Adventure Gamers - Forums

At the risk of a massive agreement feedback loop, I agree on all points, with this in particular quoted for truth:

Lambonius - 06 August 2013 06:39 PM

If they really want to succeed, they need to start planning things with the consumer in mind.  The campaign should be based around “what is the consumer going to ultimately get out of this?” Not, “how can we best fund the development process?”

I don’t believe that Kickstarter is either perfect or the only way to crowdfund, but whether they meant to or not, it feels like the message the Precinct team is unintentionally sending here is that they think Kickstarter is what needed fixing rather than their campaign pitch. (Though the FAQ does try to clarify.) I don’t mean that they aren’t allowed to change platforms, just that the emphasis has been solely on why they’re switching platforms and not on improving the pitch itself. Even granted the reality that they may need time and funding to do some of that (e.g. the prototype), I’d be happier to have seen at least some things like the gameplay flow diagrams go live along with this new pledge drive… I guess from the team’s perspective they just want to start from a core base of supporters and convert others once they have more to show.

While they presumably mean well, it’s hard to take this as seriously as other website crowdfunding campaigns like Star Citizen, which was on a whole other level.

I can see a case to be made that Kickstarter may not be the right approach for Precinct, and who knows, maybe this will work. But it seems designed to let the hesitators wait and see, and count me among the hesitators. As with the Kickstarter, I’d like to see Precinct itself give a lot more detail about the gameplay before I’m interested in it. If others want to fund a prototype and find out how the game plays, great, and I’d certainly be curious how the prototype turns out. But in the meantime, I’m done fretting about it.

lol this is crazy. So.. once they reach 25k.. they charge everybody’s card to make a proof of concept? Theyv gone mad.
And they got rid of reward tiers? yeah… this failure is too epic for words…

They really have improved the experience… for the developer. Its much more appealing for a developer to not have to make rewards, to not have to pay kickstarter, to get to keep the money at incremental stages with ill-defined responsibilities. Yeah its great for them. Just not anybody else.

This may be controversial but I’m going to say it anyway but this whole kickstarter has been ruined in two ways by the previous Renaissance of Adventure Game Kickstarters

1. Tim Schaefer, Jane Jensen, and the Two guys from Andromeda burst on the scene last year with their pitches. Tim and the Two Guys proudly had no design plans, and none of them had any prototypes (which people are asking for here and now) But they all got the same money Precinct is asking for. If those guys got it with so little I’m sure the team behind Precinct think they’re entitled to as well

2. If this had come out directly after Tim Schaefer’s last year I probably would’ve given it some money, But I feel like I’ve been burnt by Adventure game kickstarters. Tim Schaefer got millions, posed for magazines eating money but then ran out of it, now his game has to be released in parts. Jane Jensen promised a choice of games for $15 or both for $30 but after months of cryptic excuses admitted that one of those games wasn’t going to come out. The Spaceventure team seem to be in trouble-very little information and only a very buggy demo after a year.

I’ll be honest, I was one of the biggest cheerleaders for this new cycle of adventure games from old masters, but now I just feel let down by almost all of them (LSL, Tex and Broken Sword being the exceptions)
In a way it’s unfair that Precinct seems to be offering the same as the earlier Sierra game makers (bar Al Lowe) but because they’re last to the table, after all the let down they get less.

Now if the pitch had been better maybe that would’ve helped

To be honest, the only two projects that I supported in Kickstarter were Tex Murphy and The Longest Journey because were the only ones (in my opinion) that showed “something to the backers” before they even launched their projects. For me, there is a bunch of people that just go to kickstarter and say “Hey, I’d like to do this and that, not sure right now what really, and I need money. Will you support me?”. Those guys will never get my money…

A game concept should never be enough.  If they don’t have something tangible to show, they don’t deserve money.

tomimt - 07 August 2013 12:43 AM

The thing is though most KS backers don’t back at levels to get any other rewards than just the game, so the way Precint is doing it doesn’t really change a thing in any way for vast majority. And they do promise to give final game even if you give only 1 dollar, so that’s pretty fair.

But I do agree, that it looks like they learned the wrong lesson, they still have the same, bad pitch video and overly heavy realiance on nostalgia.

well, lets take jane jensen’s kickstarter for exmaple. About 250k of the funds gathered came from backers who backed above the 50 dollar level. The people who donate 100, 200, 500 etc, make up a vital segment of funding for a game that doesnt reach a massive audience.
So its nice that theyr saying “everybody who donates a buck gets the game, and only give more if your hearts in it”... i just cant see it working.

I really enjoyed Police Quest; I have fond memories of it.  Precinct really didn’t capture my attention, and I’m a bit disappointed by how the team behind it has handled this all.  For me, I’m all set with this project for now.  I wish them luck, but I think this project has a lot of problems that they can’t solve with the way they’re progressing now.

Bt

I got a fairly bad impression of the project from the get go. They made every mistake they possibly could, so I’m not surprised the Kickstarter didn’t pan out. Was giving them a chance but they lost me when they threw in exclusive in game content.

Lucien21 - 07 August 2013 05:22 PM

Press for the new idea is kinda skeptical.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-07-police-quest-spiritual-successor-cancels-kickstarter-starts-crazy-new-crowdfunding-campaign

Heh…“skeptical” is putting it mildly.

This new funding model is an absolutely terrible idea, and I hope it fails miserably.