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New all time low in Indie crowdfunding scams
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They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Look at what happened with Shards Online's kickstarter.
They are one of the only developers who actually DID produce a tech demo for people to try out during the kickstarter and it completely backfired. Most people heavily criticized the game for being "incomplete", clunky, boring, etc... The people who actually understood that it's no where near finished were mostly happy with their time on there or simply said that kind of game isn't for them, but those people were quite rare to come across.
I think they should provide some sort of proof that they are capable of delivering what they are promising within a certain timeframe. Kickstarter is WAY too lax imo. Several games I wont bother to mention have had absurd amounts of money thrown at them and we still haven't seen anything of any significance from them after over a year or so.
it doesn't matter if its a scam or not. If you go down that rabbit role you will never get out. Call it Barney Rubble for all I care.
What I am trying to say is well beyond the Webster Dictonary fight over linquistics. I am talking about a deliberate attempt and creating a negative impact on the gaming market.
Which does more of that? (regardless of what you want to call it)....well most likely AAA but only because the impact is much larger.
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We've gone from going to the store and perusing the shelves for a new game to buy to paying some guy on the internet to make the game for us. That's the all time low we've hit. I say, the more they screw those who buy into this crap, the better. This is not how good games are going to be made. It is however, how money is going to be fleeced.
May be you don't want to make a distinction, but I do.
It is one thing if they are putting out factually wrong product information, and if i purchase i may lose my money.
It is an entirely different thing to put out a PR campaign for whatever positioning they want in the market.
The first is fraud, and probably a felony. The second ... is just fair game is a market economy. Creating a negative impact (deliberate or not) is not fraud. Heck, it is day to day marketing.
Not "we" .. just some easily deceived people who pays into KS projects.
I doubt most gamers will do that.
disagree completely.
I think games as a service is a brilliant idea and for more than one reason its great for gamers
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to me liying to your customers is a scam. To you maybe its not.
Never the less we can argue until the cows come home on what is or is not a scam it will not change the underlining point of this string will it?
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Video games have long been a legal grey area, more so since they have gone mainly digital and we as citizens have little to no digital rights.
They dont have to adhere to false advertising stipulations, dont have to adhere to any form of price regulations, are able to charge their own "tax" and make it look like they are charging tax for the government, when really its just for them (I am looking at you Bioware).
Not to mention 0 quality control, government oversight or consumer protection agencies set up to ensure fair business practices. I am baffled that game devs are so surprised when people pirate their games as much as they do, perhaps treat us fairly and we will do the same for you.
The gaming industry is like a bandits wild wild west, they lie cheat and steal until their pockets are full and then they release a shitty sequel to do it all over again. I think we need to demand an ethics rating system for the entire games industry, where if you promise and dont deliver you loose points, you charge the same price for digital as you do for physical you loose points, you release crap games that dont work on launch and you loose points.
If you go below a certain amount of points your business license is revoked and all investors and managements is forbidden to ever invest or get a business license again. It is called deterrent sentencing and it is used by almost all nations legal systems for major crimes to deter people for committing them.
Want to keep your money flow and business, release quality, dont lie and have fair prices. If you cant do that you should be allowed to operate a business.
Of course *just* lying is not a scam. You have to lie about a verifiable aspect of a product, get someone to buy (pay you money) on it, before it is a scam.
If you are just talking about lying .. just use the word "lying". It is a perfectly good word. You don't need another word for lying. Scam is MORE than just lying. And yes, it is semantics. Given that so many here are so engrossed in semantics of what MMO means, i figure i will play that game on the definition of scam too.
And no .. it won't change the underlying point. The reason we argue is because it is fun.
some of this is true but the bottom line remains.
The industry is FAR better now with things like kickstarter then it was before.
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"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
well that is pretty weak but and I can barely accept it.
but I guess we can both agree then that at mimmium we have shown that some indie firms run scams and some AAA firms lie.
I can live with that I think
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Oh there is no disagreement with that statement. Note that I am also not disagreeing that lying from a AAA company can have more impact than a indie scam (just because of the number of people who will listen to a big company).
But at the end, i do question whether the notion "good for gaming" is sound. EA may be a despised company. AAA devs may lie. But at the end of the day, i got many fun and entertaining games. Isn't that the most important measure for a gamer?
for me it is the end measurement which is why people will often find me defending indies and crowdfunding.
The general 'indie' movement which includes crowdfunding has dramatically improved my gaming experience over the past few years.
and I think its a positive force moving forward.
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Agreed, it sounds to me like he is attacking how scam artists are now abusing Kickstarter in amazingly brazen ways. I didn´t read anything where he was against kickstarter, only trying to kickstart games that are not even games yet. And then uses the whole $500 demo and cash-shop in a game that the devs call themselves as pre-alpha.
I'm a fan of indie developers but what crowdfunded mmos have even launched ? There are lots I know of in production but none of them seem to have finished anything. Pretty hard to say they're a positive force in the genre yet.
