Double Fine launched a new game on Kickstarter
kickstarter.com
kickstarter.com
All this on top of the fact that their most recently released game, The Cave, was mediocre at best [2].
[1] http://www.gameinformer.com/games/broken_age/b/pc/archive/20...
> Broken Age was originally planned to be completed in April, but according to the documentary the schedule has been extended until September. The costs of a lengthened development have forced Double Fine to search for more money. Double Fine still welcomes supporters that missed the Kickstarter deadline, but in the documentary Isa Stamos, director of product development, affirms that the studio either has to dramatically increase funding or reduce the scope of the game. In Episode 8, Double Fine’s vice president of business development, Justin Bailey, reveals that profits from the release of Brütal Legend for PC will almost entirely feed into Broken Age.
> Despite the desire to stick within the confines of the Kickstarter money, Double Fine is facing the reality many developers face in the middle of production. Facing setbacks and asking publishers for more time or money is common in the video game industry, but possibly going over budget with loads of crowd-funded money is new territory.
But after watching the Double Fine documentary vids I don't get the feeling the same explanation would apply here - employees there seem to specialize less and be more flexible in their roles.
That said, I'll be backing this because those documentary vids are incredibly entertaining. Even if "Broken Age" never makes it out the door or winds up mediocre, I'll easily have gotten enough for my buck to make the exchange feel worthwhile to me (at the same time I'll admit that seems worrying even to me, turning development into a sort of performance art ...).
I mean, it's $20 dude.
I understand the anger and skepticism a person feels when they make $30k a year and back a project for $50 that fails. But I don't understand it on HN. We're programmers and entrepreneurs. We know that timelines and resources are difficult to forecast. We know that companies and projects fail, even when they have millions of dollars to spend. We also generally make enough that $20 lost is negligible.
Yet everytime I look at the comments section for a Kickstarter I see mostly permutations of this comment.
Here's how I see it. For context, I backed Broken Age for $100 and have the t-shirt. I typically spend $1,000+ on games a year.
####################
If I wanted a game for my $20 I could:
* Buy 3-5 classic 90s games on GOG.com
* Buy 1-2 indie games on Steam
* Buy 1 AAA game on sale, 6-12 months post release
The alternative of putting my $20 on Kickstarter is relatively well known now. I:
* Get to support an indie dev with a passionate vision
* Get sneek peek access during game development
* Potentially get the final product
And I'm okay with those tradeoffs. I don't back every game project on Kickstarter, but I have backed some. Sometimes my $20 is better spent on released games and sometimes it's better spent on Kickstarter.
The issues raised around Massive Chalice are different. They aren't general Kickstarter concerns - they're specific to this project and this developer. A big part of the Kickstarter experience is that we, the consumers, are shouldering a small amount of the risk of the project. That's not a bad thing, but in the case of Double Fine the risk profile has significantly changed.
For Broken Age (previously Double Fine Adventure), we were dealing with a long-standing game development studio taking a chance on crowdfunding a game that publishers simply wouldn't touch. As far as we knew, they had a history of delivering high quality games.
All those things are still true with Massive Chalice, but now consumers have more data then we had before. We got a detailed look in to the sausage factory. We've seen delay after delay. We've seen a project originally scoped at $400k get overfunded and go over it's new $3m budget. They say we'll get the game in September, but who really knows? I think it's rational to say that those events could instill uncertainty about Double Fine.
So it's not that I won't back Massive Chalice because games projects on Kickstarter are risky. I won't back it because I know exactly how Double Fine has handled a kickstarted game in the past. They've trained me to expect fantastic communication about the project as it develops. They've trained me to get excited to see the sneak peeks. But they've also trained me to expect delays and budget overruns. What happens if Broken Age doesn't sell well? Will they have more Brutal Legend residuals to fall back on? If they run over budget on Massive Chalice, will they run another kickstarter for another game just to make sure they can keep their people employed? I don't know.
And so frankly, I'm not excited about Broken Age anymore. After the 15 months that have passed, the lackluster trailer, and all the delays, I just don't feel the same about Double Fine as I did before. That, on top of seeing the way they've handled the project, and being concerned about the financial situation of the company, I just can't muster $20 for Massive Chalice.
####################
Yes, it's just $20, but games are a ruthless business and there's a lot of other places my $20 could go. At this point, instead of supporting Massive Chalice, I'm going to buy a new skin in Dota 2. Or maybe I'll buy the Humble Indie Bundle 8. Or maybe I'll buy whatever is on sale on Steam this week. Who knows?
Oh, and also, backers do get tons of content all the time.
