Gaming philanthropy

[Dog Pants]

I just pre-ordered FTl and Xenonauts, both indie games which are using the pre-orders (via Kickstarter in FTL's case) to fund development. Last week (or maybe the week before) I threw a bit of money Tim Schaefer's way to develop a new and as yet undisclosed point and click. For me that's partly an investment in games I want to play and see released, but it's partly to spur on genres that I've missed in the recent years of AAA focused development and endless iterations of Call of Duty. It feels like a return to genuine computer gaming. I would be far more upset at the loss of the game than the loss of my money should one of these projects fail. It feels like a form of philanthropy - of course I'm getting a product ultimately, but I might not actually like it. I suppose you could call that a chance investment instead.

Anyway. Crowd funding, Kickstarting, paying for games before they're released, and the (prophesised by me) Year of the Indie. What are your opinions on it? I'll probably end up writing a blog article on this so feed me your lovely words.

[Roman Totale]

I've donated to the Kickstarter things as I really like the idea. To be honest though, until the game comes out, that's all the involvement I want. I've noticed on other gaming forums there are a lot of self congratulatory, back slapping posts by people who seem to have development some sort of saviour complex over the whole thing. I trust the guys behind this to make a decent game, so I don't really give much of a shit about getting development updates every month for two years.

I think I'm sounding a bit jaded, but I am looking forward to it - I'm just really tired today.

[Dog Pants]

The saviour complex thing doesn't surprise me, and I expect self entitlement will be a problem as many gamers are demanding even without paying any money. The dust will settle though, I hope, and people wanting instant gratification or a personal game developer will drift back to their Modern Warfares, leaving people genuinely interested in gaming innovation to fund an indie scene renaissance.

[friznit]

I want to crossbreed sloths with flamingoes. They'll be called flamingstops. (That was for you blog)

Rather have to agree. I think there's a generation thing at play here too. Those of us who were brought up on Attic Attack miss the good old days before graphics cards were invented when actual game play was still more important than beating films to the oscars. The addictions of Minecrack, Dorf Fortress and Open TTD are good indications of this, and at the other end of the scale by far the most popular combat flight sim is currently a fan made mod of 14 year old Falcon 4. The same generation are now mostly full time employed professionals with at least some disposable income, so it's a rich target market for Nostalgia Gaming Inc.

[FatherJack]

I've donated to the Kickstarter things as I really like the idea. To be honest though, until the game comes out, that's all the involvement I want. I've noticed on other gaming forums there are a lot of self congratulatory, back slapping posts by people who seem to have development some sort of saviour complex over the whole thing. I trust the guys behind this to make a decent game, so I don't really give much of a shit about getting development updates every month for two years.

The problem is with the monetisation of the situation, that is - they have taken people's money. For every well-reasoned donator like yourself, there are a thousand apes smashing out the ASCII demanding weekly updates on "what are you doing with our money?"

It's like the oft-referenced entitlement issue - where people either expect everything for free, or a premium-level game with all possible future add-ons for vanilla prices.

I want to say to those apes: You buy a game, a Product, and possibly a Service (such as support, or dev vids) whose cost is factored in to the price. You are not shareholders of the company, you do not own the developers and you have not "saved" them. You have contributed a portion of the time and materials cost in producing the software as specified in the brief you signed up for.
It is not a bespoke product especially for you. If it doesn't match your expectations, then tough. You do not automatically qualify for future updates, expansions or re-releases on other systems or with extra content.

When you start taking money, the stakes go up, and people start expecting what they might get from a regular release, or even the sort of deal people perceive we "used to get". In effect you're paying for a lot less than any of that - just a promise. There's no deep-pocketed publisher willing to absorb poor release-day sales, pay for advertising space, or merge their own robust support/patching system with your own. At least by choosing Steam they are buying in to a proven content-delivery network that at least ensures whatever they do produce can make it to the customers.

[Anery]

FTL I am interested in, and will be contributing toward it by pre-ordering through kickstarter. I think the game is a good idea and worth my money, but more importantly - I want to play it.
There is no altruistic intent, my reasons are purely selfish - I want the fucking game, here take my money. I don't care when, just so long as it is downloaded to my box sometime, and like Roman - I don't want monthly updates either.
If I aint interested I aint paying, and this applies to everyone saviour complex or otherwise - our motivations are selfish.

