5punk

Lets get this show on the road then! Our first topic for discussion is crowd funding. A few years ago Kickstarter really took off, leaping to fame via some high profile projects like Project Eternity and Star Citizen. The premise was, as I saw it, that of gamers taking back genres and developers they loved and freeing them to make the games we wanted to play, away from the profit focused publishing studios. It came at a convenient time, when AAA projects were increasingly the norm but also being increasingly cynical. Big publishers like EA and Activision were (and still are) releasing long iterative series of the same IPs, or were appearing to exploit their customers with cynical business models and terrible DLC. For me it was a backlash against this, a way of making my voice heard by backing interesting indie projects which would never have been picked up otherwise.

Now, a few years on, and Kickstarter fatigue is definitely a thing. What was once seen as a magic bullet for small devs has been accused by some as a curse. The market is oversaturated with interesting little projects alongside crowd funded big developers. People are hitting the limits on how much they're prepared to spend and some project owners are complaining that it's impossible to fund development because the market base is stretched too thin. On top of that there's cynicism. Some high profile projects have failed spectacularly - Ouya is the third highest funded Kickstarter project, but has been dogged with controversy. Some projects simply folded and took the investors' money with them. Others released something far from what they claimed it would be.

So, was Kickstarter a good thing? Is it still a good thing? Does it have a future, and what alternatives are there for small devs?

I backed a few games, and played some that have been kickstarted, and plan to buy some more.
Planetary Annihilation - completed a little late, but a well polished game. Unfortunately I don't actually like the gameplay that much, so I've got a little buyer's remorse.
Grim Dawn - Reached funding in May 2012, a steampunk/templar take on Titan Quest by the original defunct developers, Iron Lore, who bought the engine rights and formed Crate Entertainment. Got the beta tier, which is a good thing, 'cause it's been in beta for ages. It's coming along quite nicely, but I'd bought it as a "something to tide me over till Diablo 3 comes out". The Diablo 3 expansion pack came out months ago. I'll probably play it right through when it's completed, but who knows when that'll be.
Shadowrun Returns - Pretty flawless and successful release from memory, maybe a little late? Regardless, the game plays well, but it's a little slow paced for me so I've not rushed to complete it. Probably one of those "I'll finish it eventually" ones.

I didn't back, but I did play Divinity: Original Sin. Absolutely stunning, fantastic, rich game that I'd urge anyone in to RPGs to give a try. I played it through in co-op with Shada and loved every second of it. Don't know whether or not I would have really benefited from backing it and seeing it develop, but I'm glad that others did so that I had a chance to play it.

Elite Dangerous is on the list of things that look so shiny, I'll probably throw money at it once I've played a demo to see if the gameplay jives with me.

So point one for me is Kickstarter =/= Crowdfunding. Crowdfunding started a long long time ago, Caxton crowdfunded his printing engine iirc. In terms of modern types, I am part of a crowdfunding loan equity system that lends my money to those who can't get the best apr from the banks, I get a bit back or lose it on a defaulter, but overall the money back is more than the loss. I also watch crowdcube for share opportunity in unlisted businesses, I don't really invest there as I think it needs a bubble like the dotcom bubble to make big money on a big gamble. I also occasionally drink in a Brewdog pub in Newcastle, kitted out via crowdfunding on their equity for punks ipo. Crowdfunding is so much more than Kickstarter.

To answer regards Kickstarter however -

I look at Kickstarter as the best representation of market opportunity in creative media. For gaming it offers options and I don't see it as a form of backlash. Indie was already fighting back at the homogeneity of the AAA publishing conglomerates and Kickstarter is the (current) pinnacle of a simple idea that allowed a focus for the wellspring of creativity and nostalgia. Kickstarter was good, is good and will continue to be good in my opinion as it offers another option to people looking for investment. It will probably get replaced by a new name or team with a new method at some point and I personally hope that if it is, it's more of a curated all or nothing set up that returns all money from failing/ed investment when the funders vote no confidence after so many failed deadlines.

