The Video Game Kickstarter Thread of the Future of Passing the Risk to the Consumer

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

You have to remember that for big gaming publishers, $10M or less in revenue is peanuts. We're talking about guys who need revenues over $100M (and often much more) just to break even on what they've spent to make the game. It's not part of their corporate DNA to make games at this scale (scale in reference to the money opportunity, not the size of the game).

They're probably looking at KS and public revenue numbers from crowd-sourcing projects and assuming that they do not in fact need the big names on board with their owned IP licenses. And by the numbers, they're not really wrong, at least in the short (3-5 years) term.

And it's a huge shame, because gamers dream about the big desginer names having big budgets and real creative control, but the goal of these companies isn't to potentially make the greatest (insert-genre) game ever, it's to make the most $$$ game ever, and the odds (for now) of doing that are much better with the right IP license than the right designer name.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

AshburnerX said:
Hideo Kojima? Tetsuya Nomura? Hironobu Sakaguchi? Suda51? SWERY? Tim Schaffer? That's just all I can think of without really trying. There are a lot of names that can sell titles, if you look outside the US market.

That's not even getting into the fact that Kenji Inafune and Koji Igarashi literally got millions of dollars (not just from fans ether) to make what they do best. The fans know who makes what they like.
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It doesn't feel like Inafune's group have been wise with that money considering how much they need for certain elements. And Schaffer's situation too has had mixed results. These guys are amazing when it comes to making games, less so when running a studio to make games. I have to question their longevity, to be honest, even if the initial outings are solid.

Like I said earlier in the thread, I don't think you need Inafune to make a solid Mega Man game, or Sakaguchi to make a solid Final Fantasy game, etc. These things can be done by others, if the right talent is put there. It's not for lack of talent developers; it's for lack of any wisdom by the old corporate suits. The only franchise I'd think would be fucked with the loss of its person is Metal Gear Solid--good luck having anyone but Kojima tangle through that yarn ball of plot.[DOUBLEPOST=1433983789,1433983484][/DOUBLEPOST]I'm sure the New 3DS could handle Bloodstained; I'd back if that was a goal since I wouldn't mind it as a portable.

Shame it won't hit another million before time is up; having a roguelike dungeon for that kind of game would probably be a blast.
 
Null

Null

Zero Esc said:
It doesn't feel like Inafune's group have been wise with that money considering how much they need for certain elements. And Schaffer's situation too has had mixed results. These guys are amazing when it comes to making games, less so when running a studio to make games. I have to question their longevity, to be honest, even if the initial outings are solid.

Like I said earlier in the thread, I don't think you need Inafune to make a solid Mega Man game, or Sakaguchi to make a solid Final Fantasy game, etc. These things can be done by others, if the right talent is put there. It's not for lack of talent developers; it's for lack of any wisdom by the old corporate suits. The only franchise I'd think would be fucked with the loss of its person is Metal Gear Solid--good luck having anyone but Kojima tangle through that yarn ball of plot.[DOUBLEPOST=1433983789,1433983484][/DOUBLEPOST]I'm sure the New 3DS could handle Bloodstained; I'd back if that was a goal since I wouldn't mind it as a portable.

Shame it won't hit another million before time is up; having a roguelike dungeon for that kind of game would probably be a blast.
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Without Kojima, Metal Gear might have wound up making some kind of sense.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Yooka-Laylee's 5 days away, and nearing 3 million. They pretty much gave up on creating more goals, which I think is a good thing so they're not just creating more and more work that delays the release, unlike some Kickstarter games.
 
Jay

Jay

What I also noticed is many of these, once funded, when release, are quite cheap. No point some times.

No risk too.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Jay said:
What I also noticed is many of these, once funded, when release, are quite cheap. No point some times.

No risk too.
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I noticed that too. Yooka-Laylee's exception is that backers will get the DLC for free, regardless of donation level.

I feel like Shovel Knight should've done that too, because right now they're not prioritizing their DLC and my guess is because it won't be making them any money after the fact, since it was already paid for in donations. What they should do is have it so backers get it for free, but the rest of us pay even just a dollar or two. I'm not a backer and I'd be fine paying a little something for the DLC; the game is worth it. I'd rather they get done with this DLC stuff soon anyway and move on to making a new Shovel Knight title, either Super Shovel Knight or Shovel Knight 64.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Zero Esc said:
I noticed that too. Yooka-Laylee's exception is that backers will get the DLC for free, regardless of donation level.
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This is what usually happens, I find. The KS backers usually get SOMETHING nice in appreciation of their support. But yes... the games are usually cheap because these companies aren't supporting a bloated marketing team, aren't throwing huge events, and don't have to worry about distribution costs because only people who want physical copies get them and they have to pay for that themselves. This means a smaller team can sell their titles for 20-30 bucks and still make more than they'd be getting from guys like EA.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

AshburnerX said:
This is what usually happens, I find. The KS backers usually get SOMETHING nice in appreciation of their support. But yes... the games are usually cheap because these companies aren't supporting a bloated marketing team, aren't throwing huge events, and don't have to worry about distribution costs because only people who want physical copies get them and they have to pay for that themselves. This means a smaller team can sell their titles for 20-30 bucks and still make more than they'd be getting from guys like EA.
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And still have a job afterward.

