Adventure Gamers - Forums

I think most games only turn to bundles when the game isn’t selling much. Sure some people wait for bundles.. But I don’t believe that’s the reason the game goes to bundles. If it’s not selling its not selling. Plus devs sometimes use bundles for promotional reasons to draw attention to new projects.

OrionO - 22 February 2015 05:42 AM

a radical, intolerant feminist political agenda

Not sure if OrionO knows what “feminist” means…

More on topic, I think the Coles came into Kickstarter desperately unprepared. They radically rescoped the project after the KS and then didn’t even really have enough to pull of their original plan. There have been rumblings for a long, long time that they’d need a second crowdfunding campaign if they can’t get another cash injection, but I just can’t imagine it’s going to work. I also don’t think this project is going to generate enough to be worth betting their house on like that.

It’s just a sad situation, really, but that’s the downside of crowdfunding, for both devs and for end users.

I’m still a big believer in the positive impact of crowdfunding and I continue to back projects, but with discretion and never with any more money than I’m prepared to lose if things fall through.

Well to be fair, I think hero u was one of a group of badly prepared kickstarters, some of which have successfully released games. It was like after the double fine funding, other devs were like “let’s throw what we have at the wall and see what happens” So at least hero u is not alone there.. but things appear to have gone particularly badly, and I wouldn’t blame them at all for turning to a publisher.

^couple things to note about that list. One is that it gives the green pass to some projects that have gone through a great deal of controversy (such as godus). It takes count of projects that released or have betas, but it doesnt take into account whether the project is living up to promised features. The other thing is, i think everybody knows that the majority of kickstarters have been coming up with results. But nobody wants to be the backer of a project that doesnt. So even a smaller % of failed projects is still too much.

But it is fun to think about how many good games have come from kickstarters so far.. no doubt about that.
The stat id like to see is how well these projects are selling after they release.. but we wont know except in the case where the dev tells us.

zane - 24 February 2015 11:11 AM

But nobody wants to be the backer of a project that doesnt. So even a smaller % of failed projects is still too much.

I honestly don’t mind. I’ll be sorry that something that looked promising isn’t happening after all, but as long as there was a good-faith effort by the creators, I’m OK with the occasional project not panning out. In my old job we used to say that if we never failed, that just meant we weren’t being ambitious enough.

^ i know what you mean, but id hate to be the person who put a larger amount on a project because it was something they believed in, just to watch the developer disappear. Hard to take a “win some, lose some” approach when its also an emotional investment in addition to a financial one.

Mr Underhill - 24 February 2015 11:05 AM

Somewhat related to the topic, this list contains a pretty much up-to-date list of Kickstarter games, conveniently color-coded from red (not gonna happen) to green (released), and it really puts things into perspective:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFW2sjShHriYRsyuVZx4Se8Qxjw38VJk4g-7cls8cpg/htmlview?usp=sheets_home&sle=true

Judging by this spreadsheet alone, I’d say overal KS games aren’t doing as bad as you’d think… I’m curious if you guys agree or I’m the one with the rosy-colored glasses.

I don’t think it tells the whole picture, because it automatically writes off a release as a “success” even when the product is broken, unfinished, or doesn’t resemble the promised product. Takedown is a good example of a project that is an admitted failure, released in an unplayable state, and then abandoned by the community long before it could be fixed. But because it was released it’s a “success.”

Of course there are gray areas as well. A lot of people were disappointed with Moebius, for example. Or even Broken Age because it wasn’t the style they were expecting. Those people may feel regret at their pledge, but they still got a working, complete game.

It’s inherently risky. The good thing about crowdfunding is that you can keep those risks as small as you like. You can give a few bucks or a few hundred and it’s up to you to decide how much the risk is worth to you. 

Mr Underhill - 24 February 2015 11:05 AM

Somewhat related to the topic, this list contains a pretty much up-to-date list of Kickstarter games, conveniently color-coded from red (not gonna happen) to green (released), and it really puts things into perspective:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFW2sjShHriYRsyuVZx4Se8Qxjw38VJk4g-7cls8cpg/htmlview?usp=sheets_home&sle=true

Judging by this spreadsheet alone, I’d say overal KS games aren’t doing as bad as you’d think… I’m curious if you guys agree or I’m the one with the rosy-colored glasses.

That list is somewhat incomplete though.  A lot of games that were funded for more modest amounts (ahem, Quest for Infamy) have seen successful releases. 

I agree with your overall point though; there have been far more Kickstarter successes than failures.  I also agree that a few high profile failures make the whole system look bad.  It’s unfortunate, because Kickstarter CAN be an absolute lifesaver for passionate devs that have no other means of getting funding.  A lot of good games have seen the light of day because of it; it sucks that a few bad apples have made people so skeptical of the system.

Mr Underhill - 24 February 2015 11:05 AM

Somewhat related to the topic, this list contains a pretty much up-to-date list of Kickstarter games, conveniently color-coded from red (not gonna happen) to green (released), and it really puts things into perspective:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFW2sjShHriYRsyuVZx4Se8Qxjw38VJk4g-7cls8cpg/htmlview?usp=sheets_home&sle=true

Judging by this spreadsheet alone, I’d say overal KS games aren’t doing as bad as you’d think… I’m curious if you guys agree or I’m the one with the rosy-colored glasses.

I’ve seen that list from neogaf. It confirmed what I came to realize through 2014, kickstarter is one of the best things to happen to gaming in the last years and a great deal of projects have been released because of it.
It has it’s problems but now its a lot more easy to predict what is going to be released or what is shady business. Companies that did well with the first project (developers of Shadowrun, for example) will continue to have support from gamers.
I keep backing alot of projects (never with a large amount) and I hope it continues to be an option for indie developers.

Mr Underhill - 24 February 2015 11:05 AM

Somewhat related to the topic, this list contains a pretty much up-to-date list of Kickstarter games, conveniently color-coded from red (not gonna happen) to green (released), and it really puts things into perspective:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFW2sjShHriYRsyuVZx4Se8Qxjw38VJk4g-7cls8cpg/htmlview?usp=sheets_home&sle=true

Judging by this spreadsheet alone, I’d say overal KS games aren’t doing as bad as you’d think… I’m curious if you guys agree or I’m the one with the rosy-colored glasses.

I completely agree with you. There are some great games on that list that saw the light because of Kickstarter. Kickstarter gets a bad rep, but I am so glad it exists to make games like BOUT2, Broken Age, and BS5 a reality.

tomimt - 24 February 2015 01:55 PM

The bad rep doesn’t come from failed KS projects alone, it comes also from those that have “finished” as games missing big features or that have ended up as buggy messes with no updates as the devs just can’t afford to do anything to the games.

To be fair, that’s not an issue that’s unique to Kickstarter games.  The vast majority of publisher funded games change significantly from pitch to finished product, too.  The only difference is that you personally aren’t privy to the process the way you are as a backer of a Kickstarter project, so you only see the finished or near-finished versions that get shown to the gaming press.