Kickstopper

The news around Kickstarted games has not been particularly great of late. There was the story yesterday that Ouya was backing down from its promise to create a limited run of blue consoles for people who backed the Reading Rainbow project at a certain level. That ran side-by-side with a spreading Eurogamer story detailing, among other thing, the mishandling of the crowdfunded Godus from Peter Molyneaux's game studio, 22Cans. Polygon also had a story yesterday of the flagging Project Scissors: NightCry, a spiritual successor to Clock Tower, and its struggles to reach its funding goals.

{Note: Parts of the previous paragraph have been corrected to identify Godus as the 22Cans crowdfunded game.}

It’s not all bad, of course. Underworld Ascendant, which seeks to reboot the classic Ultima Underworld series that put Looking Glass Studios on the map, is ⅔ of the way to its $600,000 goal with three weeks still to go (full disclosure: I am a backer). Meanwhile one of the first major gaming Kickstarter successes, Pillars of Eternity, is just a bit over a month away from its release.

So it’s basically a microcosm of the gaming industry as a whole. You take the good; you take the bad; you take them both, and there you have the gaming biz. But it’s been interesting to watch the implied and sometimes explicit contract with the customer change in the crowdfunded era, and the shifting nature of the relationship between game-maker and direct patron. This whole platform seems ripe to empower people to make games that likely never would have otherwise seen the light of day, but too often it ends in a nightmare of PR fumbles and career-ending press.

I think the reality is that game development through crowdfunding is, despite a few critical differences, every bit as difficult and hazardous as every other form of game development.

For all the good I think crowdfunding does – and on the whole I think it’s a lot of good – it does also put the makers in a really complicated position. Where the traditional industry's tidal forces see developers feeling like they have to sell their soul and compromise their vision to get businesses to give them money, crowdfunding sees the same things, only packaged in a slightly fuzzier wrapping with a nice bow. Direct consumers are every bit as finicky, difficult and resentful of complications, delays and under-delivered results as any EA or Ubisoft exec. Frankly, unless you’re extremely savvy as a business owner and a marketer, Kickstarter and crowdfunding can quickly be a recipe for very public and very embarrassing failure.

The biggest problem to my mind is that crowdfunding encourages over-promising at every stage. When you launch a Kickstarter you have to think from day one about what bonuses you’re going to offer supporters, what stretch goals you want to put on the map and just how much of your soul you’re willing to sell to get the publicity you need. There are really smart and clean ways to run a Kickstarter, but doing so requires time, planning and, above all else, discipline. If your funding effort is doing well, there will be pressure and temptation to add, enhance, expand and spend the money on big, flashy stretch goals. And if you're not having quite as strong a funding period, the pressure will be exactly as heavy to do exactly the same kind of expanding just to drum up enthusiasm and sponsors.

So much ends up riding on those 30 short days when the kernel of an idea, a list of promises and a nice video or two are actually up and generating potential funding. Which is funny, because in a lot of ways those 30 days add the least to actually delivering a quality result.

It makes sense, of course. The funding period, particularly for a successful project idea, is the fun section when everyone gets excited about a cool idea. When that idea gets rolling and numbers start going up, it seems to feel a lot like being on a winning streak in Vegas.

But if you think about the life-cycle of a big Kickstarter project, the funding phase is just a blip on the radar. Keeping people confident and happy, delivering on all those promises that seemed so attainable when the dollars were rolling in – that’s the meat-and-potatoes part of the meal. For as much as people love a Kickstarter success, they are just as eager to tear it to the ground later down the road when things start to fall apart.

Molyneaux is a good example. He is the prototypical archetype of someone who absolutely should never get involved in crowdfunding. For how well the mad-genius routine plays in the press, there’s nothing Peter seems to love more than coming up with and selling a big idea. But, inevitably reality comes crashing up against really big ideas, and reality is not known for its willingness to back down.

