[ Kickstarter's earned plenty of funding for game developers over thepast several months, but will this new-found funding model last?Gamasutra contributor Nicholas Lovell provides his thoughts on thematter and outlines some imporants risks developers and backersneed to be aware of .] 2012 has seen an unprecedented level of euphoria over crowdfundingsites. Regular readers of Gamasutra will know that Double Fine raised $3,335,265 in a record-breaking campaign to produce a game about which purchasers knew very little, exceptthat it would be a point-and-click adventure created by two of thedoyens of that industry: Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert. Then InXileCEO and Interplay founder Brian Fargo followed the example, raising $2.9m to fund a sequel to 1988 game Wasteland . Not only have two games that traditional publishers wouldn't touchnow been funded by fans, but they appear to have opened thefloodgates to other Kickstarter projects.
In a recent blog post,Kickstarter said that blockbuster projects draw more people intothe crowdfunding ecosystem. Successful, large-scale fund-raisersdon't suck up all the available money; they increase the number ofpeople funding projects, increasing the pool of potential fundersfor other projects. Kickstarter's key statistics : In the first two years of Kickstarter, the Video Games category sawpledges of $1,776,372. In the six weeks after the Double Fine project was announced, $2,890,704 waspledged (if you added Double Fine's amount to that, you get$6,227,075.) Before Double Fine, one video game project had exceeded $100,000.By March 29, 2012, nine projects had. In the month before Double Fine, the Video Games category averaged629 pledges a week; after (but excluding) Double Fine, that jumpedto 9,755 pledges per week.
There are currently 314 projects live on the Video Games Channel onKickstarter. Several are fully-funded already (like YogVentures ). Others never will be (I've seen at least two massive open-worldsandbox games proposed by people who have never made any gamesbefore). The ones I worry about are the ones that combine the two:fully funded projects by wildly-optimistic promoters. That is wherethe trouble will start.
Only 10% Spend On Development Independent developer Warballoon raised $36,967 on Kickstarter to fund their iOS game, Star Command . Only they didn't: $2,000 just didn't turn up (payments didn't transfer) and whenAmazon and Kickstarter took their fees, Warballoon got $32,000. Prizes cost $10,000! Much more than Warballoon was expecting. (Noteto Kickstarters: do your costings carefully, and remember toinclude postage halfway round the globe.) Then: music ($6,000), legal and accounting fees to set up thebusiness ($4,000), poster art ($2,000), iPads ($1,000), attendingPAX East ($3,000) Leaving $6,000 for development. Which was taxed, leaving $4,000.
So out of $36,967, only $4,000 went on development. I'm not pickingon Warballoon: I think it is great that they shared their data.More than that, they spent their Kickstarter money on things thatcost money (like music and attending events), not on things likecoding which doesn't (it costs their time, which is very valuablebut is not cold hard cash). The Warballoon team had a successful Kickstarter project, raised inthe days before Double Fine, but they didn't raise enough money tomake the game if they needed to fund the salaries of everyoneinvolved. The Molyneux Effect The second issue I see is what I am terming the "Molyneux effect."Peter Molyneux is a creative game developer who inspires playersand game makers the world over with his thoughts on what the gamesmedium can deliver.
He also makes promises he can't possibly keep. In the early days ofhis projects, Peter used to get so excited that he would startthinking about the things he was imagining before thepracticalities of technology, time and budget started to cut intohis dreams. (That was before the Microsoft machine got its hooksinto him. Maybe it will start again now that he is independentagain).
Fans would then get furious that the grand promises at thestart of development did not make it into final release (as this satirical news piece shows .) Now imagine that you paid for the game at the start of the process,because you believed in the grand claims, not at the end of theprocess, once you had a chance to read the reviews and see what isactually in the game. This time, fans will actually haveentitlement, not just a sense of entitlement. The Internet willreverberate with their fury. Can They Deliver? I am convinced that Tim Schafer and his team at Double Fine knowhow to deliver a game (mostly) on time and (mostly) on budget.Brian Fargo too.
Is that true for all 314 of the currentKickstarter projects? What about the projects which get started but never finished? Ifpublishers like LucasArts can cancel games that are almost finished or like Codemasters can pay for a game it never saw , what certainty do pledgers have that the game that they have paidfor will ever see the light of day? We Are Still In The Euphoric Phase We are still in the early days of our Kickstarter relationship, theearly days of falling in love. Everything our partner does iswonderful. We gloss over the risks, we ignore the downsides,because the glory of falling in love is everything. I think we have about six months left of that period. Towards theend of this year, some Kickstarter projects are going to startslipping.
Some will see their teams collapse amidst bickerrecriminations. Some pledgers are going to start getting veryangry. Don't get me wrong. I love Kickstarter. I love the way it allowsfans to spend as much or as little they want on supporting projectsthat they love (or think they will).
I love the way it gives peoplewith different spending appetites different amounts to spend. Idon't think Kickstarter will replace publishers but it will enablegames that appeal to niche (as defined by mega-publishers)audiences to get made and played. Which is great. Just don't expect the ride to be smooth from hereon in. Listen for the screams.
Related news: Appstori promises a Kickstarter alternative for mobile appdevelopers Kickstarter game funding canceled following art theft allegations Over $20M pledged to Kickstarter game projects. I am a professional writer from Energy Agents, which contains a great deal of information about construction safety vest , vehicle ptz camera, welcome to visit!
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