Kickstarter is a different type of investment. In fact, it's not really an investment, because people who pledge support money do not make any type of financial return. It's ultimately a place to donate money towards products you think will do well.
I'm shocked at how many stupid products have a ton of funding.
As time goes on everyone will start to capitalize on kickstarter. There is no reason why they shouldn't, from a business perspective.
It is a source of funding which has no legal obligation associted for delivering a product nor paying back.
Look at it like the next evolution of pre-purchase, where money is made availalble at the start of development and all the risk is on those who have a desire to have a game of their dreams created.
Personally, I want the independent developers to have personal financial risk involved, so they are more catious and devoted. I am not really comfortable with the fact, they can fail and move on with only a reputation hit.
It is finding customers who will put $$ where their mouth is and then will be happy to participate in testing of the game. For a startup stage company it is a huge deal. If you never founded or worked for really early stage startup you will not get it. You can find tons of people happily telling you waaa I am gona buy it if you make it!!!11!! But then.. you either have commitment of $ or you do not, kickstarter is that.
CU concept is very risky even so i will put the money up I do no think it is better then 20-30% that anything decent comes out of it. but it is just money and not much money at that.
Originally posted by laokoko I actually look at it the opposite way. Those game studio are taking advantage of investors, taking alot of risk, and when the game fail, they don't care.
On the other hand the guy is taking advantage of public fund + his own fund to make a game. At least his using "some" of his own money.
I like this idea, because first of all he is taking risk since he is using some of his own money. But I do understand why he would do it, since any money he make will be into his own parket so he's willing to take the risk.
except they still have to pay that money back.
Since you two are correcting me, I must have no idea and is wrong.
I always thought "most" game studio get funds through investor/shareholder, not by loan. ANd even if it is, it is in the company's name and not hteir own name.
Since I'm not a business major and you two seemed to know what you talking about, I'll shut up. Yes Curt Schilling cares if he's company go bankrupt, because those money are "loan" and more like personal loan.
There are several ways to raise the capital. Companies like Trion and 38 studos went the direct loan route (as such both had 100% freedom over their games).
I believe Sigil (Vanguard) got a direct investment from Microsoft, and when those funds ran out and they had a pile of shit to show for it Microsoft cut the funding. Sigil managed to strike a deal with Microsoft to get full control of their property (likely because SoE gave them the money to do it) otherwise the game never would have released. Direct investments you do have to answer to someone, but in VGs case Brad was given full freedom, and he failed.
I find it funny that people are saying its a good thing and something honorable to support a game that is in the pre pre pre alpha stages with limited assets in place but someone who supports another game in Beta with a Founders Pack is a horrible type of gamer.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
It's good to see you know what you're talking about OP, otherwise, this whole thread would look pretty silly. Hey, have you looked at the Kickstarter TOS?
Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.
How is it free money exactly? Do you think this will be completely different from every other Kickstarter software project ever and offer no tiered donation rewards? That's a pretty bold stance to take. I'm going to go ahead and say you're wrong. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there'll be rewards like beta access, in game items, mounts, statues, etc, etc depending on what you contribute.
So they can just release a buggy mess and give people their ponies. And this is exactly what you will see happen with some of these projects.
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
The line highlighted proves you don't know how kickstarter works...
If they dont' meet the goal they return the cash, and if you pay into Kickstarter its not a donation, you are getting something for that money. Nothing about it is free.
Edit: If you think people will buy into a kickstarter for a "buggy mess" then sure continue to think that. The rest of us will think that you are pretty much entirely off base.
You are acting like this is some sort of snake oil salesman. Try having an open mind.
Originally posted by Fearum I think its pretty smart. He is not making a game for everyone and wants to see if there is a actually a population that is actually interested in it. He said they will be asking for 2 mil and if it is met, he will throw in 3 mil of his own money to make the game. If its not met the game is dead and nobody loses any money.
And what happens when after 5 mill you have a halfway finished game thats ugly than Asheron's call?
Originally posted by Fearum I think its pretty smart. He is not making a game for everyone and wants to see if there is a actually a population that is actually interested in it. He said they will be asking for 2 mil and if it is met, he will throw in 3 mil of his own money to make the game. If its not met the game is dead and nobody loses any money.
And what happens when after 5 mill you have a halfway finished game thats ugly than Asheron's call?
Cite one time this has happened?
Do tell...
Again, you continually prove you don't have the faintest clue on how kick starter works... please go read the terms of service like multiple other posters have suggested.
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
The line highlighted proves you don't know how kickstarter works...
If they dont' meet the goal they return the cash, and if you pay into Kickstarter its not a donation, you are getting something for that money. Nothing about it is free.