Speaking as a person who works in Corporate America every day, what I can tell you is that big ideas never come out cleanly from the other end of the meat grinder. The person who sells the big idea and then talks about its delivery and results as foregone conclusions before anything actually exists is the person who, while shining the brightest at first, will fall the farthest. I’ve seen that guy flame out so hard. Hell, I’ve been that guy.

There’s always a warning bell that goes off in my head when I see someone getting swept up in the myth of their own success during a Kickstarter funding period. It’s not just the newbies; long-standing veterans fall victim to this trap. You can almost pinpoint the moment they cross the event horizon of the swirling whirlpool that will eventually drown them in angry emails, bad press and, in the worst cases, financial catastrophe.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen people manage successful Kickstarter campaigns like the pros they are, and I can tell you that in every one of those cases, those people have acumen, a business discipline and an eye for detail that both put them in the position to succeed and kept them on a clear path where others have gone astray. I’ve seen just as many people with that same acumen, diligence and discipline run a Kickstarter that just didn’t succeed.

There are no guarantees.

My point is this: We have this mythology around Kickstarter that suggests it’s the layman’s path to getting support for good ideas. But in reality, what Kickstarter feels like to me is just a new vector for well-established entrepreneurship, and the skills that make some people successful at business and others not so much are pretty much the same that you’d need to get from one end of a Kickstarter to the other with your skin intact.

The thing that so many seem to miss in the process is that the success or failure of your project is not equal to the success or failure of your funding.

For me, I think Kickstarter happens in the middle, not the beginning. Regardless of whether you’re trying to make a game, a movie or a product, I think it would be easy and valid to do as much work before ever putting a Kickstarter out as you would after. Have a business plan. Have a marketing plan. Have a prototype. Have backup funding and other investors. Have vendors. Have a detailed and fully researched budget.

And, if like any sane person, doing all that stuff sounds awful, then it’s just possible that successfully Kickstarting a big idea might be the worst outcome for you.

Comments

Peter Molyneaux’s mishandling of the crowd-funded Godus and the mistreatment of the game’s prize winner

Just for proper clarity, the mistreated person was the "winner" of Curiousity, not Godus.

Thank you. I've updated the post.

I've been becoming increasingly negative about Kickstarter and it's funding model. It's too open to abuse and really doesn't give backers any kind of recourse if a project fails.

I really truly believe we need a high profile lawsuit, as I see the results of so many projects as fraud, to smash the illusion that Kickstarter projects are a great place to put your money.

I'm incredibly glad I didn't put money into Godus, or I'd be absolutely FURIOUS.

I've backed only two projects on Kickstarter: Jeff Cannata's Newest Latest Best and an album by Jeremy Soule (the composer for the Elder Scrolls).

Jeff only made few episodes and it did not turn into the next TRS. The album Jeremy was working on is over a year late. Jeff still does podcasts though and I'm sure that album will come out someday.

In both cases, I told myself I was supporting artists, not buying a product. But if I'm being honest though, I still can't help feeling a little gypped.

Being averse to pre-orders and the state of game development nowadays, I would never back a video game Kickstarter and expect to get anything in turn.

Good post and a nice "Facts of Life" reference there too.

I agree with pretty much everything you've written here, and it's amazing that anyone threw their money at Molyneaux again if they were disappointed by what Black and White or Fable turned out as. Still, Godus is a pretty sad story so far but maybe they'll pull something together there.

As it is, I hope we as a community are learning the limits of what kickstarter can do for us. For every Shadowrun + Dragonfall (I'm amazed at how well executed that was) there's also a Broken Age that can't exactly deliver what many expected, and the occasional total failure. If we all go in knowing the risks I think we'll be ok. I just don't have a strong sense yet of how well understood those risks are at this point.

Whenever I hear anyone talking about startup entrepreneurship, especially for creative products, like it's a necessarily good idea, I feel compelled to share this:

And, if like any sane person, doing all that stuff sounds awful, then it’s just possible that successfully Kickstarting a big idea might be the worst outcome for you.

