The Kickstarter MMO is Dead | OGR | MMORPG.com

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The Kickstarter MMO is Dead | OGR | MMORPG.com

Are Kickstarter MMORPGs a thing of the past? In this week's One Good Roll Steven concludes that crowdfunding is dead.

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ashiru_1978

I think such projects in the future should start as a single player RPG and build upon that first and then expand the networking by adding some sort of multiplayer and from then on dedicated servers.

It's either overly enthusiastic indie developers who realize they are not up to the task or overrated AAA games that overpromise and underdeliver. Last "new" MMOs I had fun in were Forsaken World and ASTA Online.

caalem

It's not dead if it was never alive.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance had one of the most successful video game kickstarters ever. Do you know how much of the total development budget it paid for?
About 3%. For a singleplayer RPG. Three percent of the costs of development, for one of the most successful video game kickstarter campaigns ever — STILL, years later.

The issue was always people who thought you could make an MMO for a million dollars and willingly throwing their money into a moneypit.

Yes, as it turns out, publishers are actually important. Because you don't get a game at all without them.
Do you know what Warhorse used that money they raised for Kingdom Come deliverance to do?
Convince a publisher that people were interested in their games so they could secure real funding, not pocket change.

olepi

I follow the "crash and burn" philosophy of project management: you want somebody who has already failed at least once to be in charge.

I've seen it happen for years, a new guy comes in and says "we can do that in 6 months". The old manager said it would take at least a year, or probably two. So upper management hires the new guy and guess what? It takes a year or two years.

Usually they get fired, and a new new guy says "we can do it in 6 months". And the cycle repeats.

It's better to keep the old manager who crashed and burned, and when they say it will take 2 years, believe them. Ignore the new guy who claims they can do it in 6 months.

But that rarely happens, and especially not in crowd-funded game development. Even experienced managers can make totally ridiculous predictions, like with Star Citizen.

Scot

CF is questionable for MMOs perhaps but not gaming in general, I also do not see any evidence that new CF MMOs are not still being funded. I am very on the fence about this, the idea that "It’s time for Indie developers to start looking elsewhere to fund their games" is easier said than done.

My advice remains the same it did going back to the days of pre-orders being the only way to put in money before launch. Don't put anything in until you have seen the reviews.

Slapshot1188

Good article!


But I would say that the games projects are in hibernation. There is a still a TON of money being funneled into Crowdfunded games. It seems like Star Citizen gets another million every week. Ashes is still raking in the money based on pixel pictures. Sure their official Kickstarter's have ended, but the money is still flowing.

I think there will be another "Next Great Hope" coming via Crowdfunding. It's just a matter of when.
I mean, there are still people that quite literally believe Caspien when he posts his roadmaps for CoE. Or KoE. Or whatever he decides to call it next.

Scot

caalem said:

It's not dead if it was never alive.



Kingdom Come: Deliverance had one of the most successful video game kickstarters ever. Do you know how much of the total development budget it paid for?

About 3%. For a singleplayer RPG. Three percent of the costs of development, for one of the most successful video game kickstarter campaigns ever — STILL, years later.



The issue was always people who thought you could make an MMO for a million dollars and willingly throwing their money into a moneypit.



Yes, as it turns out, publishers are actually important. Because you don't get a game at all without them.

Do you know what Warhorse used that money they raised for Kingdom Come deliverance to do?

Convince a publisher that people were interested in their games so they could secure real funding, not pocket change.

I agree about the money, but it still is a buggy game that is stretched thin by the trying to do so much. Great story though.

achesoma

Currently Monsters & Memories is developing an MMO without crowdfunding or millions of dollars. They seem to be quite far along and just started in 2021. If they pull this off, it could create a paradigm shift on how MMOs are created. I'm surprised it's not talked about more often by old-school mmo fans.

Quizzical

It's the nature of game development that it's very prone to have time and cost overruns.

Suppose that you're a web site developer.  You've made several web sites before.  You're asked to make another new one for some other company.  The scope and complexity of the new site is comparable to previous ones.  You've got a pretty good guess that the time and cost to make the new site will be comparable to the previous ones.

While that can be more or less replicated in game development, it shouldn't be.  You can have a project that is basically to make a mediocre knock-off of some other game but uses this particular popular IP that you've licensed.  And that can have a fairly predictable time and cost to make the game.

The problem is that it's also clear before you even start it that the game is going to be terrible.  A corporate web site that is a lot like that of some other companies, but about your own company instead of someone else's can be good and useful.  Being the 17th mediocre knock-off of some popular game to arrive on the market is not.

