I'm a Quest For Glory fan, and have been supporting Hero-U : Rogue to Redemption by the creators of QFG series themselves - Lori and Corey Cole.

I really love adventure games but there is something about the idea of kickstarter that I don't like. They basically put the entire financial risk onto the customer without ANY kind of collateral / guarantees. It's a very clever way of financing projects deemed too risky by normal finance.

I will just wait until games are available, listen to the feedback and purchase it then and there. So far I believe not a single adventure game has actually been completed.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I really love adventure games but there is something about the idea of kickstarter that I don't like. They basically put the entire financial risk onto the customer without ANY kind of collateral / guarantees. It's a very clever way of financing projects deemed too risky by normal finance.

I will just wait until games are available, listen to the feedback and purchase it then and there. So far I believe not a single adventure game has actually been completed.

I agree with you somewhat however I had to support Mr. Garriott in this way.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalari … saken-virtues-0

Eagerly awaited.

Neverhood 2
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1949537745/armikrog

3 millions is not enough 😉
http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/2/4487692/doubl … -age-in-january

robertmo wrote:

3 millions is not enough 😉
http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/2/4487692/doubl … -age-in-january

Yes this is an example why I don't like the whole idea of kick starter. Now you get half a game instead of the promised full game. The money is gone, most of it directly towards wages. There is no transparency regarding where the money goes, how it is distributed. You basically hand them a huge pile of cash and hope that they will do the right thing.

I would really like to see the balance sheet for this project.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

robertmo wrote:

3 millions is not enough 😉
http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/2/4487692/doubl … -age-in-january

Yes this is an example why I don't like the whole idea of kick starter. Now you get half a game instead of the promised full game. The money is gone, most of it directly towards wages. There is no transparency regarding where the money goes, how it is distributed. You basically hand them a huge pile of cash and hope that they will do the right thing.

Ehh? What? Have you not read the full update on Kickstarter? ALL backers get the full game, part 1 and 2. Tbh I don't see why people are crying so much about this. This is game development and it is a creative process. It is not always easy to plan how it will progress. All backers should really be happy as they get a much bigger and better game than originally anticipated!

Well I disagree.

The people involved aren't new to the industry and their original goal was 400k!

However they received 3 million (Almost 8! times as much and STILL ran out of money). That isn't poor planning any more. Fraudulent financial activity comes to mind.

There will not be a part 2 unless they make enough money through sales. If they don't, well then there will no part 2...

There is no accountability, transparency and risk for them. It's a way for many developers to come out of retirement for a quick pay cheque. They are laughing all the way to the bank on the banks of many individuals believing in a good thing.

I hope someone takes them to court...

they actually already collected $3,336,371 which is over 8 times more.
I would prefer 8 $400,000 games for that 😉
I also wonder it part two is planned to take another 3 mln? 😉
and if it will again grow into 8x3 mln and be divided into 2 more parts 😉

btw what is the budget of other good non kickstarter games?

Oh they are absolutely using these funds for work on other projects. As if they have an artist who "only" works on the KS funded game. Get real...

And how much money goes to the CEO and mangers? I am sure people would feel a lot different if there was an actual breakdown of costs. Follow the money and you will the truth...

And money towards marketing / promotion. Why market and promote a fully funded game for the kick starter customers? The whole concept is flawed...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Well I disagree. […]
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Well I disagree.

The people involved aren't new to the industry and their original goal was 400k!

However they received 3 million (Almost 8! times as much and STILL ran out of money). That isn't poor planning any more. Fraudulent financial activity comes to mind.

There will not be a part 2 unless they make enough money through sales. If they don't, well then there will no part 2...

There is no accountability, transparency and risk for them. It's a way for many developers to come out of retirement for a quick pay cheque. They are laughing all the way to the bank on the banks of many individuals believing in a good thing.

I hope someone takes them to court...

