Double Fine's - Massive Chalice

Malichite said:

I'm sorry but are we looking at the same KS!?! Aside from Brad having worked on Trenched (a.k.a. Iron Brigade) for Double Fine, where is the substance behind this pitch.

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If you are a no name indie then of course people want to make sure you have some fleshed out ideas. But it's different for the likes of Double Fine, InExile and Obsidian, since they are established brands. In that case we are voting for what direction the game industry is going to take in the future. And they can't just make anything - look what happened to GPG's Wildman - big NO!

Secondly it looks like these games companies are making the kind of games they would actually want to play themselves (within reason), which can't be a bad thing, if one has similar tastes, can it?

In that case we are voting for what direction the game industry is going to take in the future.

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So remind me what are we voting on for Massive Chalice, whether or not we want a vague tactical strategy with RPG elements, permadeath, and trait/equipment inheritance for the bloodlines that the developer would in fact want to play in their free time once completed?

And they can't just make anything - look what happened to GPG's Wildman - big NO!

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Biggest thing working against GPG wasn't just the idea, but people wanted Total Annihilation 3 or Kings and Castles instead and GPG bungled the initial campaign. Double Fine taps more into the casual trendy donator, while GPG was only going to get a more hardcore gamer that honestly doesn't want innovation. They want their old game with better graphics and more awesome!

But it's different for the likes of Double Fine, InExile and Obsidian, since they are established brands.

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I don't see how it is different as we have seen nothing from them that suggests their outcomes will fare any differently than if they were funded by a publisher. Sure it is easy to say that all the wrongs of the world are from evil bankers and publishers, but the reality is bad / mediocre games can easily result from the developers themselves without outside influence. Its naive to simply say all bad games stem from the publisher making them do it and is almost akin to blaming all the woes of the gaming industry on piracy.

Take Double Fine for example, they already blew through all the KS money and it was looking at other budgeting to even continue work on the game back at the beginning of the year. I guarantee if the budget gets too tight we will see a game that may be "technically complete", but just the same not very good. To be honest I only backed the min amount on the Double Fine Adventure (adventure games never really did it for me), but the progress has been slow and nothing I have seen suggests the gameplay is going to be awesome. I loved the fact they shared the dirty laundry videos, but it can't be a good sign when they are discussing why they missed another deadline on Cloud City completion and Tim Shafer is sitting in the back slowly banging his fist against his head with the "someone please shoot me!" look in his eyes.

Obsidian is known for some good games, but even in their update videos there was the admission they have a well deserved reputation for buggy games. Also are you really going to tell me that InXile's Bards Tale is the awesome game that needs to be emulated more? While Double Fine was tapping more into the hipster trendy crowd-sourcing model, InXile and Obsidian are simply peddling nostalgia. Yeah I back both of those two so I am a bad one to take advice from on being conservative with KS pledges, but honestly I see this becoming less of a new publishing model to help fund innovative / niche games into simply the first step you take with any game idea.

Step 1: Test Idea w/Kick Starter Campaign
Step 2: Use KS success as proof to get the real budget from VC money
Step 3: …
Step 4: Profit!!

Each to their own, but I have clamped down on any further KS until something delivers. Aside from FTL and College Ruled Universe no other campaign is close to delivering and those two are about a Indie as you can be.

Malichite: Double Fine taps more into the casual trendy donator, while GPG was only going to get a more hardcore gamer that honestly doesn't want innovation. They want their old game with better graphics and more awesome!

Innovation means coming up with a new and better idea than others have had before. Personally, I don't think deliberately dumbing things down to make them appeal to the lowest common denominator really qualifies as a better idea, but even if it did, it certainly doesn't qualify as a NEW idea, does it? And as for what you said about what hardcore gamers want, that's called "evolution". How is it you make it sound like evolution is something dinosaurs are in favor of? You really think it's the hardcore gamers that are the troglodytes in this scenario? In any case, evolution is generally how products improve over time.

