Game vs Community vs Profit

Hi all.

I would just like to have a talk about a Question i am asking myself.

Do we as Customers truly see the Games our Developers would love to make.

How many Games are out there that have 100% been created just because a Developer did dream about creating this Game.
Ignoring if or how many will play it?



Do you think that the Idea of a Developer using Kickstarter was once truly to be able to create his vision with the funding the ones who support it.

What Games do you know of that have 100% been created from a Developer without the purpose of reaching the most and making high profit.
But then suddenly suprised all and reached great profit.


Do you think Kickstarter is abused to make as Customers believe they need our money to create a personal vision but then as soon as the funding has started they leave the unique vision to replace it with a profit focused course.

Has Kickstarter changed from the Place we fund Developers to create unique Visions to getting the "Starting Money"


Do you think a Developer should stick to his personal Idea of a Game he had from start or should he keep adapting to "community feedback"



Do your favorite Game Developers still create the Games out of the same motivation then the first Game they created.
If not - how can they recreate what we loved?

 

Minecraft. I think that is the only real example out there.

 

Yeah. Good example. Awesome one.

 

Still Minecraft got sold to Microsoft... who didn't dare to make too many changes... yet

Basically what you like to know is: Do we, as players and money-givers have any right to influence the game? Should the devs ignore us, when they don't like what we ask for (if not even demand)?
Is it more important, to make the game an economic success?

Well, that depends on your point of view and your goals. As a player, who invested some money into this game, it is my goal to get a game worth playing. But since there are quite a lot of other stakeholders with more or less the same right but different definition of "worth playing" it is of course not possible to give us all what we like to get. I cannot speak for Richard Garriot and his partners of course, but I'm sure, they first of all want to see their own vision to come true and I have strong hopes, that this vision intersects largely with my own ideas. The economical success cannot be ignored either, since this game is not a charity project. There are bills to be paid and I'm pretty sure there is the strong wish, to prove, that this kind of project can be a financial success, too. Not only the mainstream-stuff the big distributors throw at their customers.

So it's all aboout balancing about all the three named elements: the vision , the customers and the profit.

 

Depends on what you are backing really.

For a card game all you need to check is basic idea and if they have someone who knows art. This since the costs are fairly known etc.

For deliverables that sound too good then one has to check their credibility. We backed dash and dot for our pre-school kid to get interested in robotics. But at first it sounded too good to be true. But then I checked up on them and saw how much time and money they had already spent then it was a no brainer.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Workshop
And we got a really really great product that still delivered value.

But here is the crux. We are discussing this in SotA forum. So for an MMO hybrid then it was waaaay too clear from the get go that the sales pitch didn't match the target. Neither in the amount asked for nor in the projected release date. Those indicated more like a phone game than anything else.
So I skipped the Kickstarter. Didn't give a single cent to Garriott and friends.
But checked in regularly until about R8 with weekend releases. Bought the base pledge, checked deliverables, checked what they promised to deliver to r9, then same for r10.
Then I read up on it and thought through their business model. Then it made sense, given that business model (which we see now), then it could actually do something like the vision.
This because this kind of project NEEDS a good business model to keep servers running. So I before backing NEEDED to know they are not doing this because they love the idea and want it lovingly done, nope, instead they MUST be looking for profit, if they are not I'd be out since that means the servers will go down at any time and any money or time I've spent is gone.

So in this case to be able to make the game they would love to make, they need to be considering long term profitability and how to get that revenue stream flowing.
And I didn't back them until I had understood that they were in it for profit and not just because they'd love to have another go at a spiritual ultima game.

Also note that way back then In r10 when I committed I also said (and the posts can probably still be found) that the game wouldn't be actually 'ready' until Episode 2. This could easily be deduced from the stretch goals and such talk.

So it depends on what type of end product the Kickstarter was supposed to produce.

 

Spoon.

What do you think of Camelot Unchained and Bards Tale.

Do you think they also need more money to get the vision done.

Or do you think they are all set.

Was thinking of jumping in the boat.