Are you a backer on this? Doesn't seem like it at all. It is also funny how it is most of the non-backers who is the most hostile. Ofc when they got 8 times the money the size and scope of the project had to be increased. They also added extra funds of their own money since they got so much publicity and hype on this game. They truly want to make a great game! If you see the development videos (which are damn awesome and worth the money alone) you will see how this has been developing from day one. They have been honest from the first episode that the 400k plan went out the window. If they made a 400k game with a 3.3 million budget, don't you think people would get pissed then? They are not asking for any extra money of any of the backers and people who buy on early access will get the full game. Everybody wins here.

I don't get all the hostile attitude. This is how game development is, it is just that when game publishers fund games they get all the information and the public almost none. If you heard that Broken Age was coming out in 2 parts and it was a new announcement you would have cheered and been fine with that. Splitting up adventure games is normal now adays after the success Telltale games have had.

Alex (from Bioware) which is part of the Banner Saga team, another kickstarter that got 7 times it's funding made this excellent post:

A CONVERSATION ABOUT KICKSTARTER Lots of stuff has been going on in the Kickstarter community lately. I'm sure many of you have […]
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A CONVERSATION ABOUT KICKSTARTER
Lots of stuff has been going on in the Kickstarter community lately. I'm sure many of you have noticed Double Fine's announcement about splitting up their game into two parts. They've gotten some serious heat for this. Backers of Shadowrun have heard similar things about the content in that game, with the DLC being released much later.

First of all, I want to be clear that we do not intend to do something like this for The Banner Saga. When it releases it will be a complete product. We don't have plans for DLC at this time, and we will continue to support the multiplayer component. We also intend to continue on the sequels (chapter 2 and 3) just as planned.

I would also like to talk about my personal opinion on this, and I'd love to be open and talk like a normal person instead of a PR person in damage control mode. Can we do this? Without freaking out? You can disagree with me of course, just be nice about it.

This is hard. Like, way WAY hard. When we pitched the game we were hoping for enough money to get extra animations, maybe increase the length of the game. We thought we'd get, like, 2000 backers, not 20,000. A fine problem to have, right? Haha! Except that it's actually a huge problem. The hardest problem I've ever dealt with in my life. Now I know.

We thought now we could do everything we ever wanted for the game, and got too ambitious. We thought we could make the game in six months, and I'm still not sure what we were thinking. That was stupid. I wish I could take that back, all we needed to do was put a different date there and nobody would be complaining. Whoops. We ARE still doing everything we want, and it's taking a long time. I don't feel bad about that. That was the POINT, right? To dream as big as we could?

It's interesting to think of it from someone else's point of view. For many people, letting a dev shoot for the moon is NOT the point. For a lot of people the point is I BOUGHT A GAME, WHERE IS IT? They want the biggest, best game ever made, on time, for their $10 contribution. I can see that, too. I don't really agree... but I suppose it's a matter of perspective.

If nothing else, I think the gaming community is finally getting a good picture about real game development. What would really shock people is that there is nothing unusual about any of this, except that you are finally seeing it. This is every game development story that has ever existed, except instead of the publisher dealing with it, YOU are.

Budgets of 1 to 4 million are small-to-medium sized. Our budget of $650k (in actual funding) is relatively small, half a year of production for a small team. Budgets of kickstarter projects asking for $20k... that's not enough to make a game, that's just some content. Surprise! Games you've come to expect as "standard" like Call of Duty: maybe 150 million to make, rough guess. You know how much Old Republic cost? I'm not legally allowed to tell you, actually. It's that much. Now you know.

Games take 1 year to make... if it's a casual iOS game, or an annual sequel. Medium sized games take 2-3 years. Large games take 4-5 years. Believe it or not, lots of games fall in a nebulous space between AAA and "indie", whatever that means. The Old Republic took over 6 years. Yeah, you started hearing about it 1 year before it released. It started production five years before that. For five years hundreds of people toiled on it 12 hours a day and you had no idea! Now you know! Isn't knowing about production right from the start wonderful? No, it's not. It's annoying. It takes FOREVER. That's why you usually don't hear anything until it's almost ready to ship.