Gods, I fucking hate EA.

Oh, did you guys see Black Ops III is up for pre-order? Woooooooooo
 
Terrik

Terrik

Zero Esc said:
And still have a job afterward.

Gods, I fucking hate EA.

Oh, did you guys see Black Ops III is up for pre-order? Woooooooooo
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Yeah, the PS4 store is also begging me to pre-order Battlefront 5-6 months ahead of time too.

If I preorder anything, it's literally days or even hours before the release after I've seen enough information to know that I really want it.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Out of curiosity, have there been many of those? I remember there was a webcomic guy or something that had a huge breakdown and burned all the books that people still hadn't received and said "fuck you" to all of them.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
ThatNickGuy said:
Out of curiosity, have there been many of those? I remember there was a webcomic guy or something that had a huge breakdown and burned all the books that people still hadn't received and said "fuck you" to all of them.
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There have been a few. The one that leaps right to my mind is the guy Thunt hired to make the Goblins CCG who basically disappeared.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

ThatNickGuy said:
Out of curiosity, have there been many of those? I remember there was a webcomic guy or something that had a huge breakdown and burned all the books that people still hadn't received and said "fuck you" to all of them.
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That's the guy who did Sad Comics For Children and... I'm not sure I'd call it a breakdown. He basically destroyed what he had made because he felt he wasn't living up to his political ideals... which is basically that the entire concept of money and the economy is unjust and that people should be freely giving their excess to people who need it out of the kindness of their hearts because the concept of trading labor to survive is inherently cruel. He said he wouldn't be doing anything else until he could find an arrangement that was basically...

- He gets to live, rent free, with someone.
- They don't gain anything from doing this.
- He doesn't guarantee he'll do anything, at all.

... which means he wants a patron but none of the obligations of having one. Honestly? Fuck'em. He burnt the pile of books he printed after stealing from others, entirely because people were asking for what they'd ordered.
 
Frank

Frank

Jay said:
What I also noticed is many of these, once funded, when release, are quite cheap. No point some times.

No risk too.
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I paid way less for Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity than their release prices for KSing them.

Also, Bloodstained hit every single stretch goal. Look forward eagerly to the game.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX



This took less than 9 hours to reach it's goal, making it one of the top KSs ever. Still going to fund it because I've wanted this for 14 years.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

AshburnerX said:
It's on Crackle. Yes, this will be low budget and yes, this will be terrible. I'm okay with it though, because Mega Man hasn't gotten an (official) terrible movie yet.
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I'm sure that's exactly how Inafune viewed it. He seems intent on wiping out Mega Man from the possibility of returning to video game icon by saturating us in Mighty No. 9. Which is fair on his part--Capcom had years to revive Mega Man and keep him relevant. The only people doing so right now are Nintendo, whereas Capcom won't be ready to even try until 2017. If Mighty No. 9's media line-up is a hit, no one may care anymore, regardless of either game's quality.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Zero Esc said:
I'm sure that's exactly how Inafune viewed it. He seems intent on wiping out Mega Man from the possibility of returning to video game icon by saturating us in Mighty No. 9. Which is fair on his part--Capcom had years to revive Mega Man and keep him relevant. The only people doing so right now are Nintendo, whereas Capcom won't be ready to even try until 2017. If Mighty No. 9's media line-up is a hit, no one may care anymore, regardless of either game's quality.
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I don't think they actually expected people to care as much as they do... and when the Mighty No. 9 KS hit, they collectively shit bricks and realized those millions could have been theirs. They are certainly trying to do some stuff now but until Capcom gets a management wipe, it'll always be a few steps behind.

Konami could probably use the same management wipe. Sega knows there is a problem but just has no idea what to do about it.
 
CynicismKills

CynicismKills

Sega's allowing another Sonic Boom game to be made, which is definitely not a step in the right direction. Granted it's from the same people that made the first 3DS game, which was only kind of terrible, but still.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

CynicismKills said:
Sega's allowing another Sonic Boom game to be made, which is definitely not a step in the right direction. Granted it's from the same people that made the first 3DS game, which was only kind of terrible, but still.
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The Sonic Boom TV show is actually kind of good. I wouldn't mind a Sonic Boom game if it was as wacky and irreverent as the show was... sort of like Adventure Time meets Sonic.
 
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