Kickstarter et alia

[El_MUERkO]

Considering the success of Kickstarter projects like Double Fine Adventure a thread was started on the EG forums where people can list crowd funding projects they support and hopefully get other people interested in them. With FTL appearing on Kickstarter today I thought it'd be a good idea to have a similar thread on RPS.

To get the ball rolling, here's what I've funded so far...

Games:
Double Fine Adventure
No Time To Explain - Funding Complete
FTL - A Space Roguelike

Games Related:
Minecraft: The Story of Mojang - Funding Complete

Other:
Osombie (feature film)
The Last Cause - feature film
What Dreams May Come - Funding Complete

[pakoito]

I found NTTE a big disappointment TBH. I'm going to try FTL on Onlive this afternoon.

[El_MUERkO]

They're still beavering away at it, looking to get Steam certification, have you tried the latest build?

[pakoito]

They're still beavering away at it, looking to get Steam certification, have you tried the latest build?

The game was buggy, unoptimized and short, no wonder why they didn't get it.

[Jams O'Donnell]

I'll bite.

Games:
FTL

Other:
Idle Thumbs podcast
Ironbuds earphones

[Alphager]

I funded Blade Symphony last year, Code Hero last week, FTL today and of course Double Fine's Adventure.

I have yet to see anything in return of my kickstarter-endeavors; I will remain slightly optimistic until the end of the year.

[buemba]

Games:
Octodad 2
Venus Patrol (Got some great games out of this one)
Crystal Catacombs
Lifeless Planet
Star Command
Against The Wall
Waveform
The Last Sleeper
Double Fine Adventure
UFHO2
Pixel Sand
Idle Thumbs

Other:
A bunch of iPad styli, indie comics and other stuff I wouldn't have gotten if I had better impulse control.

[squirrelfanatic]

Nice idea, however I would be more interested in learning

1. how many games that you guys funded via Kickstarter already have been released and
2. how long the time period between reaching the Kickstarter goal and the release date (I guess first playable versions count) was.

Sorry if I am hijacking the thread. I figured I might as well post the questions in here. Might create a new thread for this if there are a lot of responses.

[BobsLawnService]

Only Wasteland. I'm also considering only ever sponsoring another project if the developer keeps an updated set of accounting books so that I can see exactly what the money is being spent on.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

Maybe all of these projects are too realistic for you. Maybe you'd rather fund an idea man's vaporware MMORPG.

Look no further: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...716/your-world

(Should I mention that guy won the lottery for a couple of millions a few years back?)

[Vandelay]

I've only two at the moment, but here they are:
Double Fine Adventure - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...fine-adventure
Blink - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...ing-experience

I've only put $20 and $10 into these, respectively. I do kind of wish I had of put a bit more into the Double Fine now, to get the next tier. Blink I mainly went with due to their integrated support of the Razer Hydra, although it does look as though they won't be really pushing the abilities of the control, in a way the Portal 2 DLC did. Having played the early alpha release though, it does look to be a pretty good puzzle game, as long as they work on the sign posting a little bit.

I'm also probably going to back Lynch Three (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...three?ref=live), a documentary about the filmmaker David Lynch.

[squirrelfanatic]

Oh, I should have mentioned that I haven't contributed to any Kickstarter project yet. Just like Bob, I think that it is important to see how the money is actually spent (although these numbers could of course be entirely made up) and would add that there should also be a concrete financing plan (or a good concept thereof) for me to consider giving money to a project.

Big and well-known names (à la Schafer) could be of help too.

[magnolia_fan]

I haven't funded any projects but I do wonder something. Why do you help fund game projects almost exclusively on Kickstarter? A lot has been said about "how Kickstarter is doing so many things for indie gaming" but Kickstarter itself is doing nothing more than hosting the projects.So, with other crowdfunding sites like indiegogo, or the just relaunched 8 bit funding, why are most going after Kickstarter projects exclusively? I for one would like to see 8 bit funding get more attention, considering it's a crowdfunding site that wants to help fund gaming projects exclusively.

[pakoito]

8bit has a low signal to noise ratio. If you are on kickstarter you probably have something going on.

[magnolia_fan]

8bit has a bit signal to noise ratio.

To me that sounds like "projects that may never see the light of day" but I'm not sure if that's what you meant. It's the first time I hear that term in a non-engineering environment.

[pakoito]

To me that sounds like "projects that may never see the light of day" but I'm not sure if that's what you meant. It's the first time I hear that term in a non-engineering environment.

It means there is this big chunk of "noise" first time facebook or iOS games from the idea guys and there may be one or two projects that are worth funding but they are mostly lost in the tides of mediocrity.

[magnolia_fan]

Oh, I see. Thanks for the explanation.

[burningpet]

8bit funding, however, takes less royalties and are open to worldwide projects. i think that its actually a shame the bigger indies, meaning those that attract people to kickstarter and not the other way around haven't taken their projects to 8bit funding. all it really needs is a high profile title to kickstart it.

[pkdawson]

From the 8-Bit Funding FAQ:

You do not have to reach 100% of your funding goal in order to receive payment.

This is a fairly big deal. On Kickstarter, I can pledge money to any number of projects, knowing that I'll only actually pay out if they meet their goal. If a developer needs $10k to finish their game, what are they supposed to do when they only get $500? They can't go forward with the project, and there doesn't seem to be any easy way to refund everyone.

I'm also less than thrilled about the site name. It falsely implies a certain type of game. Successful funding is all about marketing, and putting it on a relatively unknown site with a misleading name makes marketing that much more difficult.

[magnolia_fan]

From the 8-Bit Funding FAQ:

This is a fairly big deal. On Kickstarter, I can pledge money to any number of projects, knowing that I'll only actually pay out if they meet their goal. If a developer needs $10k to finish their game, what are they supposed to do when they only get $500? They can't go forward with the project, and there doesn't seem to be any easy way to refund everyone.

I'm also less than thrilled about the site name. It falsely implies a certain type of game. Successful funding is all about marketing, and putting it on a relatively unknown site with a misleading name makes marketing that much more difficult.

I think there's no easy answer as to "what if they need 10K but they only raise 500?" Sometimes those 500 can mean the guys got something to start working on the game while the 10K would've covered the entire costs. Sometimes those 500 would just be worthless because even the initial operations are far more.

I think you're right about the name thing. The first time I heard about the website I thought they were only looking for (very) retro games, and maybe many others think the same way making the site very difficult to market.

8bit funding, however, takes less royalties and are open to worldwide projects. i think that its actually a shame the bigger indies, meaning those that attract people to kickstarter and not the other way around haven't taken their projects to 8bit funding. all it really needs is a high profile title to kickstart it.

I agree. Double Fine went to Kickstarter, raised A LOT (lot, lot, lot, lot... that's the echo aded for enphasis) of money, and everyone now is like "OMG Kickstarter is the way to go! Everyone should post their games on Kickstarter" so the rest of the sites will have a hard time trying to compete with that kind of buzz.

Now, if only Kickstarter finally decided to open themselves to developers outside the US, that would prove they actually care, but they don't really care a dime. They can argue "well you can ask a friend in the US to open the project for you" but I'd also like to know how they are supposed to deal with taxes for money that isn't destined to them (because, as I read somewhere, there are taxes implications related to money that comes from Kickstarter).