I understand that just fine. What you dont understand is that there is a rather gigantic leap between a met kickstarter goal and a remotely decent product.
what garbage? every game coming this year is promising AND SHOWING differences of the shit come and gone....all we have here is text...mj can talk all he wants..prove it... right now it seems all to similar to df:uw...just sayin
to people saying "oh but its in the ToS, they are responsible if they don't deliver"
Can Kickstarter refund the money if a project is unable to fulfill?
No. Kickstarter doesn't issue refunds, as transactions are between backers and the creator. In fact, Kickstarter never has the funds at all. When a project is successfully funded, money is transferred directly from backers' credit cards to the project creator's Amazon Payments account. It's up to the creator to issue a refund, which they can do through their Amazon Payments account. (Like PayPal, Amazon Payments allows refunds for 60 days from the date of charge. After 60 days, creators cannot reverse the same charge to backers' credit cards, so to issue refunds they'll need to initiate a new transaction to send money via Amazon Payments or PayPal, send backers a check, or use another method. Our support team has guided creators in how to issue refunds like these before.)
In other words, good luck getting your money back. Want to take the project creator to court? Fine, hire a lawyer to get back your 50 bucks.
I understand what you are saying. And when you mention Curt Schilling, it shows why exactly we need something like kickstarter.
No one in the right mind will take risk if they have to not only risk their own money but loan money. Those major studio and game company have their advantage because they are publicly traded company, they get fund through their stock holder.
Now when you mention Curt Schilling and see what happened to him, you can't stop and wonder why be so stupid and take those risk.
Now, I don't like kickstarter, and I do felt it is kind of a scam. But when you have to actually spend 3million of your own money and "loan a lot more money" to make a mmorg, will you do it yourself? I mean you already have to risk your own money. If things go bad you not only loss everything, you still have so much loan you need to repay.
Kickstarter is a brilliant way to get your game get funded, at least nowadays. There is trust in the developers that they deliver the expected. The developers develop with the money of their audience. There is no one in between who doesn't care about the game, only about the money. But I think kickstarter is far form risk free for the developers, especially those with big names. If these developers can't deliver, or deliver something that is "unplayable", their names are burned for a long time. So, if they want to stay in business, it is in their very interest to deliver quite a polished game. It is not about anger a publisher, it is about losing reputation. The kickstarter hype will cool down when the first projects do not meet the expectations of their backers. But I do not think that CU is one of those projects
MMO's played so far: UO,EQ,DAOC,EQ2,GW,ROM,WOW,WAR,AOC,LOTRO,RIFT,TSW,GW2,POE Looking forward to: Camelot Unchained, Star Citizen
A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?
It doesn't compute. If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.
But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back. The whole thing seems off to me.
Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed. If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.
Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing. For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.
Of course it adds up.
What it adds up to is his inablity to raise venture capital for this proposal. The capital market, which is more than a little tight at the moment, did not like the ratio between risk and gain. They do not expect the game to make a huge amount of profit and see some risk (maybe a little maybe a lot) of loosing money on the deal. Result not enough investors.
Therefore kickstarter or nothing.
So investors dont have confidence in Mark. Why should consumers then?
If he isnt competent to secure funding for a project like this, he almost certainly isnt competent enough to run a team to develop this.
Hmm you think maybe Mark does not have confidence in publishers ?
I think thats more to the point here. If CU kickstarter fails then Mark will know that the interest in his vision of CU is not what the public wants. If it is sucessful, then he has the go ahead from the playerbase to proceed with his vision of a game he wants to make, not what some PR firm tells some publisher they feel he should make.
Going forward, in the future i think Kickstarter MMOs should be the litmus test for a developer going forward with new game ideas.
On a side note, Kickstarter will allow game innovation to flourish, and no longer stagnate on the back burners of publishing houses who refuse to attempt new ideas. My personal opinion is that the age of WoW clones is coming to an end finally.
Starts to think they should have named it Scam Starter. If the game flops what do they care? They already have your money. They have no investers wanting captial gain pushing them to get stuff fixed in a timely manner, so in this case they can keep delaying and give up the project completely.
Just need lax investors that don't try to change a game or push for the release too soon.
Yea I'll be heaps out of pocket if it fails, might have to switch to using 95% petroleum for my car instead of premium to help recoups the huge losses.
Why a kickstarter? Well, like with all equity raising for an investment, it's got to do with whom you want to be held accountable to.
MJ has decided that he wants to be held accountable to the players who will play and support the game, and not some obscure (or non obscure) investor who will start dictating how the game should evolve to secure his investment.