Very good closer. This really is the heart of the matter.

I've backed two, Spriter and Hollow Knight. I am now a little worried because the Wii U stretch goal has caused them to port everything to Unity, but I'm still pretty hopeful.

I've backed 2, but both were for well established companies, and for TTRPG products that were already in a basic (no art, formatting or really any editing) PDF form.

The FATE Core Kickstarter still has some outstanding items, but they were pretty far down the stretch goal list. Do: Fate of the Flying Temple, Shadow of the Century, Young Centurions and Dresden Files: Accellerated - they're still doing playtests.

Inverse World which has been fully delivered.

I don't generally back Video Games (too many variables), especially if I see an iOS tier. Apple still limits the number of promo codes to 100, and if that tier is 1 person over that, then they're very likely going to have to make the game free for a day in order to get it out to backers. It smacks of not understanding what you're releasing for. There have been special cases (Zombies Run! being one of the more notable - 3000 backers got promo codes), but overall, it seems that the folks making these campaigns fail to read about others failures, only believing that they will succeed beyond their wildest imaginations.

I've backed a ton of Kickstarter projects at this point (not all of them are games, but a good chunk of them are). Roughly 2/5ths of them have fully delivered, 3/5ths are still in development and mostly seem to be on track, and two have crashed and burned.

I don't know if I've gotten lucky or I'm just picky. I've worked on enough software projects that I'm used to some schedule slippages, and I've worked on enough amateur game projects that I think I can spot most of the sophomore overpromising design mistakes. (Rule 1: They say MMO, you say Oh No.)

athros wrote:

an iOS tier. Apple still limits the number of promo codes to 100, and if that tier is 1 person over that, then they're very likely going to have to make the game free for a day in order to get it out to backers.

Generally speaking, I agree with you here, athros.

One loophole to point out though is that the limit of 100 iOS promo codes is (for now, at least) per app version. Therefore, a developer could release an app, grab 100 promo codes (good for about 4 weeks, IIRC), push out a 1.0.1 patch (which generally takes at least a few days for Apple to approve), and then grab another set of 100 codes, for a total of 200. (Rinse and repeat with more patches to get more batches of 100 codes.)

Relying on this "loophole" still being available 18 months from now when you finish your new game seems like thin ice to me, though.

I find it kind of odd that in 2015 people are still grappling with what KS is, or at least are upset when such and such a project fails to deliver. There's enough history now to make an educated guess about what a promising KS project looks like.

A lot of the criticism I see about KS projects I see, and this is total anecdata, seems to be exclusive to video games. So whenever there's a hue and cry about KS, I want the complainers to qualify their outrage. Oh, it's about a video game project? Surprised? Moving on then.

I've had largely positive experiences with KS; I've backed a half-dozen board games on KS, and received four, one is overdue, and one isn't due yet. I generally back projects that:

Have a business plan. Have a marketing plan. Have a prototype. Have backup funding and other investors. Have vendors. Have a detailed and fully researched budget.

That means (mostly) projects run by established publishers, just in need of capital to produce a print run. Kickstarter (and Indiegogo, shout out to Audatia) is my board game pre-order store, and it's working out pretty well.

My point is this: We have this mythology around Kickstarter that suggests it’s the layman’s path to getting support for good ideas. But in reality, what Kickstarter feels like to me is just a new vector for well-established entrepreneurship, and the skills that make some people successful at business and others not so much are pretty much the same that you’d need to get from one end of a Kickstarter to the other with your skin intact.

The other thing, in terms of video games, is that while crowd-funding has the potential to let creatives make an end run around publishers, maybe those publishers are actually good for something after all.

I find it kind of odd that in 2015 people are still grappling with what KS is, or at least are upset when such and such a project fails to deliver. There's enough history now to make an educated guess about what a promising KS project looks like.