As for Double Fine, I didn't buy their sales pitch. I already said why in my previous comment. If my assessment of them and their intent turns out to be wrong, I'll be happy to buy their game. It does sound interesting.

@Malichite

I agree that there are no guarantees that any of these games are going to turn out well. However, there are some good signs with respect to Wastelands 2 - the demo, the UI, the artwork, the dialogs all look promising; and perhaps to a lesser extent Project Eternity - just because they aren't so far along and I haven't seen enough yet to judge.

I didn't back the Double Fine adventure (Broken Age) at all, as I (also) don't much enjoy hunt the pixel adventures. Massive Chalice though is a more interesting idea (for me) where the current best games in the genre are only available on consoles . And I'd like to see that change. Don't see why Double Fine couldn't do a good job with this and if it is well funded we may see other games in the genre (plus NB: the very indy Telepath Tactics, which I also backed, is quite close to release I think).

Looking at the around 30 Kickstarters I've backed so far, there are a couple of funded ones that I wouldn't have backed given the perspective of present hindsight, but you have to expect that and I will be more than happy if say 50% end up being worth playing - that's probably more than the % of playable games I've bought after release even given there is much more info from research/reviews.

WRT GPG - I reckon if they'd rolled the dice big and gone for say $2m (cf Planetary Annihilation http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/659943965/planetary-annihilation-a-next-generation-rts?ref=live) to make Kings & Castles they would have had a good chance of making it (Have to admire the balls and sheer industry of Mark Jacobs for doing that on Camelot Unchained). I think the problem was the studio was on the verge of folding up before they even started and Wildman was a rather weak attempt to stave of the creditors.

As to everything being late - that's just the norm for all software projects. I don't have a cancellation yet, but it's only matter of time until something goes down the plughole without recompensing pledgers.

I'm another one who has backed a number of projects and am still waiting to see something actually come out. From my personal perspective, KS looks a bit like vaporware at the moment. I'm OK with that, as I knew my pledge was simply a donation to a worthy cause, but until I see more of my backed games clear the finish line, I'm holding back, which is a shame as Massive Chalice is right up my alley, gameplay-wise.

Actually there are a couple of games I backed on KS which I could already play (Legends of Eisenwald, Xenonauts, Malevolence, Maia).
And FTL isn't even one of it (missed that one on KS and bought it later on steam).

They are all still in Alpha/Beta though and I prefer to play a finish product.
So I wouldn't say that KS smalls like Vaporware but it probably takes more time to develop these games as it might seem during the campaign.

Next "big" release is probably Shadowrun returns which is still scheduled for June.

Kickstarter fatigue or not, I had to pledge. Although 8-10 hrs sounds a bit short? How long does a campaign in a Total War game last?

As for past projects, Expeditions:Conquistador just got released. Sure it was late, but the reviews seem to be mainly positive. I missed the FTL kickstarter but have spent plenty of hours with the game. Shadowrun returns is scheduled to be released soon and looks promising, WL2 will follow this autumn (hopefully) and looks absolutely awesome. So far I haven't been dissapointed by a single pledge I've made, but I agree that it would be nice to actually play some games instead of just waiting for them. And yes, some of the games will probably crash and burn. But if one or two are the gems I think they will be, that's a price I'll gladly pay.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Brütal Legend is actually listed in Wikipedia under "commercial failures", however.

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Although I enjoyed playing BL immensely and it even got me interested in metal music to some degree (of courseI always had an initial interest), I have to say I've hardly seen a game with such a niche audience. I mean in order to fully appreciate BL, one has to be:
- Able to appreciate cult classic qualities
- Interested in metal
- Interested in humor
- Interested in video games with unconventional and genre binding game-play
- Interested in high fantasy

What are the chances of that?

Also I assume hiring Jack Black, Lemmy, Ozzy Ozbourne, etc and licensing all those music tracks cost a lot of money. So no wonder it became a commercial failure. I guess the developers themselves were aware of this even before the game's release. It was clearly a work made out of pure passion. I hope they can make a sequel for it using the same thing someday. It would be a waste not to make further use out of this interesting and original universe.