For those devs complaining that they can't get funded, then my answer is simple really - be less boring, change your tactics, inspire and engage. It's marketing and visuals that capture the audience and the output of updates and teasers alongside realistic deadlines and targets that keeps them engaged. Effective engagement and communication aren't new ideas, stop being lazy. In terms of alternatives fundraisers can call on the more traditional set-ups such as tech accelerators, business investment as well as any number of differently modelled crowd source companies that cater for different markets, the options are wider than ever.

It's certainly not an easy route to free money anymore and people viewed it with suspicion even before the high-profile failures and outright scams, so unless you have a great idea and are good at promoting the concept then it's pretty hard to actually meet your target these days. People are naturally skeptical, and that is greatly amplified when you factor in that it's on the Internet, which is of course chock-full of scammers and molesters.

In a way though, that's good news for potential backers. The risk to backers was never that the project wouldn't be funded, as in that instance they wouldn't be charged, but that the project was funded but then subsequently failed to deliver. Now that projects are less likely to get funded, it should mean that only the really good, solid ideas get backed. There are still some big names whose projects have failed or not yet shipped though, indeed only around 16% of successfully-funded projects ship on time.


What is startling is the markedly different ways a failure or delay is dealt with by the project initiators:

Neal Stephenson's attempt at a sword-fighting PC game, CLANG's response to failure was brutal, but upfront. They admitted to basically burning through all the money and giving up after what they had produced was no good. Some backers respected this and commented that "at least they tried to make something cool".

Yogscast on the other hand did as much as they could to distance themselves from the failed Yogventures, with an exceptionally poorly-worded and begrudging offer of a key for a vaguely similar $10 game. No one seems to know where the money went, although I'd imagine the joke video they put out about spending it all on Jaffa cakes is hard to watch for some of the backers.

The author of Katalyka, a board game which asked for a relatively small sum chose to air her reasons for non delivery quite publicly. Unfortunately those reasons seem to hint that's she's in need of professional help and medication.

When another more extravagantly-funded board game The Doom That Came To Atlantic City failed the project owner posted a contrite and frank confession that his inexperience was the root of the failure, yet claimed he had the sense not to blow all of the cash as it was his stated intention to pay every single backer back from what in part was his own pocket, him having to get a job and put aside all but basic living expenses in order to do so. Sadly he wasn't able to live up to that pledge, probably in part because Kickstarter of course keep their 10%, but in the end he was labelled a scammer, perhaps not unfairly. However it all turned out nice in the end, as the rights for the game then fell back its creators who approached a company called Cryptozoic Games who published the game and in a move of either remarkable generosity or blatant self-promotion gave a free copy of this $75 game to every kickstarter backer.

Montrex Watches may have been a victim of their own success. When you're funded at nearly 1000% of your goal, it can be hard to deliver to everyone. The attitude though is not so easily excusable - watches are expensive items, so it's kind of natural that people feel cheated when they don't get what they paid for, but publicly blaming pretty much all your backers for ruining your business and destroying your name isn't the cleverest marketing move. Apparently both watches and refunds have been forthcoming, but the self-inflicted damage to publicity will take longer to put right.

Lastly, I am but a young girl and know little of the ways of marketing, but surely there is a flaw in the way Pegasus Games go about engaging with their potential customers. That flaw being to start a massive flame war with anyone who suggests that $100 for a board game is somewhat overpriced.

It's a crazy world where something classy like Booby Painting doesn't get funded, but a half-assed watch designed by William Shatner gets 909% funded.


I've backed three games at a level high enough to actually receive them: Elite, Star Citizen and Dreamfall and am pleased more that I was able to make them exist in a world where publishers apparently don't share that view than that I get to own them. Inherently crowdfunding as a whole is a form of barter where you pay slightly over the material cost of the goods in return for an engagement with the developer as the product is created. It's kind of rare that this actually happens though, basically I paid $20-ish each for three games, which is less than retail but more than a developer would normally get as their cut, and I have to basically take what I'm given, which may or may not live up to the product as described originally.

