"'Big indie' Kickstarters are killing actual indies"

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/19/8624665/big-indie-kickstarters-are-killing-actual-indies

Interesting opinion piece from Polygon.

While I don't quite agree with the main premise of the article, that the big kickstarters are killing the smaller ones, I do think it is kind of worrisome that mid-level developers are using kickstarter as just another source of income, along with investor funds and revenue from past releases. This does kind of ruin the spirit of kickstarter a bit.

What does everyone think?

Edit: Whoops, didn't notice there was already a newspost about this. Mods feel free to delete this thread.

I'd wager a guess and say that the final budget is largely irrelevant to backers. Backers care about the amount of money they pay, what they're paying for, and who they're giving it to.

That is certainly true for the minimum asked. If someone tells me they have realistic plans for a sprawling deep RPG on a 500k budget, I'm not going to not donate because someone else promised to make one with a 20k budget.
First the latter might simply have been miscalculating his expenses. Second, they may have put less sophisticated tech and expertise into their game. Or they may simply be based somewhere with really low wages.

It's a bit too simple to point at two entirely different projects and say "why u gaem cost so much?". Unless you're actually comparing two finished products, that is.

Indie devs might just have found another thing to complain about in the oh so cold market. Face it, if I'm not donating to your $500k kickstarter, it's not because I already donated to someone else's $300k kickstarter who also has a big publisher behind him. It's possibly because I have no reason to trust you to deliver because you don't have the credits. Or maybe your pitch is just a tad weak and vague and with not much to show for. Does that apply to established developers as well? No, obviously not. I threw money at Obsidian just because they promised to bring Infinity Engine style games back, not because they only asked for $1m (or whatever it was).

Funny thing is, you already have crafty indie devs like Team21 (Dungeons of Aledorn) who promised to bring us a deep full fledged RPG for $60k. According to that theory established devs should now be scared because I don't think they'd even bother to go to Kickstarter with such a funding goal.

I wouldn't say that larger dev studios are necessarily killing off interest in smaller projects. Rather, interest in those smaller projects was never there to begin with - not because of any lack of quality, but instead a combination of lack of marketing and simply consumer kickstarter burnout.

In my case, it's most definitely burnout; I play maybe a couple new games a year... I've found myself asking why pledge a great deal more often these days. Especially when I have yet to complete Divine Divinity, Wasteland 2, & PoE, while still waiting on half a dozen other titles.

Frankly, if you missed the honeymoon period as an indie developer, tough luck. It's a very saturated market now and you really need a combination of marketing and a bold fresh idea to really have a chance. Much like any other business startup really.

Nephologist said:

http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/19/8624665/big-indie-kickstarters-are-killing-actual-indies

Interesting opinion piece from Polygon.

While I don't quite agree with the main premise of the article, that the big kickstarters are killing the smaller ones, I do think it is kind of worrisome that mid-level developers are using kickstarter as just another source of income, along with investor funds and revenue from past releases. This does kind of ruin the spirit of kickstarter a bit.

What does everyone think?

Edit: Whoops, didn't notice there was already a newspost about this. Mods feel free to delete this thread.

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I don't really care about the 'spirit' of Kickstarter. Kickstarter, like any other company, was designed to make profit for its owners by providing a service (in this case crowdsourcing). If it helps more quality 'big indie' games get made (like Wasteland 2, PoE, Tides of Numeria, Star Citizen, etc.), it may sound callous, but it doesn't really bother me if it hurts truly 'indie' studios, because I'm far more likely to enjoy the 'big indie' games over the 'indie' games anyway.

Its not that I wish the 'indie' games or their developers to fail, but more games that I truly enjoy are being produced due to Kickstarter and ultimately that's what's important to me as a consumer.

The title itself seems really pedantic and misleading. By 'actual indies', I suppose she means amateurs? The editorial is all about how developers are deflating the project costs. But we already knew this.

I don't think it like that. First there is no evidence of people donating x ammount of money monthly on various projects no matter what. Furthermore we can not claim that if the middle sized developer A had not pictched it's old school rpg project in february, the indie developer B would have gotten the funding for his awesome new indie rpg at the same time.

That being said the honeymoon is indeed over. Now we gamers have gotten a bit tired of kickstarters and have seen few projects fail misserably. The magic can still happen, like with the new ultima underworld project lately, but one great idea is not enough. You need to also provide some kind of proof that you can actually deliver.

That is why industry veterans rule the ks charts. Atleast we've seen their work and we know who they are. And heck it is not a quarantee of success either. Quite many famous projects have struggled and few have even failed.

A new guy will have always harder time. Indies must realize that ks shouldn't be the entry point to the industry. First deliver few projects successfully and prove that you have what it takes. And it is important that you do that before because kickstarter should be an instrument to make your dream come true. So don't use kickstarter money to learn your craft.

Yep, people with no experience should get their experience from the big, bad corps, the ones that are commonly targeted as the great satan by the crowdfunding crowd.
After that, they might pitch their project on KS.
They should not expect to be offered some ground to gain experience from KS projects, since those ones must hire seasoned veterans of the industry.

blatantninja said:

I don't really care about the 'spirit' of Kickstarter. Kickstarter, like any other company, was designed to make profit for its owners by providing a service (in this case crowdsourcing).

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If KS and the crowdfunding crowd got the memo, that would have avoided them to keep selling the crowdfunding thingie as something to help the little guy...
Not sure that would have sold that well, that kind of honesty. Well, in second thought, maybe they got the memo and saw it could be better to market the whole stuff as they did.

Polygon again lost it's compass.
Each project I backed was regardless of the studio. And you know my drill.

One my say I backed Eternity because it's BlackIsleish game but not really. I backed it because it wasn't a phonegame or DLC-o-rama or something. I didn't care who was behind it.

Polygon could be right when it comes to MMOs however. Maybe big names can do it successfully and small devs can't. But then again I'd never back MMO so I can't know.

ChienAboyeur said:

Yep, people with no experience should get their experience from the big, bad corps, the ones that are commonly targeted as the great satan by the crowdfunding crowd.
After that, they might pitch their project on KS.
They should not expect to be offered some ground to gain experience from KS projects, since those ones must hire seasoned veterans of the industry.
.

Click to expand...

Well what I meant was that if you're asking huge ammount of money, you're going to have more difficult time convincing backerbase if you're the new guy instead of being the establlished artist/developer. I think it is always better to have some previous work which you can show to potential backers. That way you can prove that you can deliver and you know your craft. Getting funding becomes easier then… Just being realistic here.

And I didn't mean that they should get hired to big corporation to get some experience. This "experience" can also be gained with other means. Released mods, released indie games or something. Or simply a good concept of your project which proves that you're not just wasting everyone's time and money.

The article is about asking what it is needed to complete a product and the distortion created by people who use KS as an additional revenue source versus people who use it as their main source.
It is not about asking too much money.