Sad that Kickstarter means: Not sure?

 

I like this thread and hopefully it will come clear to some people how little we know about the game this is going to be, because hardly anything has been shared to us about that. Maybe we see some more intelligent questions in the postmortem now, instead of the 100th housing question etc...

 

Minecraft has full loot PvP.

I don't really see a problem with the OP. Kickstarter is all about venture capital and profit making. It's no biggy.

 

I'm worried about Camelot, while less so about Bard's Tale.
This due to how their differing project planning looks like.
Look how much SotA project deliverables etc changed when Starr stepped in.

 

There's a crap-ton of them but, now-a-days, you'll have to look at the indie scene.

Papo-&-Yo being one game I contributed and the Game Designer was really fixed on telling his personal story. It got some coverage but it really didn't do well because it essentially failed as a game. I couldn't care enough to tell him "I told you so".

No. A developer with tunnel vision is a bad developer. Especially in crowd-funding, you either listen to feedback or you GTFO.

The creators of Diablo got spread out to different companies. Some made the Torchlight series which turned out great and others brought their passion for skills systems and worked on GuildWars. So the passion stays with the individuals.

 

I've backed quite a few projects on KS over the years, most were indie, unknown teams. I've been happy with most of the projects that were released. There were a handful of better known teams that haven't been around for a while that brought back some game styles that turned out really well too (Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, Shadowrun Returns, to name a few). I do tend to be more wary of the bigger names and companies asking for money because yea, I don't know their 'true' intent. I can be pulled in for the nostalgia of seeing them develop a game I know I'll love but in the end, they are definitely riskier. Will it be the developers' passions that drive them to put out a game for fans they know won't be attractive to a big publisher or is it literally a 'kickstart' to get a game in motion that they hope to make a commercial success and therefore are more concerned with the bottom line? This project was a tougher decision since it's going to be 'persistent' and therefore a game that needs to stay funded to exist. All of the other ones have been single player games. They make it, release it, patch it and boom, done.

For this game, I admittedly jumped in head first. I've followed the progress and the forums but really wasn't interested in getting involved until after persistence and the land rush started. I've seen things veer all over the place along the way and other things stay true to the vision. Lots of opinions and arguments about all across the board. I think it's a testament to how the fans do care about how it turns out, even if it's regarding different aspects. If we didn't, I think you wouldn't see the type of fervor on these forums as we do. I'm a lurker, almost entirely. The fact that I've gotten involved (and heated at times) speaks volumes to me.

In the end, too many things are in flux and although I'll add my 2 cents here and there, I've resigned myself to reserve judgment when the game is said to be officially released. After that, I guess I'll see if backing it was truly worth it. This project is definitely the most unique Kickstarter project I've funded, no doubt, so it was a hard call to even guess how it'd turn out from the original vision. So yes, especially in this case, it was a case of 'not sure but hopeful'.

 

Do we as Customers truly see the Games our Developers would love to make.

I would say: most certainly not.
There are always limitations. Hardware limits, corporate interference, engine limits, limited programming/art skills, budget, ...
But some get really close within their limitations, and when they do we customers can often see the love that went into the game.

How many Games are out there that have 100% been created just because a Developer did dream about creating this Game.
Ignoring if or how many will play it?

What Games do you know of that have 100% been created from a Developer without the purpose of reaching the most and making high profit.
But then suddenly suprised all and reached great profit.

I don't know about the 100% and the "ignoring if people will play it".
Pretty much everyone wants people to like what they've put effort in to create.

But (apart from minecraft) some games that come to mind.
Super Meat Boy, which was basically 2 guys who made the game they wanted, and hoped loads of people like it. Lucky for them people did.
Braid, a self funded weird puzzle/platformer, made by maybe 2 guys, and considered a masterpiece by most who played it.
Demon's Souls. A game that was considered a failure even during development, until one of its devs stood up and took over. If his ideas failed, nobody would care because the game was already a failure. After lying to Sony about the difficulty it got released and not only turned out more popular than expected, but even put a new genre of games on the table.

