game and gets $3.3 million. Others do the same, plus offering concept art, prototypes, story overviews, etc., and somehow THEY’RE the ones not putting enough effort into the kickstarters.

I’m bothered by this because the negativity spewing from the Double Fine base seems to really be stunting support for other projects based on all this negativity and misinformation. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, but certainly there are people who are choosing to not support Two Guys, Tex, and others because those projects don’t have the name Tim Schafer attached to them. The entitlement and arrogance over there are quite perplexing.

I didn’t see such “negativity” in DF forums. Could you post some links to these conversations?

     
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Here’s an example: http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/6839/P50/#219639

I’ve had my doubts about the project being successfully funded, but not about the people behind it. The problem is that after DFA broke through people have applied all sorts of lofty expectations and comparisons to other projects. Other creators have to work really hard to convince people they have a plan for their games, but for some people it’s not enough…

I think Spaceventure’s chances are looking better, but again a huge influx of backers is needed. People are trying to tweet sci-fi related celebrities and have them mention the project to their followers.

     
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To be clear, I have no doubt in the project or the Two Guys’ ability to make a fantastic game, and I’m very excited about the project.

But their pitch video is shit. It’s two guys reading a dull script off a teleprompter. It comes off like those awful awards show presenters, or a PBS pledge drive. I was waiting for Mark to say “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” There was no concept or attempt at humor and that’s what people want from them.

     

Total Posts: 4

Joined 2012-05-27

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Wow, that was quite a harsh assessment…

I think the expectations for how well the videos should be made are a little inconsiderate of practical constraints. These guys aren’t advertisers, and in most cases can’t afford a large campaign, hence them being on Kickstarter to begin with. They don’t have to be charismatic, that is not really relevant to their pitch. And if they come across at least as well as a pledge drive then that’d be fine, since that’s basically what this is… But more importantly, they are mainly known for their ability to produce top-notch adventure games, with stories that give us the desire to revisit the games and genre for decades after it supposedly ‘died’. A long cry, and totally different field from putting together a promo that will please every critic.

Writers aren’t usually known for their stage presence. And neither are illustrators. Scott being the writer, and Mark being the illustrator.

I found the intro to their campaign video quite satisfying, my only critique would be that it’s not broadly appealing enough, but without more details about the game that isn’t really possible. Part of the fundraiser is to subsidize the design of the title, since they are a newly formed company with little capitol. Also please consider, these 2 guys helped pioneer the genre, and are now having to start from square one. A shame in my opinion, we respect creators little in this country when something new comes and overshadows them. Also they were always on the creative and programming end of things in the past, with Sierra responsible for the marketing.

I know the innate desire is to think that they should be good at everything, but it doesn’t make it a practical desire. I hope you can see past shoddy video production value, as it isn’t their field, and look at their past output for what the potential of the project could be, a great sci-fi adventure game. Not coming down on you for your opinion, just my 2 cents.

I’ll plug my promo here again, since I think it shows anyone who hasn’t played Space Quest before some memorable moments from the series, that might help illustrate what their potential could be:

Hope this doesn’t come across as spam, just think maybe this campaign is getting a bumrap, and these guys really are great game designers I’d personally like to see succeed.

Cheers!

     

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Joined 2012-05-27

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Oh, to clarify, by ‘broadly appealing enough’ I mean it seems aimed at people who are already familiar with Space Quest.

Sure that didn’t need to be clarified, but there it is! :-)

     
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Frogacuda sounds harsh, but he’s right. If you’ve never played Space Quest then you have no idea how zany the Two Guys are just from their pitch video. I don’t know whose idea it was to be so dry in the pitch (I’ll be blaming Chris Pope if this thing fails so it doesn’t matter either way) but I think that’s had an unimpressive impact.  If it was me, I would have played up the comedy, have Gary Owens narrate the pitch and hype the reunion of Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe. These guys were basically estranged for a decade before this year.

Hopefully they’re able to save face with the prototypes and the big media coup we’ve been promised in the final two weeks. Apparently Felicia Day tweeted about the project so that was pretty cool.