Delays, content cuts, pushed back dates, plans to make revenue sooner- this is how games are developed. Bioshock Infinite, the biggest game of 2013, got delayed for half a year, AFTER pre-orders were sold. Journey took 3 years to make a 3 hour game and had to go back for more funding from Sony TWICE. That's how game development goes. They didn't know they'd need to do it. Humans are not good at estimating creative endeavors, no matter how "professional" they are.

We released a truly free demo hoping to make some extra cash for development, and got brutalized for it. But without that income and development time our single-player game wouldn't be as good. Some people will never understand this.

I've worked in games for about a decade. Some companies I worked for had their stuff together better than others. Some were a huge, hundred-million dollar, extremely delayed nightmares. Every company had delays and went over-budget. You know what a release date is? A guess. We're just guessing.

Essentially, I hope people don't freak out too much about what's happening with Kickstarter right now. It's not deceitful or underhanded. It's not a conspiracy. It's normal stuff, whether you like it or not. If Broken Age wasn't a Kickstarter game the first time you would have heard about it would be a couple months from ship, and that it was a two-part adventure game. And you would have been fine with that.

Our game is coming along better than I could have imagined, even if delayed. BECAUSE it's delayed. I'm super happy with it. Other companies have way bigger problems, but that's game development. NOW YOU KNOW. I sincerely hope everything works out the best for them, and you should too. At the end of the day, they're nice guys trying to make good entertainment for you. I, personally, will cut them all the slack in the world.

So there you have it. The games industry! The aristocrats! Maybe it'll get better someday? For now, let's enjoy our time together! (I love you).

-Alex

No I'm not a backer and never will. This model is not sustainable and you will see more and more KS funded projects run into difficulties.

We simply have to agree to disagree. In the end everyone needs to decide for themselves what they do with their money.

My main grudge is that no one can really assure you that Part 2 will come out. Part 1 has to sell well for that to happen. It probably will though.
What most people don't get about Kickstarter is that they're not buying a game, they're investing in one. Which means that they CAN lose money and never get any game.

Kickstarter is the best thing that has happened to gamers in a long while, now you can invest in games that are completely off the scope of major gamepublishers that else would have never been made.
On the other hand I think when a kickstarter is very succesfull, like double fine's Broken Age or InXile's Tides of Numenera one might think why they needed Kickstarter in the first place, but at least it sends out a clear message to the industry that there is a market for such games and a rather large one at that.
And yes there is a risk in backing, probably bigger than most backers even think, investing always is risky so I tend not to go for the maximum tier pledge but rather the lowest one that has me playing the game. =)

Kickstarter's/crowdfunding I participated in so far:

Carmageddon Reincarnation
Nexus: The Gods Awaken (not reached its funding goals) =(
Interstellar Marines (not reached its funding goals)
Star Citizen (RSI site not Kickstarter)
Elite: Dangerous
The 90's Arcade Racer

Kickstarter's/crowdfunding games that others have backed, are finished and I have bought:

Giana Sisters (awesome game)
Faster than Light (must still play this)
Strikesuit Zero (awesome game)

Kickstarter's/crowdfunding I haven't backed but await with much aniticipation:

Wasteland 2
Project C.A.R.S.
Jagged Alliance: Flashback
Distance
Asylum
Xenonauts
Many more =)

So if this Kickstarter/crowdfunding ever goes down the drain completely it would be a sad day for gaming and will probably return us to the dark ages where major game publishers decide what's good for us. =(

And now Jim "Police Quest" Walls is on board.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/precinctgame/precinct

The Quest series by Sierra are my evergreen favourites. This Police Quest looks promising. Recently I supported Al Lowe by getting his Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded. It's fun and rewarding with new one liners.

I'm backing the latest Quest for Glory re-incarnation, Hero-U : Rogue to Redemption. Hopefully it comes out this year.

As for the Police Quest, I would love to back it. Usually I fund these types of hobbies from my Paypal account. But currently there's not enough balance in it. Hopefully my netbook sells soon to have a positive balance.

Wasn't there a Space Quest kick starter as well?

Yep. Just about a year ago. The cycle is complete.