Steam's Greenlight seems the better option for games and for gamers - you engage directly with the makers in the same way you can with mod authors in the workshop and are paying for something that actually does something already instead of an unrealised idea.

I don't do kickstarter, I'm rather averse to gambling with such unknown odds and my entire monthly toy budget.

Problem I see is, even if the people involved are honest, it seems like a lot of the time, everyone who's bunged a fiver into the pot wants unlimited time telling the lead dev exactly how to make the game, thus generally resulting in devs taking on too much, mentally exploding or just failing to deliver anything.

That and the other side is the dishonest people who are just out to make a quick buck, and fuck everyone over.

On the other hand entirely, I really like that kickstarter (and crowd funding) as a whole exist, as it's a generally positive thing and brings forth glory for the human race.

I've actually chucked a good couple of hundred at various companies for games via crowdfunding over the past couple of years.

The thing is for me, is that I don't use it as a pre-order platform. I use it as an investment platform. I go in, look at the potential product and the company, and see whether I want to risk losing the money I want to put in.

As it stands, I've backed the following via KS:

• Elite: Dangerous, FTL: Faster Than Light, Wasteland 2, Double Fine Adventure, DCS WWII: Europe 1944, Satellite Reign

And via their own sites:

• Xenonauts, Star Citizen, Minecraft

Of the games, a number are out the door or close to, or are in a state where they can't fail. The only ones currently in risk are perhaps Satellite Reign and Star Citizen, although the latter could probably just put a "help!" request out and get it's problems sorted by the community who are balls deep into it financially.
DCS WWII nearly fell over as the developing company folded and I was expecting to lose $40 on that at one point, but thankfully Eagle Dyanamics (who make DCS) brought it inhouse and salvaged it.

However, in all of those games, I went in knowing that it could fold and I'd get nothing and I think there in lies the crux of any percieved problems with crowdfunding in general, people are treating it like a pre-purchase and don't quite understand it's basically just a bet. Scams aside, I really think that's possibly the biggest problem with the crowdfunding efforts, there's not enough emphasis put on the fact you may get nothing and you're not pre-purchasing.
Part of the blame can be laid at the developers themselves, for either being too loose with the rewards to entice backers, or being a bit naive or off with the cost estimates (I think smaller projects are actually riskier investments, as getting the "big" numbers actually takes some thinking to get there), or that they view it as their only funding resource. I'll say this for Chris Roberts, he went in with investors lined up because he knew the project required much more money and the KS was really just to get it started rather than thinking it was the only funding source, but a lot of the project failures can perhaps be blamed on not thinking through the future finances clearly enough.

On the whole I do think crowd funding is a good idea, but I think there certainly needs to be a bigger emphasis on its investment nature rather than treating it as a sales platform.

buzzmong wrote:The thing is for me, is that I don't use it as a pre-order platform.

I think this is key, and this is where a lot of backers go wrong and therefore get upset. If I were ever to do a kickstarter myself I would make it entirely clear that backers are funding me creating something. I would of course listen to feedback, but at the end of the day it would be my project and I would be making the decisions. Too many backers think that they have a right to directly influence things. I don't think backers have a right to shit, beyond what is promised them in the rewards.

The other bit of wrongthink I see a lot of in backers is the idea that 100% of the funding should be invested in the product. No. These people are (generally) not running a kickstarter purely because they have some burning desire to introduce a game/gadget/whatever to the world. They are running a business. Businesses need to make profit, if nothing else just so that the people running it can eat and pay rent. Also, some kickstarters are set with a (for example) £10k target because they need £10k to start their project. If it reaches a squillion% of their target and they proceed to only spend £10k of it, people get annoyed. That is dumb.