Any competent game developer will have ideas as he builds the game of, hey, it would be cool if we added this, that, and the other.  And yes, it would be cool.  But it will also increase the time and cost to actually make the game.  Sometimes you have to do it anyway, because if you chop out all the cool ideas that you didn't have until you started making the game, then the game is going to be terrible.

But sometimes, you can't do it because it increases the time and cost to make the game.  Sometimes the added complexity can make a new feature conflict with other things in the game, or create really subtle bugs that are an enormous nuisance to track down.

The trick is to figure out what cool ideas are safe to add to the game because they don't add much to the time and cost and don't risk breaking other things.  And then to ruthlessly kill off other cool ideas that will blow out the scope of the game and cause feature creep to kill the whole project.  But keeping that straight is hard to do.

Quizzical

achesoma said:

Currently Monsters & Memories is developing an MMO without crowdfunding or millions of dollars. They seem to be quite far along and just started in 2021. If they pull this off, it could create a paradigm shift on how MMOs are created. I'm surprised it's not talked about more often by old-school mmo fans.

The problem is that game engines and other development tools can make it look to outsiders like a project that has barely started is already far along, because they're mostly showing you what their tools can do.  Adding the features that will make your game special is a lot of work.  Getting all of the different components of your project to work together is also a ton of work, but demos can easily cover up that it hasn't been done yet.

achesoma

Quizzical said:

achesoma said:

Currently Monsters & Memories is developing an MMO without crowdfunding or millions of dollars. They seem to be quite far along and just started in 2021. If they pull this off, it could create a paradigm shift on how MMOs are created. I'm surprised it's not talked about more often by old-school mmo fans.

The problem is that game engines and other development tools can make it look to outsiders like a project that has barely started is already far along, because they're mostly showing you what their tools can do.  Adding the features that will make your game special is a lot of work.  Getting all of the different components of your project to work together is also a ton of work, but demos can easily cover up that it hasn't been done yet.

That's true but these guys stream and record their development in real time while showing the test and developer servers. I've never seen that before from any other dev team. They're developing in open view.

https://www.youtube.com/@MonstersMemories

Alverant

I kickstarted Ship of Heroes/City of Titans (forget which one) to send a message to NC Soft. It was so long ago that I don't really care anymore. Plus, the Homecoming servers meant I got to play the original game again.

Nick_Shively

Albion Online is probably the most successful, launched kickstarter MMORPG so far.

Iselin

I've been saying for years that crowdfunding is just not suitable for MMOs. It can work well for more modest games that can be developed in 2 or 3 years but something as complex as an MMORPG worth playing that takes 6+ years to make by a competent team. and many more by those who have never done it, is up against it right from the start since very few people are interested in crowdfunding something that will come in 6+ years.

The usual way around this that we have seen many times is grossly over-optimistic (I would say outright lies) projected release dates at the time the KS campaign starts that sound fishy to sensible folks who consequently won't fund and totally pisses off even those who do fund when the timelines are inevitably missed by many years.

Slapshot1188

I think what we need is a MMORPG version of the Adventure Construction Set that the original EA put out for the C-64.  

I know Unity and Unreal bill themselves along those lines but they still don't work well.  We just need a kit that creatives can easily use to drag and drop, import graphics, customize players, etc...

THAT is something I would back.  Let it start out with small scale Multiplayer with the hopes to build it from 10 to 100 to 1000 players.

Quizzical

Slapshot1188 said:

I think what we need is a MMORPG version of the Adventure Construction Set that the original EA put out for the C-64.  

I know Unity and Unreal bill themselves along those lines but they still don't work well.  We just need a kit that creatives can easily use to drag and drop, import graphics, customize players, etc...

THAT is something I would back.  Let it start out with small scale Multiplayer with the hopes to build it from 10 to 100 to 1000 players.

So basically, you want RPG Maker but with networking support?

Mendel

Slapshot1188 said:

I think what we need is a MMORPG version of the Adventure Construction Set that the original EA put out for the C-64.  

I know Unity and Unreal bill themselves along those lines but they still don't work well.  We just need a kit that creatives can easily use to drag and drop, import graphics, customize players, etc...

THAT is something I would back.  Let it start out with small scale Multiplayer with the hopes to build it from 10 to 100 to 1000 players.

While an MMORPG construction kit *could* be awesome (and there were some around even as early as 2002), it would also likely set a lot of crucial design decisions in stone, making games made with such a kit very derivative.  Great if you want to make clones of other games, but it could be very limiting to a more creative endeavor.

