Takedown on Kickstarter

[Oof]

There are four reasons I initially thought this project would fail:

1) You say you have a team of great people lined up to work on this project, but none of them are willing to put their names behind it. If they aren't willing to put their names behind it, why should I be willing to put my money behind it?
2) There are a lot of ifs and maybes. If you get $200 000, then maybe you can convince others to fund the project, and then you'll just kind of see where it goes from there... No. If I give you money, I want to be sure I'll get a product in return.
3) If you can't satisfy the above two criteria, at least give me enough information with which I can come to an informed decision about whether to back your project. Two (ugly, badly-shopped) photos and a nebulous video aren't going to convince me.
4) If you're going to use concept art to convey your game, bother to make it from scratch, and bother to make it original. Four dudes, looking serious, walking down a street, with guns? Not exciting, not original.

If that weren't enough to put me off (it was), there's another reason now:

5) Don't prop your project up on (ugly and cliche, at that) content that you've stolen from other people.

Number 2 is the most egregious, but 5 isn't far behind.

[Stevo]

There are four reasons I initially thought this project would fail:

1) You say you have a team of great people lined up to work on this project, but none of them are willing to put their names behind it. If they aren't willing to put their names behind it, why should I be willing to put my money behind it?
2) There are a lot of ifs and maybes. If you get $200 000, then maybe you can convince others to fund the project, and then you'll just kind of see where it goes from there... No. If I give you money, I want to be sure I'll get a product in return.
3) If you can't satisfy the above two criteria, at least give me enough information with which I can come to an informed decision about whether to back your project. Two (ugly, badly-shopped) photos and a nebulous video aren't going to convince me.
4) If you're going to use concept art to convey your game, bother to make it from scratch, and bother to make it original. Four dudes, looking serious, walking down a street, with guns? Not exciting, not original.

If that weren't enough to put me off (it was), there's another reason now:

5) Don't prop your project up on (ugly and cliche, at that) content that you've stolen from other people.

Number 2 is the most egregious, but 5 isn't far behind.

Exactly this! Hell look at Schafers campaign, while he didn't name every employee he had he gave us a guided tour of the office that he owns. It's a subtle mental trick that means that people will say "Hey this guy looks to have a professional set up, and professional = quality". Takedown is so scare on information it's boarding on scam like. Hell it's almost like a Nigerian scam. Why hasn't he named any of the team working on the project, what technology is he using, what engine is he using, is his setup home or office based, who are the stake holders, since we are funding a product that will be presented to a investor do we not own a share of the product?

But the concept art is just brilliant. Steal other peoples work and claim that it's your own work till the death. Does Christian Allen know what concept art is? To me it doesn't seem that he does and if you don't know the basics of making concept art maybe you shouldn't be asking for 200k to make a game. The guy is pathetic.

This is the same problem I had with Project Zomboid, when you start giving people money you expect professionalism, what happened there is they stuck to some amateur and naive ideas and payed for them dearly. This is where having a good publisher and tight set up actually helps.

The fact is how can you trust someone that is a fraudster to now deliver a game? Because so far you'v put money towards someone STEALING another persons work.

[Screwie]

2) There are a lot of ifs and maybes. If you get $200 000, then maybe you can convince others to fund the project, and then you'll just kind of see where it goes from there... No. If I give you money, I want to be sure I'll get a product in return.

Thinking about it more, this is the most worrying part to me. If people pledge $200,000 and the game doesn't also secure additional funding from elsewhere, what then? What is the deadline on finding the extra funding? Do they just hold onto that money in the meantime, are they allowed to spend any of it? This is potentially very messy.

Effectively you're pledging to an idea here (which I don't necessarily object to), but you're being promised a product. If that's not false advertising, it's still terribly misleading.

[soldant]

This is the same problem I had with Project Zomboid, when you start giving people money you expect professionalism, what happened there is they stuck to some amateur and naive ideas and payed for them dearly. This is where having a good publisher and tight set up actually helps.

Oddly enough though lots of people defended Project Zomboid to the death, even though they clearly failed to take steps to protect their data from theft or damage (I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for the Paypal thing). People seem to have very low standards for accountability when it comes to indie outfits. Which I guess I can accept in some ways, but people seem to be awfully understanding of failures or setbacks even when it's the dev's fault. There's an awful lot of trust which wouldn't be given to any other kind of dev.

Kickstarter seems to just be capitalising on this trust. And for some projects it's a good plan, but for every one of those I'm starting to see two or three which are clearly there to ride the wave. Until one of them pops (and one of them will, perhaps this one) and people start to wake up.

[Bhazor]

It isn't the fact the pictures were "stolen" it's the fact that they were all they had to show. The fact they didn't have any real concept art to show tells me they pretty much just threw it together at the last minute.

That and the way he won't name whose on the team makes me think they haven't actually thought this through and isn't even sure who he can rope in to work on it. Theres also the issue that Christian Allen seems to be the guy responsible for watering down the Ghost Recon series in the first place.

[pkdawson]

There's an awful lot of trust which wouldn't be given to any other kind of dev.

I think the gaming media need to recognize their power here. There are countless indie projects you've never heard of and would never trust, but when several notable sites give a game positive coverage (even if it's just "oh look, here's an interesting thing"), they quickly build implied trust.

Reporting on alpha funding and Kickstarter projects should probably be done a little more carefully, or it's inevitable that one of them will end in disaster. Project Zomboid at least is still going.

[Mistabashi]

The concept art thing is pretty dodgy, I'll grant you. But I really want another game like this to be made, and to me it's worth a $15 gamble on whether it will.

Why bother throwing your money away on this when there's already an alternative in development that has actual gameplay to show after only two months of work?

[Oof]

Why bother throwing your money away on this when there's already an alternative in development that has actual gameplay to show after only two months of work?

That looks fantastic. *tear* See, that I would sponsor.

[random_guy]

Why bother throwing your money away on this when there's already an alternative in development that has actual gameplay to show after only two months of work?

Because that's multiplayer only, and I only really play singleplayer games.