Do you think a Developer should stick to his personal Idea of a Game he had from start or should he keep adapting to "community feedback"

I feel he should stick to it, but only if said dev is just one man/woman with an iron will.
When it's multiple people calling the shots, there will always be one who'll have to abandon parts of his/her idea in favor of the others.
Concerning SotA I'm divided between the two. On one hand I would have liked to see RG's vision (his perfect RPG), but on the other hand I also like the open development aspect.
My perfect SotA option would be that the MMO game remains in open development as it is, and the SP offline game becomes RG's turf where only he calls the shots.

 

As someone with a career in Product Management, I understand what it's like to align incentives. You spend your whole time basically ignoring "what" the customer asks for while digging for "why." Then you're solving a multidimensional return on investment optimization problem for the customer, the channel, and the company.

Letting developers build what they want is easy. Giving a small number of customers what they think they want is easy. Building a growth engine where multiple parties with asymmetric needs trade something they have lots of for something they need is hard.

This game is good at getting a small number of people to make large initial purchases. But can it get a large number of people to invite all their past guildies to log in day after day, participate in all this game has to offer, and pay their $15/month? That remains to be seen.

 

I think you entire post is a point, not a question and I fully understand it and actually really understand and get it. Good points, open some peoples eyes.

The point...

I did donate a lot of money to this game... was it done in the end to make some people rich.

In some cases that will be a yes.

In the case of SOTA... I dont think so. I think SOTA may pay the salaries of its employees and management but probably not make the actual company Portalarium that much money. I just dont think SOAT will be big enough and I am perfectly happy having our dev's salary's paid in full for their work.

But if it did... And this model is about making money then the money we put into the project should be considered shares and we make money if the entity makes money.

You opened my eyes with this post. Im concerned now (seriously).

 

Will never use kickstarter again beyond the normal price of a game. Shroud has burned me on that point, for the rest of my life. So, my bank account will be happy.
Dwarf Fortress is a good example. One developer. Donations make him a little profit each month. And the game is entirely a work of his own creativity. It's also one of the most complex and free-form games in existence.
As long as there is a cash shop? Shroud will never be the game developers want to make. The only way that's even slightly possible is with a straight up donation model. Why?

Even with the subscription model, developers are encouraged to use mechanics that increase the time sink to keep players subbed.
With the cash shop model, the game-to-profit loop is much tighter, until you get to the LOTRO reality of stat gear sold straight for cash. In game mechanics in Shroud will forever be dominated by the dark side of COTO's or similar currencies, now.
I mean, most 'app' games (for tablets and phones) are incredibly naked pay2win. It's literally buy this currency, spend this currency in game, you win. And people pay, because in the race between patience and compulsion, compulsion often wins.
These days it's a smaller target demographic that's willing to invest years of time into character progression. Even fewer with a required ongoing social component, given the glut of solo-to-victory MMO's out there.

 

Mount and Blade?

 

Kickstarter works really well for small projects of well defined scope and cost. They get funded, project has high chance of getting made, backers get what they paid for.

I think it works poorly for projects of large scope, with poorly defined end objectives (or works of perpetual development), with poorly defined costs. These types of projects are constantly seeking more funds or investors, dedicate a lot of effort to seeking more funds or investors that might have been used toward the actual project, and may alter the objectives based on their success at seeking funds or investors. In my mind, kickstarter should provide indie developers the freedom to simply pursue their vision with no external pressure and then succeed or fail on the project's own merit afterward. As compared to the traditional funding approach, which is to get a publisher that fronts the money for the project and then puts pressure on the developer both creatively and timelinewise to affect the project. However, with these large projects, we end up substituting publisher pressure for larger backer interests, outside investor interests, and additional monetization concerns. So, the one thing that I think is really great about kickstarter (letting indie devs pursue their unfettered vision) isn't really accomplished with large, poorly scoped, underfunded projects.

 

There was a plan for SotA to go back to Kickstarter for each episode. I wonder if that is still the plan.

 

No longer the plan with the current rate of revenue.
However imho it depends on commercial launch.