Slapshot1188

Quizzical said:

Slapshot1188 said:

I think what we need is a MMORPG version of the Adventure Construction Set that the original EA put out for the C-64.  

I know Unity and Unreal bill themselves along those lines but they still don't work well.  We just need a kit that creatives can easily use to drag and drop, import graphics, customize players, etc...

THAT is something I would back.  Let it start out with small scale Multiplayer with the hopes to build it from 10 to 100 to 1000 players.

So basically, you want RPG Maker but with networking support?

Kind of.  But ideally something beyond the very pixelated graphics that had last time I looked.

I think what I mean is something closer to the failed D&D Swordcoast Legends game:


Something like that, but with far better tools for creation.  I have no skill in such things but was able to make a fairly interesting "module" in a week..  Something similar, but multi-party so you can have 10 or so on the same server, then 100, then 1000.
With robust tools for dragging and dropping and building and scripting encounters.

PS:  Neverwinter and I think STO used to have the ability for players to create modules for the game.    The problem is that it always had to be a part of that base game and the modules really kind of caused problem with the main game.  If it was fleshed out more and gave far more control to the creators.. I'd be interested.

OG_Solareus

With articles like this and mostof the comments. kickstarter mmos never had a chance. The amount of negattivity and disparagement is kind of sickening anddoesn't allow the genre to push a head. The writer seems to think trying for innovation and failing is something to to preach down about. It's not, these poeple tried. Failing is part of life, if we everything lived in the comfortzone we still be using square wheels.

RandomCasualty

Never done a Kickstarter, but did do Camelot Unchained "pre-order" to help "development" and just as frustrated.

kitarad

OG_Solareus said:

With articles like this and mostof the comments. kickstarter mmos never had a chance. The amount of negattivity and disparagement is kind of sickening anddoesn't allow the genre to push a head. The writer seems to think trying for innovation and failing is something to to preach down about. It's not, these poeple tried. Failing is part of life, if we everything lived in the comfortzone we still be using square wheels.

They are failing with other people's money though.

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The user and all related content has been deleted.

OG_Solareus

kitarad said:

OG_Solareus said:

With articles like this and mostof the comments. kickstarter mmos never had a chance. The amount of negattivity and disparagement is kind of sickening anddoesn't allow the genre to push a head. The writer seems to think trying for innovation and failing is something to to preach down about. It's not, these poeple tried. Failing is part of life, if we everything lived in the comfortzone we still be using square wheels.

They are failing with other people's money though.

No one held a gun to funders heads. In that kind of logic, the stock market should've shut down by now...

Iselin

OG_Solareus said:

kitarad said:

OG_Solareus said:

With articles like this and mostof the comments. kickstarter mmos never had a chance. The amount of negattivity and disparagement is kind of sickening anddoesn't allow the genre to push a head. The writer seems to think trying for innovation and failing is something to to preach down about. It's not, these poeple tried. Failing is part of life, if we everything lived in the comfortzone we still be using square wheels.

They are failing with other people's money though.

No one held a gun to funders heads. In that kind of logic, the stock market should've shut down by now...

IDK about you but in the stock market I make money. KS is just another name for panhandling.

Slapshot1188

OG_Solareus said:

With articles like this and mostof the comments. kickstarter mmos never had a chance. The amount of negattivity and disparagement is kind of sickening anddoesn't allow the genre to push a head. The writer seems to think trying for innovation and failing is something to to preach down about. It's not, these poeple tried. Failing is part of life, if we everything lived in the comfortzone we still be using square wheels.

Easy to try and fail with other people's money.

Iselin

Vutar said:

Iselin said:

OG_Solareus said:

kitarad said:

OG_Solareus said:

With articles like this and mostof the comments. kickstarter mmos never had a chance. The amount of negattivity and disparagement is kind of sickening anddoesn't allow the genre to push a head. The writer seems to think trying for innovation and failing is something to to preach down about. It's not, these poeple tried. Failing is part of life, if we everything lived in the comfortzone we still be using square wheels.

They are failing with other people's money though.

No one held a gun to funders heads. In that kind of logic, the stock market should've shut down by now...

IDK about you but in the stock market I make money. KS is just another name for panhandling.

That would apply to anyone with an idea looking for investors.

Nope. In KS you are not an investor with the possibility of future profit on your investment, you are a donor to someone else who might make a profit.

Big difference that.