As for this game, it kinda sounds interesting. But I think they could come up with a more exciting idea for a kickstarter project that was going to be funded anyway.

Kordanor said:

Actually there are a couple of games I backed on KS which I could already play (Legends of Eisenwald, Xenonauts, Malevolence, Maia).
And FTL isn't even one of it (missed that one on KS and bought it later on steam).

They are all still in Alpha/Beta though and I prefer to play a finish product.
So I wouldn't say that KS smalls like Vaporware but it probably takes more time to develop these games as it might seem during the campaign.

Next "big" release is probably Shadowrun returns which is still scheduled for June.

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I think a lot of people back things and don't look at the actual release date projections. Too many people think of it as a preorder system instead of a development system.

Sigh… I guess it is obvious that I just don't get it anymore, must be too old. I have been told that this is how gaming evolution works, that it is worth voting with your KS support to help guide the industry, it is fine to support vague pitches as long as it comes from a company you know, and this is all the creative way to support the new games industry.

<ahem> Back in my day young-ins… we didn't blindly run to Babbages and plop down the full price+ (usually $125+ if you want the box/manual) with no chance of refund since the ad in the gaming mag looks sweet and they have a quote from that guy from that other company that made the game similar to your favorite game… <ahem>.

Yes I understand it isn't technically a pre-order, but it is just the same… unless you would prefer to call it throwing money out the window on a sale pitch with some 10-20% chance of return on invest (i.e. a good game). None of the games I have backed have challenged me financially, but I just had to stop myself since being able to easily afford the KS pledge does not equate to good sense for making the KS pledge.

I agree there is a place for KS, but I wish it was more focused towards supporting those small independent teams with an interesting idea, meager budgets, living on ramen and working from a basement with the intent of realizing their dream. That is really where the risky and innovative games are going to come from, not just a well established game studios that you helped go publisher-less. Those companies are going to be run just like they would with publisher money, except now they just have less oversight. You can find ample evidence in the various update videos and even the failed kickstarter campaigns where they guy truly running the studio is already predisposed as to what a good idea is and what is too risky from a business sense.

My original post was really just asking why Massive Chalice deserved to be kick started rather than just being made by Double Fine. I still haven't seen anyone explain what about the vague description describes a good game, why the prototype shows the real concept behind the game (i.e. look at Banner Saga's original pitch for a good example), or why beyond the fact that Double Fine makes quirky games (Trenched, Stacking, Costume Quest) means that they are ideally suited to make this game…. just because Brad led the team that made a trendy tower defense game?

Again I guess I must be too old to understand anymore… "Hey you kids, get off the lawn!!!"

CraigCWB said:

Malichite: Double Fine taps more into the casual trendy donator, while GPG was only going to get a more hardcore gamer that honestly doesn't want innovation. They want their old game with better graphics and more awesome!

Innovation means coming up with a new and better idea than others have had before. Personally, I don't think deliberately dumbing things down to make them appeal to the lowest common denominator really qualifies as a better idea, but even if it did, it certainly doesn't qualify as a NEW idea, does it? And as for what you said about what hardcore gamers want, that's called "evolution". How is it you make it sound like evolution is something dinosaurs are in favor of? You really think it's the hardcore gamers that are the troglodytes in this scenario? In any case, evolution is generally how products improve over time.

As for Double Fine, I didn't buy their sales pitch. I already said why in my previous comment. If my assessment of them and their intent turns out to be wrong, I'll be happy to buy their game. It does sound interesting.

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I think we are arguing the same point, guess my intent was obscured by my post length.

<ahem> Back in my day young-ins… we didn't blindly run to Babbages and plop down the full price+ (usually $125+ if you want the box/manual) with no chance of refund since the ad in the gaming mag looks sweet and they have a quote from that guy from that other company that made the game similar to your favorite game… <ahem>.