It's exactly like they took the $2.9 million and ran. I think quite a lot of people would call that a scam at that point. In the end, with an extra $2.9 million, what were they going to do with it other than make sure that the game they end up delivering lives up to the huge sum that their fans gave them?
Game development by an experienced team is not quite a guaranteed thing, but it is a much safer bet.
Whether they can make it a success is a different kind of risk.
Saying "It's just $20" could, to them, be same as saying "It's just $1 000" to you.
No, it really isn't. This is not a kickstarter to make a game, this is a kickstarter to help pay for the game they already made a kickstarter for before. It isn't about risk, it is about fraud.
This was the deal from the beginning and they were very explicit about it. I mean, this whole thing got started because they wanted to document the game making process – warts and all – but you cannot typically do that with a publisher on board. They had to do their own thing.
If you are not a backer it’s very, very easy to get the wrong impression about this – but if you are a backer there is nothing better than getting an update email with a new video on their progress.
This shit is fucking awesome. I don’t even care whether there ever is a game. If this fails and I have it all on video I will be happy. (Well, I will be sad because I have empathy, but I will have enjoyed the ride.) I got hours of excellent video material for next to no money.
I don’t think you are really getting this. And it’s easy to not get it if you are not a backer. (Plus, The Cave has nothing to do with this. That game was made by different people. And I would call it a polarizing game, not a mediocre one.)
They made it very clear from the beginning that this was new territory, something not done before, and the risk was high.
As for starting another game before finishing another, that's a silly argument. There's this mistaken belief amongst the general populace that software companies can only work on one project at a time. That couldn't be farther removed from reality.
The reality is that any large software project requires the efforts of dozens (and sometimes hundreds or thousands) of people all of which perform different tasks. There are many parts of software projects where not all of the staff can be involved or working on it, or where their portion of the work is done.
At that point, you're left with the choice of firing the people you don't need, or paying them to sit around and do nothing. Isn't the more logical choice to start another project so you can keep those people employed and pay them to do something meaningful?
The fact that the source of their funding for one of their current projects was kickstarter should not restrict them from starting another project using kickstarter.
However, I can definitely say that judging Double Fine on purely their last game is a mistake. They've created many games that have had very favourable reviews in recent history (for example: Stacking, Costume Quest, Brutal Legend) [1].
[1] http://www.metacritic.com/company/double-fine-productions
The excuse "we got more money, so expanded the project scope too much, so now we need even more money" does not bode well for their project management abilities.
Part of project management is knowing how far one can expand scope given additional funding. I problem I see with a LOT of Kickstarter projects, especially the video game ones, is that they do a very poor job estimating additional costs.
More than once I have seen a project say "and if we raise another $10k we'll port to every platform known to mankind!
I have even seen projects claim they will go from being a PC to adding iPad support!
For a few game genres, sure, that may work, but for the most part? The entire game balance chances, reaction times change, the entire UI changes, performance characteristics of your platform have changed dramatically! Engines like Unity may help, but you still have to tweak the ever living daylights out of any sort of reaction based gameplay to make up for the differences in control methodology, and that means a lot of game balance work. It is rarely as cheap as many developers make it out to be.
But that one (wide spread) example aside, Double Fine needs to provide some reassurances that they know how to properly scope out a project.
Being under the yoke of a publisher does provides one with a hard deadline, schedules, and someone who says no. That is often a useful attribute! (See: Why programmers have project managers!)
Also, the documentary coverage that was part of the last Kickstarter already made that more than worthwhile for me. It provided a great inside view of the development process. The game is just a bonus at this point.
> They requested $400k in their last Kickstarter and received over $3.3 million, but that project (now called Broken Age) is STILL overbudget
They learned from this, and have restructured what they are asking for this time around, as well as where they are offering bonuses.
> and delayed [1]
It's only delayed if you assumed you were making a pre-order on KickStarter, which is not what KickStarter does in anyway. It's been clear from the beginning. Imagining it's a unicorn does not make it a unicorn, however.
If the only value to you is getting the game itself, then wait for it to be finished and buy it through Steam or your store of choice.
Kickstarter is meant for people who find value in not just receiving the product, but in watching, and discussing it through its development and also allowing creative people they respect the opportunity to the do the work they'd like to do.
Most of the negativity in these comments seems to be from people that just "want the game". Well that isn't what you signed up for. If you feel burned by the first one, you would be well advised to stay away from future Kickstarters, from Double Fine, or from any other developer.
Kickstarter has been used quite a lot by a whole bunch of artists to deliver comic books; if you look at money brought in, it's consistently ranged from being the #2-5 publisher of comics in the US.