Friz is right to a certain extent as well, we are the generation that grew up with games and are now employed and have some disposable income, but Nostalgia™ needs to be kept in the right place and context - in the back of your mind with the memories of your first lay and life at school (it was shit while you were there but you look back on it with rose tinted lens)
I think that the AAA publishers are scared to innovate so it is left to the indie devs to experiment and be creative - and you can't exactly create fantastic graphics on a small budget so everything has that Nostalgia™ glow to it, but is it not the unique gameplay that really attracts? the same argument about graphics meaning nothing works both ways - it's why people produce texture packs for MC and overlays for DF. If budgets increase (as they could well do with kickstarter projects getting some major backing now) these production values can only go up too.
Aside, I loved Atic Atac and Citadel.

[Dog Pants]

If you indulge your nostalgia a little though it shatters those illusions pretty quickly. Buy one of those Atari or C64 emulators and it will almost certainly gather dust after a few games. Years ago, when I still had my old Amiga, I set it up again out of nostalgia and fired up Cannon Fodder, Syndicate and Sensi-soccer. They just weren't as good as I remember, and I've never really felt that unjustified nostalgia since. Not to say I don't get nostalgic, as last night's game of Xenonauts proved, but while some games really were that good, most don't stand up in the face of modern innovation.

[Thompy]

If you indulge your nostalgia a little though it shatters those illusions pretty quickly. Buy one of those Atari or C64 emulators and it will almost certainly gather dust after a few games. Years ago, when I still had my old Amiga, I set it up again out of nostalgia and fired up Cannon Fodder, Syndicate and Sensi-soccer. They just weren't as good as I remember, and I've never really felt that unjustified nostalgia since. Not to say I don't get nostalgic, as last night's game of Xenonauts proved, but while some games really were that good, most don't stand up in the face of modern innovation.

2D artwork, as in drawings or paintings used as a back drop, doesn't age much. It was only a year ago I gave another playthrough of Final Fantasy 7-9. They have a special place in my heart as one of the mainstays of my teenage gaming years, I hold them in reverence and they have a high nostalgia value. Yet I can still play them today without ruining those memories or values (but maybe that's just me rather than the 2Dness). Although 2D artwork has got slightly higher resolutions as the years have gone on, it's not got any better in terms of quality and joy to look at (even LucasArts era adventure games can still be a pleasure), it was mastered centuries ago. I wish it was used more today, with only the rise of the indie really using it, but often just for finacial/development reasons rather than desire. Look at Machinarium, if you like point-and-clickers I don't see that aging any time soon, if at all.

And just to reiterate whats been said. When I backed Double Fine it was the first time I'd used Kickstarter. I made damn sure what exactly is was, what I was entitled to and what actions of recourse I had. It didn't take long to realise what was really common sense to start with - you are donating money up until the point you get the finished product. But even then, it's a donation with a free game as a reward, you haven't purchased it, therefore you can't use that as a reason to demand customer satisfaction. Obviously people can't use it to deceive or give up on projects and effectively steal money, but hopefully if you use Kickstarter you donate to people you trust will deliver and treat you properly, e.g. Double Fine.

Out of interest does anyone know what a person is expected to do with money that goes over the 100% mark? If someone has budgeted perfectly and doesn't require any more than 100% can they just keep it as free monies without obligation to the donators? Anyone donating over the 100% must realise they are doing so, and therefore wonder how the project they are backing will change/not change. In the case of Double Fine they've said all the money will go to the game, and it'll therefore be as big and as good as the money will allow. But say for instance they raised £50 million, they have to say "er, we can't spend this on one game". They can't exactly refund people because they'd have to descriminate against the time at which people donated, or they'd have to refund everyone a percentage which would be a bit of a faff.

I think what I'm getting to here is that the larger the sums of money get and the bigger the companies get the more issues Kickstarter will have (or the companies using it) in explaining to donators what exactly they are entitled to.

[FatherJack]

If you indulge your nostalgia a little though it shatters those illusions pretty quickly. Buy one of those Atari or C64 emulators and it will almost certainly gather dust after a few games. Years ago, when I still had my old Amiga, I set it up again out of nostalgia and fired up Cannon Fodder, Syndicate and Sensi-soccer. They just weren't as good as I remember, and I've never really felt that unjustified nostalgia since. Not to say I don't get nostalgic, as last night's game of Xenonauts proved, but while some games really were that good, most don't stand up in the face of modern innovation.

2D artwork, as in drawings or paintings used as a back drop, doesn't age much. It was only a year ago I gave another playthrough of Final Fantasy 7-9. They have a special place in my heart as one of the mainstays of my teenage gaming years, I hold them in reverence and they have a high nostalgia value. Yet I can still play them today without ruining those memories or values (but maybe that's just me rather than the 2Dness).

