Grim Dawn - Kickstarter Delayed

Couchpotato

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Grim Dawn has a new post-funding update informing us the game is being delayed. Read the link for futher information.

We’re still a very small team though, as far as ARPG makers go and despite surpassing our goal on Kickstarter, $537k is a fraction of the budget available to the bigger name studios in the genre. Yet, we did feel that we had the capability to do more than we'd originally planned and I think most of you would be disappointed if we didn’t strive to create the best game we could.

While I’m not happy about our delay and I’m not trying to casually dismiss it, I do believe that a huge part of the reason developers and gamers alike are attracted to the crowd-funding model is the flexibility it provides developers to do what they think is right to ship the best game that they can.

Under normal circumstances, the delays we encountered wouldn’t push out our ship date; it would just mean that we would have to make cuts to features and content. Likely, in the end, we would have been forced to prematurely ship a game that was never allowed to reach its full potential.

So, here we are. It is August and we have to announce a delay, a significant one. I apologize for that and we are working hard to ensure that Grim Dawn will be worth your wait. Under the circumstances, we are also planning to alter our release schedule somewhat to compensate so that access to the game is no longer tied to specific development milestones, which I'm not sure really made sense to begin with. Instead, it will be more like earliest, earlier, early access.

Alpha is already out, as you know, and I’m happy to say that, based on feedback, the vast majority of those playing will tell you it was worth the wait. So, I hope those not playing the game can, in turn, wait a little longer for their releases. We’re hoping to open the game up to beta access in a few months. Then, at some point beyond that, once we have a critical mass of content ready to play, we’ll open it up to everyone who has backed the game.

More information.
 
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Kickstarters being delayed is nothing new and they wont be the last developer to do so. I except this might happen to all my backed projects. So I understand.

So to sum it up I hope everything gets back on schedule as I can't wait to play the finished project. I have no interest in playing alpha or beta versions.:)

So what about everyone else? Please share your opinions.
 
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All right, delays always happen. Developer doesn't have experience how long it takes to finish feature #x, also because it may conflict with the code & causes delays. Unforeseen problems, perfectly understandable.
 
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Better to delay game as long as needed than have another Gothic 3 or RoA HD scenario.
That's the reason I'm grateful for the community patches. I have a feeling it will be the community fixing RoA HD also.
 
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That's the reason I'm grateful for the community patches. I have a feeling it will be the community fixing RoA HD also.

True, but it does hurt sales.FTL, Shadowrun and Chivalry(sold in 1.2m copies) have shown that you can have huge success beyond KS so no need to shot themselves in foot by rushing the game.
 
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Don't know why these Kickstarters give target dates anyway (perhaps KS requires one?) It should just be "when it's done".
 
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Don't know why these Kickstarters give target dates anyway (perhaps KS requires one?) It should just be "when it's done".

I think it is a good idea to give a target - are we estimating Fall 2013 or Fall 2014. There should, however, be a disclaimer that 'delays happen'.

As for this delay the wording reminds me of the old project management triangle:

There is time (resources), quality and features. You cannot change one without impacting the others. Add features and you either need to lengthen time (or add resources) or accept lower quality. And so on.

And so one good thing with Kickstarter is that they have laid out their plans so they cannot arbitrarily hack features to hit timelines.
 
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Kickstarters and all games for that matter should just give a release date that is a year or 2 after what they think will be the real release date.

Then when they release it 6 months past the release date they thought it would be it will still be 6 months earlier than the date they gave everyone. Then everyone would praise them.

I've yet to have a kickstarter release on time and figured they wouldn't when I backed them.

When they send out the thank you announcement for successfully getting funded they should just say thanks for funding our game it is now officially delayed.
 
Don't know why these Kickstarters give target dates anyway (perhaps KS requires one?) It should just be "when it's done".

Kickstarter require a date of "delivery" for what you are trying to get founded.
 
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This is one of the things I don't like about stretch goals on Kickstarter. I see the need for them, and I'm not even saying the bad outweighs the good… but something rubs me the wrong way when they suggest that they're missing their goal because the funding went so well.

Sometimes a project has so many stretch goals, so far beyond their initial goal that you begin to wonder if they really know what they want to make in the first place. I don't know the solution and I don't necessarily want to see overfunding go away, but something isn't quite right about it.
 
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Props to them for taking responsibility. I'm pretty sure that if one of the kickstarters I'm excited about (ie Tides of Numenera) came out and say relax we're only delaying so we can make it better I would absolutely fall for it.
 
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That's actually a worry for me wrt Kickstarter. Cutting features to make a release date can certainly be bad but it also sometimes forces the developer to cut things that just didn't turn out to be all that fun or ended up being a lot harder to put in than expected. And what about new ideas? If somebody comes up with a real cool idea but the release date is looming then the idea has to wait for the next game. But what happens if there's no solid release date? The idea can be put in and the game gets better! Sweet! And then there's another idea. And another. And then an even better version of the first idea. And so on… As the good Doctor said, a little patience goes a long way but too much patience goes nowhere.

Most developers know all that even better than me and shouldn't have a problem but what about the others? A proper publisher can threaten to pull funding but what can Kickstart backers do?
 
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There is the very simple fact that money runs out sooner or later. Very good incentive to finish.
 
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I've been watching Grim Dawn since I heard about it here a year or so ago. Frankly, I don't care how long it takes them as long as it comes out in a mostly stable condition. I really like the concept and was a HUGE fan of Titan Quest, so I have complete faith in them. If I wasn't married and strapped for cash (The two go together) I would have donated to them on KS myself.

It's nice that they explained it though. Shows you that they really care about their community.

I think Shadowrun Returns could have used a longer delay. It needed more time in the oven, so to speak, and I believe they were afraid to delay it any longer than they did for fear of backlash.
 
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Holding my nose and reading through the comments on KS, I was pleasantly surprised to see that people were overwhelmingly understanding. Just goes to show that honesty and transparency go a long way towards fostering good will.
 
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There is the very simple fact that money runs out sooner or later. Very good incentive to finish.

If you're relying on the game release to make back your money to pay your lenders...

But if you've already been paid for the development, and most of the people who would buy your game at launch have already paid you... slightly less incentive maybe. Who knows.
 
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If I wasn't married and strapped for cash (The two go together) I would have donated to them on KS myself.

Well they don't ALWAYS go together :p (Though if you add kids into the mix too, it's a different story).

I would much rather see them take the time to do it right/polish than release an unfinished or buggy mess. The more high quality Kickstarter releases, the better chance of more people trying out the system. I would love to see more games, more backers, and more funding for projects there.
 
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