Matt Barton - Kickstarter Editorial

Matt Barton better know as Matt Chat has written a short article on Kickstarter that ponders on why publishers are needed sometimes. Now read the article as he has a point, and then you can comment if your still angry.

I’ve been noticing a trend lately (inevitable, I guess) in the number of Kickstarter updates along these lines:

• “Sorry I’ve been out of touch for the past few weeks…”
• “Unfortunately, the project has turned to be more work intensive than we thought…”
• “We asked for X, when we really needed XXX. Now we’re back asking for more.”
• “I apologize for my inconsistency. I’m accustomed to having a publisher yelling at me, without that, I just procrastinate endlessly.”

Okay, I made the last one up, but I bet it’s true for at least a few projects. But I’m not just posting to complain about all this. After all, it’s only human to make mistakes, especially when it comes to overestimating our abilities (especially our self-discipline). Likewise, there’s no denying that, as much as we like to bash them, publishers do bring certain things to the table: forcing everyone to stick to a schedule, cutting costs at every corner, saying “NO” to things that would disrupt the schedule or the budget. Kickstarter-funded developers, of course, are still accountable, but the folks who funded them aren’t in a position to get their money back or fire them.

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More information.

It's inevitable that there are going to be some bad kickstarter turnouts. And if the popularity of crowd-funding grows, then the percentage of flakey attempts will rise accordingly.

But personally, I'm ready to roll the dice on that. It's been about 13 years of AAA dev/pub FPS-Insert-A-Number-Here. Or when it comes to our neck of the woods - a whole lot of AAA flash-bang-wow-graphics RPGs but very shallow and many times just plain uninteresting RPG gameplay.

Big publishing marketers don't seem to know what to do unless they're dealing with a brand that's been around 50 times before. And that's lead to a glut much like what we saw in the 80s that resulted in the videogame crash. Other things have changed with this industry so I don't think a videogame crash is likely, but the glut is there nonetheless.

Crowd-funding is the first real chance for variety again like we saw (and played with) in the 80s and 90s. But with much better technology. I've already paid for a few kickstarter projects who's results weren't as great as I hoped. Still, I'm very optimistic about crowd-funding. At least for now.

I was checking out the steam sale today and what do I see but GODUS at 50% off. I remember their KS but did not back it - not my type of game. So I figured it must be released and completed for a while to see this kind of discount so I checked it out. It is still a beta and hasn't see any new activity in nearly a month. The new Steam reviews are slamming it hard too. Than again Molyneux pretty much flipped the PC game crowd the middle finger for his last few projects so I don't understand how it got funded in the first place.

Where I am going with this is one has to be very selective about who you drop $$$ to back. There are many many great ideas out there but support them with a grain of salt and don't expect too much, and in the case of the big name draws coming out of the wood work to cash in, past performance is a very good indicator of future performance.

Unfortunately that leaves all the unknown developers as a crap shoot. But I figure what the heck if I get hooked by the game idea 15-20 $ aint going break me and if some cool games that would never have been made happen then I am even farther ahead in the end.

Hey, maybe people who don't want to gamble on supporting Kickstarter projects should not support them!

screeg said:

Hey, maybe people who don't want to gamble on supporting Kickstarter projects should not support them!

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The article is not about if you should support kickstarters. He talks about the trend he sees with ones that get funded. Publishers may not be popular with many here, but they are a necessary evil when a team can't manage their project.

As for me I'll continue to back ones that interest me, but I wont be spending a huge amount on any of them anymore. It's a gamble really, and we should all know that by now.

This is the reason I don't do kickstarter. Promises made by a well-funded, professional game development studio are dicey at best; those made on kickstarter are a complete shot in the dark.

I wait until a game is finished and thoroughly reviewed before any money leaves my hands. Kickstarter has always been just shy of gambling.

There are just too many good games already out there (if you don't mind playing old ones), then to waste my money on promises.

And all the heroes come out to tell us why they don't back games blah blah blah.

If you do your research and don't back crap that you can basically tell won't come out then you should be ok. I haven't had any of the ones I backed so far not deliver...

Still haven't seen anything actually released that isn't somewhat disappointing though.

TimtheTaxMan said:

This is the reason I don't do kickstarter. Promises made by a well-funded, professional game development studio are dicey at best; those made on kickstarter are a complete shot in the dark.

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You're right about the first part. In my opinion, KS projects are no more of a shot in the dark than big projects by major developers. One project I backed by some nobody completely tanked and I got nothing. Luckily, it only cost five bucks.