The approach MJ has chosen is the right one imho, and I think that if the gamers trully want to experience alternate-gameplay MMOs that's the only way to achieve it.
Hmm you think maybe Mark does not have confidence in publishers ?
On a side note, Kickstarter will allow game innovation to flourish, and no longer stagnate on the back burners of publishing houses who refuse to attempt new ideas. My personal opinion is that the age of WoW clones is coming to an end finally.
And raising development money has nothing to do with a publisher. If Mark wants to self-publish, thats just extra capital to raise.
People are donating to kickstarter without even understanding some basic concepts.
There are 3 basic options for publishing. Option 1 is what ArenaNet, Mtyhic, Bioware, etc do: have your parent company publish. Obviously for a startup company this isnt an option, and this is the one that people hate because this is the case where you have the least freedom.
Option 2 is to strike a deal with someone to publish for you. the most recent example of this is ArcheAge having Trion publish. Usually a company will have near complete creative control with this set up, they just lose some of the revenue to the publisher.
Option 3 is to self publish. Trion and Funcom are two examples.
With or without kickstarter, Mark needs a publishing option. With or without kickstarter, he would choose 2 or 3, and both options leave him in control.
As for the whole WoW clone thing, last year saw TERA, GW2 and TSW release. All significantly different than WoW. The biggest MMO franchise is getting a sandbox. We have MMOFPSs and a MMORTS in development. And there have been a few sandboxes over the last few years, but they all have one thing in common: they suck. Kickstarter isnt going to solve shitty programming.
Comments
Why not Kickstarter?
Kickstarter is a different type of investment. In fact, it's not really an investment, because people who pledge support money do not make any type of financial return. It's ultimately a place to donate money towards products you think will do well.
I'm shocked at how many stupid products have a ton of funding.
As time goes on everyone will start to capitalize on kickstarter. There is no reason why they shouldn't, from a business perspective.
It is a source of funding which has no legal obligation associted for delivering a product nor paying back.
Look at it like the next evolution of pre-purchase, where money is made availalble at the start of development and all the risk is on those who have a desire to have a game of their dreams created.
Personally, I want the independent developers to have personal financial risk involved, so they are more catious and devoted. I am not really comfortable with the fact, they can fail and move on with only a reputation hit.
It is finding customers who will put $$ where their mouth is and then will be happy to participate in testing of the game. For a startup stage company it is a huge deal. If you never founded or worked for really early stage startup you will not get it. You can find tons of people happily telling you waaa I am gona buy it if you make it!!!11!! But then.. you either have commitment of $ or you do not, kickstarter is that.
CU concept is very risky even so i will put the money up I do no think it is better then 20-30% that anything decent comes out of it. but it is just money and not much money at that.
There are several ways to raise the capital. Companies like Trion and 38 studos went the direct loan route (as such both had 100% freedom over their games).
I believe Sigil (Vanguard) got a direct investment from Microsoft, and when those funds ran out and they had a pile of shit to show for it Microsoft cut the funding. Sigil managed to strike a deal with Microsoft to get full control of their property (likely because SoE gave them the money to do it) otherwise the game never would have released. Direct investments you do have to answer to someone, but in VGs case Brad was given full freedom, and he failed.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
So they can just release a buggy mess and give people their ponies. And this is exactly what you will see happen with some of these projects.
The line highlighted proves you don't know how kickstarter works...
If they dont' meet the goal they return the cash, and if you pay into Kickstarter its not a donation, you are getting something for that money. Nothing about it is free.
Edit: If you think people will buy into a kickstarter for a "buggy mess" then sure continue to think that. The rest of us will think that you are pretty much entirely off base.
You are acting like this is some sort of snake oil salesman. Try having an open mind.
And what happens when after 5 mill you have a halfway finished game thats ugly than Asheron's call?
Cite one time this has happened?
Do tell...
Again, you continually prove you don't have the faintest clue on how kick starter works... please go read the terms of service like multiple other posters have suggested.
Thanks.
You mean accept the garbage that current publishers are producing? No.
I understand that just fine. What you dont understand is that there is a rather gigantic leap between a met kickstarter goal and a remotely decent product.
to people saying "oh but its in the ToS, they are responsible if they don't deliver"
Can Kickstarter refund the money if a project is unable to fulfill?
No. Kickstarter doesn't issue refunds, as transactions are between backers and the creator. In fact, Kickstarter never has the funds at all. When a project is successfully funded, money is transferred directly from backers' credit cards to the project creator's Amazon Payments account. It's up to the creator to issue a refund, which they can do through their Amazon Payments account. (Like PayPal, Amazon Payments allows refunds for 60 days from the date of charge. After 60 days, creators cannot reverse the same charge to backers' credit cards, so to issue refunds they'll need to initiate a new transaction to send money via Amazon Payments or PayPal, send backers a check, or use another method. Our support team has guided creators in how to issue refunds like these before.)