My recollection is that the set price for PC games at retail outlets was about $30 in the US throughout the 1980s. And other than a brief period of time when devs were selling games in ziplock bags, there was no other way to buy them than in a box with a manual. As far as returns, I'm certain most retail outlets did allow returns until sometime in the early 1990s when the market dramatically and suddenly expanded. I used to return games when I felt like I got ripped off, which happened every now and again. When PC software was niche that was a normal policy with reputable software vendors. When software became mainstream that wasn't viable, it seems.

Why is the way you remember things so different from the way I do?

CraigCWB said:

<ahem> Back in my day young-ins… we didn't blindly run to Babbages and plop down the full price+ (usually $125+ if you want the box/manual) with no chance of refund since the ad in the gaming mag looks sweet and they have a quote from that guy from that other company that made the game similar to your favorite game… <ahem>.

My recollection is that the set price for PC games at retail outlets was about $30 in the US throughout the 1980s. And other than a brief period of time when devs were selling games in ziplock bags, there was no other way to buy them than in a box with a manual. As far as returns, I'm certain most retail outlets did allow returns until sometime in the early 1990s when the market dramatically and suddenly expanded. I used to return games when I felt like I got ripped off, which happened every now and again. When PC software was niche that was a normal policy with reputable software vendors. When software became mainstream that wasn't viable, it seems.

Why is the way you remember things so different from the way I do?

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LOL. I was trying to say that's the equivalent of what we are doing with kick starter today as most don't include a physical items like a box and manual until the $125 - $150 pledge mark with no chance of a refund after the pledge period ends. My past recollection is exactly the same as your and no one would have considered putting the full price down on a pre-order based on the marketing promises, but now a days that is "trendy".

Well, if you look at kickstarting like that, then sure. If instead you look at it like it was intended as a backing to get something developed then you see what publishers see in the business that the costumer is usually sheltered from. Failures. However, there is a chance that we will get what we want instead of what the publisher decides we want.

Not sure what all the bellyaching is about, would you really prefer to skip back a year into an alternative future where Wasteland 2, Tides, Project Eternity, Shadowrun (and others according to taste) were not being made? And instead we all have to play first person shooters with cut scenes on consoles.

And it's nonsense that there are lots of "risky and innovative" games from small indies just waiting to emerge from the shadows if only they could get funded. Most indie games are casual crap for mobile phones. A good RPG style game needs at least a medium sized team to cover all the bases - design, programming, ui, writing, art, sound. Even then we tend to get something that's very rough in one or more of these areas (examples omitted for diplomacy reasons ).

Roq said:

Not sure what all the bellyaching is about, would you really prefer to skip back a year into an alternative future where Wasteland 2, Tides, Project Eternity, Shadowrun (and others according to taste) were not being made? And instead we all have to play first person shooters with cut scenes on consoles.

And it's nonsense that there are lots of "risky and innovative" games from small indies just waiting to emerge from the shadows if only they could get funded. Most indie games are casual crap for mobile phones. A good RPG style game needs at least a medium sized team to cover all the bases - design, programming, ui, writing, art, sound. Even then we tend to get something that's very rough in one or more of these areas (examples omitted for diplomacy reasons ).

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I'll keep it short and to the point well said and I agree. A year ago we never would of had games like you stated. Publishers never bothered to fund them.

Malichite said:

LOL. I was trying to say that's the equivalent of what we are doing with kick starter today as most don't include a physical items like a box and manual until the $125 - $150 pledge mark with no chance of a refund after the pledge period ends. My past recollection is exactly the same as your and no one would have considered putting the full price down on a pre-order based on the marketing promises, but now a days that is "trendy".

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It's really not about being trendy. KS generally offers you a discount digital version, if you are looking for a deal, look no further. If you want to support a project with extra money because you like what they want to do, you can. Physical versions are an incentive that people like, that is all. Keep in mind that these will be produced in small numbers and are expensive to make, but also that the idea is to give the developers extra money, not getting a great deal.
If you are not sure about a project, don't back it. If it gets funded without your help, wait until it ships. If there is a project you'd like to see made, and are willing to risk some of your money on, back it. Simple as that.