Just to be clear -- and I'm not sure if this is what you were aiming at -- I'm not grappling with what KS is or upset about any project's particular failure to deliver. My comments are aimed at people creating KS, not the people participating in the funding.

Less a warning to people considering spending money, and more a warning to those planning to take that money.

That said, if you spend your money and someone doesn't deliver on the promises they make as part of the transaction of taking that money, you have a right to be upset.

That means (mostly) projects run by established publishers, just in need of capital to produce a print run. Kickstarter (and Indiegogo, shout out to Audatia) is my board game pre-order store, and it's working out pretty well.

How so? This is business 101, not pie-in-the-sky thinking. Most of this stuff is just homework and hard work in preparation, and yeah, if your only source of funding is all in KS then you're probably not in a good position to go forward. This isn't multi-million dollar, angel funding I'm talking about. I'm talking about using your own savings, getting a partner or two, maybe getting help from friends and family. Those are real risks that people who start businesses do all the time to create the capital you need to have things in place to even hope to be competitive.

The other thing, in terms of video games, is that while crowd-funding has the potential to let creatives make an end run around publishers, maybe those publishers are actually good for something after all.

I think this is true. Not all publishers and not all the time, but there's a reason why the model still exists at the core of the industry.

Elysium wrote:
I find it kind of odd that in 2015 people are still grappling with what KS is, or at least are upset when such and such a project fails to deliver. There's enough history now to make an educated guess about what a promising KS project looks like.

Just to be clear -- and I'm not sure if this is what you were aiming at -- I'm not grappling with what KS is or upset about any project's particular failure to deliver. My comments are aimed at people creating KS, not the people participating in the funding.

Right, sorry, that comment was directed at the Internet at large, not the article; and the article points out what a promising KS project should have.

Kickstarter begat Takedown, and for that it can never be forgiven.

But Kickstarter also begat Elite: Dangerous, FTL, and the Shadowrun Returns games, and for that, it is beyond reproach.

Thanks for the really interesting article. (Full disclosure, I've run a successful campaign.)

The way KS works for games and products is a lot different from how it works for theater and film - but there are definitely degrees of trouble in the other areas as well. The pre-order related debacles certainly aren't exclusive to games. More films I've back haven't been made than games, actually, and those that have tend towards massive delay as well.

I'm mostly disappointed in the way KS itself promised (and then under-delivered) on being a platform for the common person trying to make something. Instead, it became a space that got somewhat co-opted by the already established. When a non-famous outsider launches a campaign, they can at best hope for their immediate circle to chip in a few dollars. KS effectively legitimizes an ask for money between friends. To break beyond your own circle requires either a certain level of establishment, or a gimmick.

This is actually depressingly similar to the results of traditional models (such has publishers). When I was trying to raise money for my feature going down traditional paths, the first questions from investors were always "Do you have any names?" and upon learning we didn't have famous names (just regular ones) "What's the gimmick?" Basically, they were willing to put money into something with a track record or something like the above-linked potato salad.

Kickstarter suggested that there was a path where the strength of an idea would be the primary driver, as opposed to the previously established track record or the "flashiness" of a particular conceit... But the truth is that ideas just don't have the same bandwidth as establishment or viral-ity. Period.

All that said, I continue to back things I want. I continue to enjoy the rewards I have received. And it has allowed artists I really respect - both established and unheralded - to get things done that they couldn't otherwise. The freedom it gives established artists is great, and there is use to an unheralded artist having a platform with which to make an appeal to friends for modest financial support.

In a lot of ways, the problems of the mainstream method and the quirks and issues with Kickstarter are entangled in ways that are more profound than is apparent.