     

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Joined 2012-05-27

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I agree jobloshow, hope I didn’t come across too harshly or chastising towards frogacuda, because that was not my intention in the least. And really I think it comes down to direction of the video, which was a bit poor in the latter portion. I also agree about it being too hinged on a familiarity with their past work, without showing much of what made their past work great (ie. the comedy, the sci-fi themes and landscapes, planetary/space exploration, and so on.) Definitely left some things to be desired, and I consider these valid critiques.

I just hoped that people wouldn’t come to expect them to have to perform for us, in a field which isn’t their specialty. Or expect a polished pitch, with shoe-string budgets. Which was really all I was saying, albeit in a long winded manner.

     

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Joined 2006-05-20

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If you ask me, the whole thing was rushed.

Compare it with the Tex campaign. That campaign was announced a long time in advance. Then they spent about a month putting together a really good pitch video and reward tiers. When they finally did go live, it had a really polished appearance about it. Notice that they have hardly changed the reward tiers, while the Two Guys campaign has had a change in the reward tiers every few days. If I look at the page now, I can barely figure out what the reward tier structure is like. The fact that I need to look up a complicated chart itself tells me that the reward structure is way too complex.

The two guys should have waited till about July and then launched their campaign. Firstly, it wouldnt have run parallel to the Tex campaign, and many people who are currently backing only one might have been able to back both. It would have also given them some time to make a good pitch video.

They could have also put together those prototypes before the campaign started. A nice,  fleshed out prototype—probably like the latest prototype, with pathfinding fixed—at the start would have been a great launchpad for the campaign. As it turned out, prototype 1 was a huge momentum killer.

I dont understand the hurry to get their campaign started, especially when they knew the dates for Tex’s campaign beforehand. As it stands, it looks like they just decided to jump in, and a lot of things look incomplete - the pitch video, the reward tiers, the prototypes. And lets not even bring up that first video before the kickstarter started.

Anyway, we can’t do anything about it now. I pitched in, and I’m hopeful it will make it, but looking at the pace, it doesn’t look likely. There has been a big jump recently, but even that is well below the daily average required. Lets see how it goes.

     
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nextheory - 30 May 2012 12:41 AM

I think the expectations for how well the videos should be made are a little inconsiderate of practical constraints. These guys aren’t advertisers

But they are writers, and funny, creative, talented ones at that. And that’s kind of what they needed to emphasize.

I know they aren’t guys with a lot of charisma or screen presence, but they are creative guys so why would they choose to emphasize their weakness by making that video, rather than making a sketch or a fake news report or SOMETHING a little more clever that could make people laugh?

     
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Siddhi - 30 May 2012 04:30 AM

If you ask me, the whole thing was rushed.

Compare it with the Tex campaign. That campaign was announced a long time in advance. Then they spent about a month putting together a really good pitch video and reward tiers. When they finally did go live, it had a really polished appearance about it. Notice that they have hardly changed the reward tiers, while the Two Guys campaign has had a change in the reward tiers every few days. If I look at the page now, I can barely figure out what the reward tier structure is like. The fact that I need to look up a complicated chart itself tells me that the reward structure is way too complex.

The Tex campaign really surprised me. I thought announcing a date for a Kickstarter was a bad idea, since it diminishes the number of people who will report on it a second time when it actually launches. It turns out this was true, but the climate had changed so much in those 6 weeks that many sites stopped reporting on kickstarter launches altogether, so it’s good they got it out when they did. Furthermore, this really, really frontloaded the campaign so they had this HUGE, confidence-boosting first day that set the tone for the rest of the campaign. They also had, in my opinion, the best pitch video I’ve seen, well thought-out reward tiers, and a bunch of updates ready to go. They responded to early concerns about DRM and DLC quickly and definitively (compared to the two guys who STILL won’t included a download copy with their hard copies but “generously” let you pay full price for a download copy on top of your physical copy).

As a series, Tex was an underdog kickstarter candidate. It was a cult classic series that never did Lucas/Sierra numbers, loaded with live-action FMV (a total stigma now). They’re pulling it off because they ran a good campaign, and they would have fallen flat on their faces if they made the moves the Two Guys did.

Despite all that, I do think SpaceVenture may still succeed, and it’s mostly because of what a really great (and popular) series Space Quest was.

     

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