The classic space is looking for funding for an updated version of the game.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146 ... -dangerous
Multiplayer and a return to the original flight model are to be included.
A lot of people (myself included) have been waiting a long time. It could be great, I just hope it doesn't go the way of Duke Nuke 'Em Forever.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

Oh good, just make sure you don't accidently fund http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146 ... -dangerous and you make sure you fund http://infinity-universe.com instead. It would be unfortunate if you happened to fund the Dangerous one, wouldn't it? (and don't notice the knife behind your back)

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What most people don't understand is what I like to explain as a thing that I understand.

I don't understand how kickstarters ask for the full purchase price of the game upfront. There's no guarantee that you'll get a return on your investment but somehow the price is set at 20 quid?

The Mount & Blade guys had an actual, impressive, playable game that you could immediately sink your teeth into. And they asked for a fraction of the full purchase price, which increased as the game was brought to completion.

How does this make sense?

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Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve

Why does it need to make sense?
Given the large audience at what is known as "The Internet", I am sure you can find enough ignorant souls to give you that money.

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My project: Messing about in FreeRCT, dev blog, and IRC #freerct at oftc.net

For people of a certain age, you only have to mention classics like Carmageddon or Elite and I will throw money at you.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

It's as much to test the water as anything else, been a long time since the last elite game.

It makes sense for things to make sense!

There have been a whole host of these nostalgia kickstarters riding on promises of reviving some bygone golden era of gaming. My prediction is that after the first one or two are actually delivered and prove to be grossly underwhelming, this ridiculous bubble is going to burst. (Or maybe I'm being a bit too harsh here )

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Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve

I dunno about the whole kickstarter thing. I'm really torn on the issue.

At first I thought it was a really great idea, let the people fund the development of games.. help the indie devs out.. etc etc .. but what ive been hearing about are some pretty insane sums... 50K USD.. 75K USD How do you justify that?

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"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
"Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment." -Jonah Orion
http://tankzgame.blogspot.com

50k is not a lot of money for game development really. And therein lies the problem. It looks like a poopbunch of money if you look at it from another perspective, but really would be just enough for 4 people to work on a game for 6-12 month, depending on social circumstances.

I don't mind people trying to gather money that way if they feel their game is worth it. What i specifically dislike about the whole issue is that something, like the now cancelled Oldschool RPG, that disclosed no info about it whatsoever except 'it's gonna be like old times' tries to raise a POOPLOAD of money. i think their goal was around 700k or even more, not sure at this point. There was no substance, no innate project they always wanted to do, they just bandwaggoned their way along it seems. And this is where the line for me is.

If you have an original idea that you wanna get done, go for it. If you just wanna raise a poopload of money for no apparent reason, don't bother.

Edited for swears - Codehead

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Long pork is people!

wzl's burrow

Yeah but if they wanna quit their jobs to make a game, that's THEIR desicion. Why should we pay because they've CHOSEN to do dev full time? Hell Id love to quit my job and work on Tankz full time but the rational part of my brain prevents it. Make your money on the sales. If the game pulls in like 100k on kickstarter, who cares how well it does on launch?

_________________
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
"Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment." -Jonah Orion
http://tankzgame.blogspot.com

Depends on the game - consider just the localisation costs for a game with 100,000 words of text and a few pence per word per language for around 20 languages.

It's a lot of cash for a small indie game, it's a drop in the ocean for a big company.

Its not that we should pay. Thats not the idea behind kickstarter.

I see it like this: Dev's have a great idea, but not the time and resources to build the complete game, so they start a prototype that might get funded. Classically you look for a publisher or investor, but this fails more often than not, especially if you're not working on a AAA title or a well known franchise. So you look for people who'd be willing to invest their private money for the completion of the project.

So it's basically a consumers stinky finger to the publishers face. Everyone benefits (as long as the project doesnt fail and everyones money goes down the drain). The devs keep all their royalties and can rely on that for future games. The consumers get the game they want, or rather, the game the developer wants to do without third parties meddling with it.

Have you tried raising funds for your game? It's not an easy task. Even for well structured teams with working prototypes and proof of concepts it is difficult to attract potential sponsors or investors. I very much welcome what kickstarter does for the game dev community and therefore the games industry aswell. I don't see a point badmouthing kickstarter or the devs using it. Obviously there's some questionable content on there, but thats for the consumers to decide still. Most are smart enough to figure out that something is a fraud or just out to make a quick buck.


You should, if you have any honor as a game developer! With that kind of funding you could afford an artist and another programmer, and perhaps 1-2 people more to realise the game in the best way possible, both artistically and technically. With 3-5 people working on it fulltime for around 9-12 month you'll burn pretty quickly through the funds.
If your argument goes like 'just take the 100k and relax for the rest of your life' i'd suggest reading their legal notes regarding the completion of your project. I'm not sure how kickstarter exactly handles this, since it's not available in my region anyways, but i think you have some kind of obligation to fulfill the project to the best of your ability.

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Long pork is people!

wzl's burrow

I'm not saying I would do that, I'm saying other people might exploit it. Rake in the kickstarter cash, implement whatever rudimentary promises they made, release the game. Move onto the next game. Any copies they actually sell is pure gravy.

You can't judge a game on screenshots, promises or 'gameplay' videos. Infact I'm of the opinion that you really can't even judge a game based on it's beta. Judge the 1.0. What is happening on kickstarter is that people are throwing huge sums of money at games that a) dont even nessearily exist yet and B) they know very little about. Which means that if it generates alot of money, the game is a success no matter how crappy it actually turns out to be. Again, dont misread me, im sure theres lots of genuinely good games being funded but what im saying is that theres nothing stopping a bad one from getting funded based on big promises and shiny screenshots.

EDIT: Have a look at this link: http://www.gunpointgame.com/ Right at the top there's an article called "Why isn't there a Gunpoint Kickstarter?" This article mirrors my feelings exactly, and the developer here words it better than I ever could have.

_________________
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
"Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment." -Jonah Orion
http://tankzgame.blogspot.com