I still play the PS1 FF series regularly, but it's not really of the same vintage as a C64. It's only really turn-based strategy titles like Death Knights of Krynn that I can think of from that era which don't cause massive frustration now. I really don't know how we managed to just play Manic Miner and Hunchback all day - and this with 20 minute loads times and tape errors.


I'm not a bit fan of point-and-clickers. Even at the time, my fun was often diluted as I ended up playing 'hunt the pixel' or trying every combination of everything with everything else and often ended up consulting a hints file. I really hope they can come up with a modern take on the game style rather than just making it the same, but hi-res. I'm reminded of Ben There, Dan That! - which I also got stuck and gave up on pretty quickly.

I kind of see the original genre as having moved on and mutated. Games like Black and White and From Dust are the most obvious example of your mouse cursor being how you interact with the world. Even some quite different games share similarities, though - as an example the quest to find Mister Cuddles in New Vegas is not so different to finding an item or switch in a 2D depiction of a room.

[Joose]

Out of interest does anyone know what a person is expected to do with money that goes over the 100% mark?

I dont think that has ever been clearly defined. Its a bit of an odd one: under normal game dev models, where you make a game and *then* get money off customers, you would have a set development budget and if the sales are way better than expected then you get way more profit. Hooray, lets go out and buy a yacht.

This way around its a bit more of a sticky subject. They have said that if they get more than their initial budget they would just use it to make the game better, but you are right, there are limits to how much money you can spend on one game. Even if you were to go mad and have it fully voice acted by A list hollywood stars and the like, there is still going to be a theoretical upper limit. Not that im expecting them to get to that much money, but then I doubt they would consider actually casting all A list stars either, im just saying, there is definately an upper limit. However, they cant go "YACHT TIEM!" because they have promised us all that they would spend all the money on the game. Ok, legally I imagine they *could* spend it on whatever the fuck they like as long as they also make a game, but it would be supremely bad press for them if they did.

Personally, if I was them I would take the obvious route: Got to much money to spend it on one game? Make two games. I dont think anyone would be upset about that happening.

As far as game nostalgia goes: a lot of old games do not age well, and going back to stuff you liked back in your youth can be a horrible shock to the system. Its not always the case though. Ive played a hell of a lot of the old XCom games recently. Adventure games tend to age remarkably well, as the graphical shinyness takes a back seat to entertaining stories and fun puzzles. Its a bit like films: ones that rely entirely on cutting edge special effects look terrible after a few years, whereas ones that rely on good stories, acting and even clever use of camera angles and lighting can be as good now as they were decades ago.
The one bit of games that always seems to age badly is the interface. If all the Xenonauts guys had done was taken the original game and given it a better interface I would have been happy. The fact that they are improving other bits as well, without (by the looks of things) fucking up what made the original good is making me extremely happy.

[buzzmong]

If you indulge your nostalgia a little though it shatters those illusions pretty quickly. Buy one of those Atari or C64 emulators and it will almost certainly gather dust after a few games. Years ago, when I still had my old Amiga, I set it up again out of nostalgia and fired up Cannon Fodder, Syndicate and Sensi-soccer. They just weren't as good as I remember, and I've never really felt that unjustified nostalgia since. Not to say I don't get nostalgic, as last night's game of Xenonauts proved, but while some games really were that good, most don't stand up in the face of modern innovation.

I have to beg to differ on those games specifically, as I had the opposite experience. I fired them up and thought "shit, they are as good as I remember, why aren't modern games offering this sort of gameplay?".

As for kickstarter and stuff, I've donated to Double Fine's one, mostly because of Schaefer it has to be said, and obviously I bought Xenonauts a while back. Not to sure on FTL though, I'd like to play a demo first.
I'm certainly behind this crowdsourcing of money for games people want, rather than publishers deciding what people want.

[Anery]

This could develop into a debate about what games are still good now and what games should be left in your Nostalgia section of the brain.

[Dog Pants]

I'm certainly behind this crowdsourcing of money for games people want, rather than publishers deciding what people want.

And funnily enough the people have decided on very different things to the publishers. I don't think it's cut and dry - Kickstarter projects appeal to the sort of gamer who is interested in indie games, and there's no incentive to release an indie equivalent of Modern Warfare because Modern Warfare is already there. But it does prove that profit can be made from smaller titles. I think Cliffski once wrote that big developers shouldn't shy away from smaller games with short development cycles, like a non-independent indie.

This could develop into a debate about what games are still good now and what games should be left in your Nostalgia section of the brain.

Lets do it!