Yogventures bemusement

[Thompy]

The Yogscast have set up a Kickstarter page for a game "they" are making and I'm confused and bordering on angry about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIod3ZUBpys
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/win ... ogventures

I think they have done a great job with their Minecraft videos. I'd never sit and watch all of them, but from the ones I've seen the amount of work that's gone into crafting the world and story of Shadow of Israphel is respectable. Their other information based videos do a great job of highlighting mods and patches. They've carried the style over into other games, albeit usually in a more simple "let's play" style, but keeping to a high standard with their comedic formula.

Now that's out of the way, are they fucking mental?

Consider the following:

• They have no game development background or skills.
  They have focused heavily on one game for a number of years.
  They are mediocre to poor at actually playing games.
  They've hired a company to make a game based on their ideas.
  This company has no public record of published games.
  The information on the game is just vague concepts and a rather shitty video.

This is no different to one of us hiring a company to make a game on our ideas, except that they have a fan base.

I'm mostly confused as to why people would back this based on the above. They're over halfway to funding this and I can only presume most people backing simply have a few braincells missing, thinking along the lines of "I like the Yogscast's videos, I am a fan, I must therefore back their game and it will be awesome." For some reason I'm finding it hard to just laugh at people throwing their money away, and I'm a tad angry at them aswell.

I'm also angry at Yogscast for having such a shit pitch, potentially with the intention of suckering in their fan base. Eugh. Any other day I might not give a shit, but with the current Kickstarter crazy I thought it worthy of analysing, considering people are on the bandwagon (both devs and backers) and think any game on Kickstarter is destined to be awesome.

Of course it might be a good game, but blind foresight is not a good enough reason to approve of any of this.

[Dog Pants]

I think you might be a bit over cynical here. They have an idea, concept art, and a render at least. True, it seems very derivative of Minecraft, but if it produces a good game then I've no problem with that. Many have stated before that Minecraft is simply the first to realise a new genre. However, I agree with the principle that Kickstarter is a bandwagon. What's more, people are going to tire of it before long and they're going to start failing. If a few high profile games go under with a lot of people's money too then that's going to put people off even more in future. I want to see Kickstarter become a viable method of indie development because it isn't stifled by a publisher's profit margin, but it's all a very precarious concept and cynicism, justified or not, will kill it in the end.

[Legoshoes]

That's the problem I see with Kickstarter. It's great that fan interest can see doublefine get millions for a new adventure game or see the prospect of a new Shadowrun game meet it's goal in a day. But for something like The Yogscast, people who primarily entertain using other peoples' games, I could see how doubts can form with regards to how this game will be made.
Barring the drama that went down in the yogscast forums earlier this year, it'll be interesting to see what happens.

[spoodie]

I was investigating the game company as I read there were videos of the game tech available, prior to the annoucement, but a cached page from Google is the best I can find. The videos are removed or private.

I had no intention of investing, due to the drama they seem to generate, which is off-putting as that will threaten productivity. And also they're not game producers. However I have enjoyed a lot of their videos and perhaps it's only fair to give something back. To help them out with a project they obviously want to do, even if it doesn't work out.

[FatherJack]

There's some more info here: http://kristafer.blogspot.co.uk/

It looks like Winterkewl, which is basically that guy, plus his mates in the industry approached the Yogscast first about making a game about them, basically for them and their existing fans. Yogscast liked the idea and of course it doesn't hurt that they have a huge fanbase already who can fund it.

It's good from Winterkewl's perpective because they are able to use an IP which is already very well-known, without having to pay a massive license fee, despite it being their first game. With the kickstarter money they have the surety that enables them to leave their existing jobs and work on the project.

It's good for the Yogscast as they get industry professionals making the game they dream of, and even in the dev stages they will have something they can use to make their videos in. They've relied on fan-made and collaborative stuff for a lot of their existing body of work - they almost only just have to turn up and provide the humour, now.

It'll be good for the fans if they end up with a playable game from all this, and it's their choice where they want to spend their money. At the very least they'll have some fun videos to watch, which many of them enjoy enough to donate to Yogcast already.

Of course it may turn sour later down the line when Yogcast get over the giddy feeling of having their own game, development takes longer than expected, or their fans start bitching about what should be in the game, but hopefully they're experienced enough at what they each do now not to have unrealistic goals. I wish them luck with it.

[Thompy]

I was perhaps slightly harsh in my wording I guess. To be clear, I in no way want them to cancel or fail in this project. I wish them luck because I like them and because if funding goes ahead and it fails they'll take a serious hit to their reputation and YouTube business. Also I'll certainly not hold it against anyone for funding out of kindness if they choose to do so. What I take issue with is the lack of information provided and, reading the comments, people who inexplicably expect it to be the game of their dreams and cannot fail. If any of us did the same thing it would go nowhere, even if it was advertised and got the same number of page views. I therefore feel there is an element of exploitation, even if not intentional. Yes, ultimately, it's the backers responsibility but... something about it doesn't sit right with me.