Malachite said:

Again I guess I must be too old to understand anymore… "Hey you kids, get off the lawn!!!"

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Quite the contrary, I think a large portion of the Ks money that went to RPGs comes from older gamers that are still fans of old school game styles. Quite a few of us here here are 40-somethings (or worse!)

Well said Roq. I had almost given up on gaming, I was just dissapointed with every new release I had my hopes up for, the worst offenders being Oblivion and then Fallout 3 and Dragon age. They weren't bad games at all, but not the kind of games that I love. I was thinking that maybe I was just getting old and saw the old games through eyes of nostalgia, but a couple of replays of old favourites (UFO, Planescape, Fallout 1&2, Morrowind, Wizardy 8 etc.) made me realise that no, it wasn't I who had changed, it was the games. And there was nothing I could do about it.

Until Kickstarter.

The reason Brutal Legend was considered a commercial failure were unrealistic sales excpectations and varius publishing issues, not actual bad sales of the game, or music licensing costs (i've herad, that most bands were in for publicity, not money). It sold nearly a million physical copies on both consoles AND spawned a PC port nearly four years after it was released on consoles. If it had been a shitty game, that no one was interested in, i doubt Double Fine would have bothered with the port.

GhanBuriGhan said:

It's really not about being trendy. KS generally offers you a discount digital version, if you are looking for a deal, look no further.

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Last reply on this I promise … focus ONLY on Massive Chalice and tell me the game getting almost $750K from a slightly funny video, with whiteboard cartoon characters, and vague concepts like merge Final Fantasy Tactics with X-Com style gameplay, and little else is bidding on something of substance? I mean even look at the tiers…. Double Fine learned their lesson from Broken Age… $20 for the digital game, $50 to add the digital soundtrack with artwork, $100 for a name in the game, $150 for a t-shirt and poster, $250 for a signed poster, $1000 for a Skype conversation or 30 min on-site discussion, $5000 to attend a team meeting, and $10k to play at games night (that all of em, I didn't skip any). This almost instantly hit Reddit on announcement and raced to near funded levels on nothing else than it was… say it with me… "trendy".

CouchPotato said:

I'll keep it short and to the point well said and I agree. A year ago we never would of had games like you stated. Publishers never bothered to fund them.

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In terms of the other KS, I am not arguing it has no place but a wise man would resolve judgement on its awesome results until something actually arrives. I too was excited back in the day when Master of Orion 3 was being worked on and no amount of bad news or poor previews from the evil Mr. Tom Chick could presuade the fanboys all wasn't well until months after release when reality settled in. Even the guys working on MOO3 didn't blame its failure purely on the publisher, but more on ideas that just didn't come together as well as originally envisioned as the project progressed.

I am happy Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity are being funded (backed both > $100 each), but neither are innovative or revolutionary they are nostalgia. Nostaliga is fine and does have a niche market I am willing to support, but I am amazed how many people find KickStarter to be the start of the golden era months if not years before any final result is produced. Yeah I liked to see the Wasteland 2 progress video, but honestly there have only been two and nothing shown was worrying nor was it proof positive that "gum drops shall fall from the sky and fun shall be had by all". While it is nice to believe that Brian Fargo is just doing it this small niche for old school RPGers… honestly even these rather large KS campaign have meager budgets for real development budgets even with tools like Unity… so don't fool yourself it believing he is making a game that will only appeal to us and not include some of those "streamlining" and "optimizations" of many modern game (i.e. doubt you'd find Brian consider Fallout 3 as being "dumbed down" too much). His studio's success from the publisher-less arrangement really begins once sales start rolling in after release to non-backers.

Just my opinion guys and it appears I am in the minority, so I shall slink away and return to my lurker status.