In other words, good luck getting your money back. Want to take the project creator to court? Fine, hire a lawyer to get back your 50 bucks.
I understand what you are saying. And when you mention Curt Schilling, it shows why exactly we need something like kickstarter.
No one in the right mind will take risk if they have to not only risk their own money but loan money. Those major studio and game company have their advantage because they are publicly traded company, they get fund through their stock holder.
Now when you mention Curt Schilling and see what happened to him, you can't stop and wonder why be so stupid and take those risk.
Now, I don't like kickstarter, and I do felt it is kind of a scam. But when you have to actually spend 3million of your own money and "loan a lot more money" to make a mmorg, will you do it yourself? I mean you already have to risk your own money. If things go bad you not only loss everything, you still have so much loan you need to repay.
Kickstarter is a brilliant way to get your game get funded, at least nowadays. There is trust in the developers that they deliver the expected. The developers develop with the money of their audience. There is no one in between who doesn't care about the game, only about the money. But I think kickstarter is far form risk free for the developers, especially those with big names. If these developers can't deliver, or deliver something that is "unplayable", their names are burned for a long time. So, if they want to stay in business, it is in their very interest to deliver quite a polished game. It is not about anger a publisher, it is about losing reputation. The kickstarter hype will cool down when the first projects do not meet the expectations of their backers. But I do not think that CU is one of those projects
MMO's played so far:
UO,EQ,DAOC,EQ2,GW,ROM,WOW,WAR,AOC,LOTRO,RIFT,TSW,GW2,POE
Looking forward to: Camelot Unchained, Star Citizen
Sounds like a big scam to me.
Kickstarting a mmo... goodluck with that one.
Hmm you think maybe Mark does not have confidence in publishers ?
I think thats more to the point here. If CU kickstarter fails then Mark will know that the interest in his vision of CU is not what the public wants. If it is sucessful, then he has the go ahead from the playerbase to proceed with his vision of a game he wants to make, not what some PR firm tells some publisher they feel he should make.
Going forward, in the future i think Kickstarter MMOs should be the litmus test for a developer going forward with new game ideas.
On a side note, Kickstarter will allow game innovation to flourish, and no longer stagnate on the back burners of publishing houses who refuse to attempt new ideas. My personal opinion is that the age of WoW clones is coming to an end finally.
Lolipops !
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan
Starts to think they should have named it Scam Starter. If the game flops what do they care? They already have your money. They have no investers wanting captial gain pushing them to get stuff fixed in a timely manner, so in this case they can keep delaying and give up the project completely.
Just need lax investors that don't try to change a game or push for the release too soon.
MurderHerd
Yea I'll be heaps out of pocket if it fails, might have to switch to using 95% petroleum for my car instead of premium to help recoups the huge losses.
SKYeXile
TRF - GM - GW2, PS2, WAR, AION, Rift, WoW, WOT....etc...
Future Crew - High Council. Planetside 1 & 2.
Why a kickstarter? Well, like with all equity raising for an investment, it's got to do with whom you want to be held accountable to.
MJ has decided that he wants to be held accountable to the players who will play and support the game, and not some obscure (or non obscure) investor who will start dictating how the game should evolve to secure his investment.
The approach MJ has chosen is the right one imho, and I think that if the gamers trully want to experience alternate-gameplay MMOs that's the only way to achieve it.
And raising development money has nothing to do with a publisher. If Mark wants to self-publish, thats just extra capital to raise.
People are donating to kickstarter without even understanding some basic concepts.
There are 3 basic options for publishing. Option 1 is what ArenaNet, Mtyhic, Bioware, etc do: have your parent company publish. Obviously for a startup company this isnt an option, and this is the one that people hate because this is the case where you have the least freedom.
Option 2 is to strike a deal with someone to publish for you. the most recent example of this is ArcheAge having Trion publish. Usually a company will have near complete creative control with this set up, they just lose some of the revenue to the publisher.
Option 3 is to self publish. Trion and Funcom are two examples.
With or without kickstarter, Mark needs a publishing option. With or without kickstarter, he would choose 2 or 3, and both options leave him in control.
As for the whole WoW clone thing, last year saw TERA, GW2 and TSW release. All significantly different than WoW. The biggest MMO franchise is getting a sandbox. We have MMOFPSs and a MMORTS in development. And there have been a few sandboxes over the last few years, but they all have one thing in common: they suck. Kickstarter isnt going to solve shitty programming.
Kickstarter you are held accountable to no one.