While some of these comics were done on the "here's a pitch and my track record, pay me for a year's work in advance and I'll make this" model that the Double Fine adventure is being made on, the vast majority of them were not - most of them are about "here's some stuff I already drew, I need this much in preorders to make a print run economical." This goes all the way from little campaigns like the one I ran[1] up to huge ones like the $1250k one for the Order of the Stick reprints[2]. Kickstarter has helped make independent comics a lot easier to sell. It's also been a huge boon to board game makers, who work in a similar "make the thing, then seek money to publish it" model.
It is quite possible to run a successful Kickstarter based solely on delivering the product to the audience, with absolutely none of the glimpse into the creative process that Double Fine is providing.
That said: be aware of what you're getting into, be prepared for it to never happen.
[1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/52397119/decrypting-rita...
[2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/599092525/the-order-of-t...
If you backed a Kickstarter that was pitched as solely a preorder for an already complete product, then you have every right to be upset if that Kickstarter doesn't deliver.
The original point though, was about kickstarters which are funding the development of products from scratch and allowing tracking and input from the funders.
You didn't constrain your comment to just "pre-buy this thing so I can pay rent while I develop it" campaigns. What you said certainly goes for those. But you were suggesting that ALL of Kickstarter is about that.
Indie developers not being able to manage their cash is funny. They wanted freedom and responsibility, now they have it, and they realize that having publishers behind your back can be a good thing, actually, to stop focusing on funding the whole time and focus on the game.
How is a 67 on Metacritic "mediocre at best"? It had mixed critical reviews and generally positive user reviews.
And by, "these guys" you mean the backers of every single Kickstarter project, right?
- Using an existing engine they're familiar with
- Asking for lots more money
- Cutting on shipping costs for rewards by moving them to higher tiers
- Targeting fewer platforms, initially
These games are all about the execution; really easy to overcomplicate the interface.
So I guess I'm looking for depth, but not depth for the sake of depth, more like real continuous flow. I liked Disgaea a lot though back in the day.
Regardless, I think it has a bunch of unique touches for a tactical RPG, and the whole atmosphere of it is really captivating. It's one of those games that come across as an experience beyond a stream of bits, which is something the genre benefits from. It does seem like Massive Chalice would be a similar breath of fresh air, if it ever gets finished.
During his talk, he said something like: "When do you release? When you run out of money". When you see the publisher as only viable source of money, you know that it has to be DONE, NOW. In that case, it's easy to cut the feature list and just do essential things and release. As 37 signals guys would say: do less ;)
Now, that they see they have many avenues to get money and still don't see the end of it, it's hard to constrain the scope of the project. There is no publisher to do the reality check.
I guess I'm a funder now instead :)
I think only non-backers or very confused backers could say something weird like it not being finished. I don’t think I want them to ever finish, I want to get my documentary fix.
I backed it. I do not have a copy of the game to play.
That means it is not finished.
If I am wrong in that please do tell me how.
However, I don’t think any of this matters, really. Also: We were never promised a product. It’s right there in the launch video: We get to see them attempt make a game and they will document it, warts and all. Whether it succeeds or fails. That’s the promise and that’s exactly what I’m getting.
People that are upset at the project "being late" completely are people that are treating KickStarter merely as a pre-ordering system. It's not.
I don't really agree with this. They promise to give me a thing (or multiple things) in exchange for my money. Yeah, there are tchotchkes for most projects and there are 'interesting' updates, but the reason you (the generic you) put down your $20 is to get the thing at the end of the day.
I get that they say that you're not buying a product, but one can call a tail a leg and it doesn't necessarily fit, yeah? If it was really about just backing-a-product, I'd think everyone involved, including project creators, would be a lot more careful than they are with their wording.
> People that are upset at the project "being late" completely are people that are treating KickStarter merely as a pre-ordering system.
I don't agree here, either. They're people who expected the project pitches to be realistic measures of time-to-completion. My clients aren't happy when I blow estimates, either. They may still be happy with the final project, but that doesn't mean it's okay for me to hork an estimate.
Five months delayed. Millions of dollars over budget. No product.
I can't think of a better example of unfinished.
So if their budget is $3.3m I’m not sure where you are getting the info from that they are (already) millions over budget. When all is said and done the game will probably cost more than $3.3m, sure, but I‘m also not sure why that matters. It’s not like putting their own money into it is somehow wrong. It’s their game, they can do what they want.
> it's simply a fact.
No one is disputing that fact. However, you're the one making it out like it's late and that it's millions over budget, neither of which are fact.
More importantly, you make the idea of it being unfinished bad, as if you were guaranteed anything via KickStarter.
Edit: After I wrote this comment it already had $39,000.
Also,I believe the media is more eager to cover them, as it is bigger news when a past KS success launches follow-up projects, as opposed to an unknown launching a new project.