Whats really sad is people are dumb enough to spend money on this. As long as people are willing to part with money this will keep happening. People pay money for alphas for crying out loud.
So? I have played fun AAA games. I have played fun indie games. There is no shortage of either, and crowd funding does not cover all indie games.
If what i care is fun, why do i care if a game comes from AAA or indie? I should just look at how fun the game is. In either case, why would i pay anything for the hope of a game, instead of an existing game?
There are plenty of indie games that you can actually buy (Sherlock Holmes games, Van Helsing games, Gone Home ......) and I don't see any reason to pay into wishful thinking. There are plenty of indie games before the crowd funding craze, and i doubt if they will dry up if KS goes away.
I think the crowdfunding route is proving more trouble than it's worth for many developers
I can pretty much re-post what I said here:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/6366194#6366194
Kerberos, an established developer with a couple of successful (?) games under their belt, had an idea. A turn based tactical war game based on a known and developed IP (Sword of the Stars).
...
So, they began development. They had a game and a working engine and even got to the stage of a working Demo.
Somewhere along the way they decided to try to get some community support (and some cash) and they launched a Kickstarter
...
The problem however, is that these releases (in general retail outlets) made a very unfinished and unpolished game available to everyone. Including those who did not / do not understand what “early access”, “development” and “Beta” implies.
...
This not only discourages people from buying the game – but even trying the game.
Interest in the game seemed to collapse, with little to no activity on any of the game’s forums (including the developer forums)
...
Ground Pounders, for what it’s worth, is developing into a pretty good title (for what it is). In many ways different (and improved) from the initial early access release. As a Hex and Turn based tactical war game it is actually pretty good. It has enough complexity and diversity to keep it interesting even after hours of playing. ....
But the damage has already been done.
This title will probably continue to struggle. The community is “still born”, which is a bad place to be for a turn based war game with a multiplayer component.
...
Crowd Funding and Viral Marketing work both ways. They can destroy the reputation of a product with poor community feedback (even if it is unjustified). With ‘early access’ products there is the added problem that the final product might be significantly improved from the product that attracted the early (bad) reviews? But the online community cannot be expected to know that, or believe that, and it is unlikely they will take the necessary time to find out.
I think all developers are (slowly) learning that Crowdfunding and opening up unfinished projects in paid "early alpha", "early beta", "early access" is just not working out. For one thing - they are not getting "testers" - what they are getting is very harmful negative feedback and reviews.
The early 'cash grab' is probably resulting in harming sales in the final product?
And it's not free money either - people have now successfully sued Kickstarter developers too.
I think the Crowdfunding bubble is deflating.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Yeah, I agree with this. Pathfinder, Shards and Gloria Victis all have had fairly open and playable alphas that basically shows they will be able to release a real game. But the last two actually failed at their KS. But If you are talking in absolute terms, then you cannot say that KS has added any MMOs to date. And in fact, the teams that are capable of delivering an MMO ( Shards, GV) are able to do it even without KS money. Which is what I pointed out earlier.. if you have the team in place to produce an MMO, the tools are free to do it. You may not be able to quit your day job right away, or you may not be able to buy voice-overs or some of the frills.. but Unity or Hero Engine, Blender and Gimp are all the tools you really need to make an MMO
the issue is this
Bad AAA game or scam = one bad AAA game or scam
Bad KS or scam = attack on the ENTIRE KS
see the problem?
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if you think of 'games as a service' then there really is not (nor should be) a final release. Provided you can play and enjoy the 'pre-release' content.
Does that make sense?
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Yep. Basically if you can log into Shards or GV and have fun, then it is a game. They are already providing the ´service´ that a game provides. And I can agree with this. The problem is that both of them had failed KSers. So even if you take that definition of ´game´ , you still can say KS did not contribute to them releasing that game. Although in the case of GV, the devs have said that even though the KS failed and they got no money, it did bring attention to their game and they were able to add a bunch of team members and stuff like that. But again, they had a very good´ alpha version of their game running before they did their KS.
When Trials of Ascension had their KS, not only did they not have a playable alpha available for people to see, but they did not have any real game footage at all. GV already had an alpha running with graphics that blew people away.
so there have been failed AAA games in the past does that mean the AAA model is flawed?
Kickstarter/Early Access
- for more than 20 years I wanted to have a good VR experience. I spent $300 on a kickstarter and got an Oculus Rift and I had that experience. Worth every penny.
- Space Engineers 53 hours of game play
-Kerbal Space Program 163 hours of game play
-Minecraft was a headliner game release for the Xbox One reveal last year.
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None of these scams should surprise anyone, not in our clearly crony-style-capitalist society. The cult-of-infinite-greed holds sway here today. The ideals of actually creating a good, quality product!?! Bah! All that matters today in crony-capitalism is maximizing profit! Monetize -ALL- !