I'm not saying that they should. I'm merely evaluating the pitch and saying that there are two sides there - the backer's willingness to give them 15 bucks and the studio's effort to secure a quarter million funding. The effort is lacking.
Because the pitch failed to convince enough people that there is a game there (not just a tech demo).
Already answered.
They didn't say "we have this tech demo and if you back us up, we'll explore new design ideas and see what happens." They made very specific promises, which is what got some people excited and hopeful.
Promises in video gaming? They made a declaration of intent. Nothing more. Once again, it does not add up. A new studio wishing to get back to the point where major studios dropped the flag? That is experimentation for anyone willing to listen. They put up an engine and wish to see to what goes out.
When someone sets out to make an RPG they have some ideas in mind. These ideas need to be elaborated and presented clearly to the potential audience.
Not in this case. The game is set in a historical continuity and is very familiar to anyone who follows the attempt to bring the RPG genre on computers.
You can't just say:
"It is about exploring a world and being involved in major events there. What exactly you do and how you do it is entirely up to you. The world is carefully designed to be believable and have a life of its own. It is not there to wait for you to go on quests, trigger events or make decisions. Events will take their course and may take a turn for the worse if you don't get involved."
… and leave it at that, without explaining the underlying design and convincing backers that the designer has a clear vision and know how to get there and deliver on those promises.
That is experimentation. Once again. The base of experimentation is that people do not have a clear idea on how things are going to fit in. The only way to have a clear vision of a process is to have already been there.
So back to a previous point: backers want for this project guarantees that could only be delivered if the game was already developped. A paradox since they need funding to figure how if they are able to deliver.
Always blame the fans? How very Bioware.
What fans? Fans would blindly back the project without asking for any kind of guarantee, including guarantees that could only delivered at release of the game.
There are no fans involved here. This kind of initiative shows a double standard treatment of projects.
Well, see, I didn't know that because the pitch says:
"It encompasses a vast and rich history spanning aeons and galaxies, not as vague mythology but actual chains of events leading to the current situation. In Sui Generis you will get a sense that everything is connected and exists for a reason. … It is about exploring a world and being involved in major events there."
That sounds suspiciously like a story to me. Not to mention that the very first update was about the story. Not about dynamic quests or procedural design or the GTA meets Morrowind approach, but the story.
And the original release of the project was about a game world that evolves on its own. The lead did not speak about the story. He replaced the project in historical context (resuming where the evolution was dropped off)
The first sentence speaks about history. Wich is different from a story. A self generating game world with history. That is what self generating game universes create: history.
The developpers went taken by surprise: they thought that the central concept ( Sui generis) and the exhibition of a solid ground to expand on the concept would be enough to sell the projects to a communauty of players that expected such initiative.
They were totally wrong about that and all their updates and following were attempts to try and catch up with the potential backers'wishes.
Coming with a project as theirs, about creating a living game world and facing potential backers speaking their first concern about story is very destabilizing.
By essence, a self generating world only provides opportunities to weave a narrative, not a story.
It showed that the developpment team was totally off target: getting a self generating universe is not a primary want of the communauty. The communauty wants all of the same old, they want stories, poorly told.
With this team coming up with an original project, they discovered there was no expectation for it, that players will demand to assess the project by the same old criteria, including story.
Reading the comments shows that: very little investigation about the core of the project (the self generating universe) and so many concerns about the story etc…