I do think we are still at the beginning of a bit of a learning curve with kickstarter. Theres still some stuff that needs ironing out, both practically and attitude wise. We are still seeing people failing at fairly basic things (I think most people could predict that the Human Resources one was going to fail. Brand new IP from someone who hasn't really fully completed their last KS project yet and that some people think were overambitious with that last one asking for $1.4 million? hahaha, no). On the other hand, its made possible a bunch of things that were previously impossible, and for all the failures there have been a decent number of successes too. Its maybe not a perfect thing, but its certainly a good thing.

Unfortunately a large number of backers of failed projects (and attourneys) seem to think the pledges are binding contracts promising the delivery of goods, but there are differences in the legal view depending on where you and the project owner live.

Kickstarter don't hold any money (except their 10%) and will not offer refunds - their attitude is totally hands-off, saying the parties should sort it out between themselves. They do a decent enough job to my mind of explaining that you're making a donation and the tiers are merely gifts you receive as thanks if the project works out okay. Some people would rather just boil it down and say all that is just a fancy way of selling stuff - we know it isn't that simple, but when put a certain way in court, it could seem that it is.

In Oregon they seem to understand the concept and the risks and urge that backers read the Kickstarter terms fully plus do their own research into the people they are investing in as due diligence. It claims that it's entirely up to the project originator as to whether they want to refund the backers, and that if they are unable to do so then it's rarely worth anyone's time trying to chase down an empty pocket. (The subtext is that it's not worth a lawyer's time, which naturally comes at a cost.)

Washington's (state) Attourney General seems to have a rather different view, seeking to recover perhaps $1.6m in damages from a failed $25,000 project. He wants to send a message and claims while it might be the first, it won't be the last time that people get sued for what he calls crowdfunding theft.

It seems there's a very fine line between a project that fails and outright theft, and while a manager of a failed project that can demonstrate that they have tried to make reparations or prove that they did everything they could to make it a success should be less likely to fall foul of the law than one who delivers nothing and communicates less, nothing is that certain legally.

It sadly could also be a case of having the best lawyers. The first two on the list I posted earlier are big well-established IPs, yet seem to have done the least in terms of making things good in the wake of their project failures. There are tales that they have paid off the loudest or most troublesome complainants to make them go away, which I obviously cannot confirm, but isn't an option that would be available to smaller enterprises.

All this adds up to less Kickstarters in future, except for people who can perhaps afford to fail, who as far as I'm concerned don't really belong on it, as they have other options when it comes to funding.

Joose wrote:Also, some kickstarters are set with a (for example) £10k target because they need £10k to start their project. If it reaches a squillion% of their target and they proceed to only spend £10k of it, people get annoyed. That is dumb.

Just picking up this one thing, I find it odd that KS and every other funding platform let people continue funding once the target goal has been met. It's not a charity drive where it's more the merrier, it's a predicted cost of what it'll take to get the project off the ground. Any funding after that target should be either donations or hell, even pre-orders at a later date, outside of the KS/IGoGo/?? environment. I can understand why, but I think it might be contributing to the crowdfunding fatigue as big names suck up the free cash and people's attentions, meaning there's less to spread around.

buzzmong wrote:Just picking up this one thing, I find it odd that KS and every other funding platform let people continue funding once the target goal has been met. It's not a charity drive where it's more the merrier, it's a predicted cost of what it'll take to get the project off the ground. Any funding after that target should be either donations or hell, even pre-orders at a later date, outside of the KS/IGoGo/?? environment. I can understand why, but I think it might be contributing to the crowdfunding fatigue as big names suck up the free cash and people's attentions, meaning there's less to spread around.

This is a very good point, although that would make stretch goals tricky to implement. I do find a lot of stretch goals annoying as they are often things that don't *require* the extra money, they are just being arbitrarily gated off to encourage people to give the project more money than they actually need. Some stretch goals are not bullshit though, like adding proper voice acted dialog recordings to an adventure game or commissioning more artwork for an RPG sourcebook, so I don't think they are something that should be done away with entirely.