Elysium wrote:

How so? This is business 101, not pie-in-the-sky thinking. Most of this stuff is just homework and hard work in preparation, and yeah, if your only source of funding is all in KS then you're probably not in a good position to go forward. This isn't multi-million dollar, angel funding I'm talking about. I'm talking about using your own savings, getting a partner or two, maybe getting help from friends and family. Those are real risks that people who start businesses do all the time to create the capital you need to have things in place to even hope to be competitive.

It's pretty easy to take these skills for granted. Rewind back to yourself at 20, fill that kid full of "pluck" and "vision," and then ask yourself what his chances are to complete a KickStarter project.

Really, what gets me is the whole heroic, entrepreneurial dream we feed people. I think KickStarter pulls a lot from people who think that's their path, and from the thousands of people who want to cheer for them.

wordsmythe wrote:

It's pretty easy to take these skills for granted. Rewind back to yourself at 20, fill that kid full of "pluck" and "vision," and then ask yourself what his chances are to complete a KickStarter project.

I am filled with a horrifying vision of myself in that role. Don't use a time machine to do that to me, it wouldn't end well. He has to grow up a lot first.

Of course, I never had the personality to be the charismatic visionary, I've got too many self-doubts. And as part of that process of growing up I've met a lot of visionaries of the bad kind that talked a big game but couldn't back it up.

Really, what gets me is the whole heroic, entrepreneurial dream we feed people. I think KickStarter pulls a lot from people who think that's their path, and from the thousands of people who want to cheer for them.

Telling people to follow their bliss is cheaper than actually paying most people a living wage, though. I don't regret the paths I've gone down, but I'd discourage anyone else from following unless they knew what they were willing to risk giving up.

We'll always have FTL.

I tend to stay away from KS in general. It's bad enough buying things I can get right now and putting them to any use (let alone good use). There have been products that I think look awesome that I just can't give money to, that hit their funding, that then linger and eventually die without making it to backers (I'm looking st you, Coin...)

As for backing individuals, I do support at leat 1 person through Patreon - it is a good "I don't care what you use my monies for, just keep doing what you said you planned to do with it". Haven't been burned yet by it, but I do see how it could be abused.

Keithustus wrote:

We'll always have FTL.

And soon, Darkest Dungeon.

Like already mentioned, Kickstarter can be just as risky as any other funding stream. I think the main difference is that gamers, the end users, are directly supporting projects, and thinking that they will automatically get a good game. I've definitely noticed fewer gaming Kickstarter projects as of late, but three are still some good ones out there. I still feel it's a viable way to get funding for a game, and even to gage fan interest in a title, be it a franchise revival or new idea.

I've been quite lucky or have just chosen solid projects, but I have funded several so far. Many of these at least have playable builds, or have already been released. These are a few that come to mind, that I have backed:

Road Redemption - Currently in Steam early access and is a hell of a lot of fun. Think spiritual successor to Road Rash, and awesome.

Shovel Knight - enough said.

Carmageddon Reincarnation - This is also in Steam early access/beta now, and seems to be a decent revival of a game I remember having a lot of fun with back in my college dorm days.

Catlateral Damage - This cat simulator just sounded like fun, and is also in playable early access form.

Codename Cignus - This is a very cool radio play/drama for IOS that is all done via audio, no visuals at all.

There are a couple more I can't remember right now, but I have had generally good luck choosing interesting projects. My latest project I backed was this pretty cool audio game for the PC. They are trying to build a more open action RPG that both blind and sighted gamers can play, and I'm all for supporting projects like this. I am legally blind, as I've stated here before, and have several other friends who are blind, and want to play games as well.

trueheart78 wrote:

I tend to stay away from KS in general....As for backing individuals, I do support at leat 1 person through Patreon - it is a good "I don't care what you use my monies for, just keep doing what you said you planned to do with it".

Some of us use Kickstarter in that manner. Would you?

Keithustus wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

I tend to stay away from KS in general....As for backing individuals, I do support at leat 1 person through Patreon - it is a good "I don't care what you use my monies for, just keep doing what you said you planned to do with it".

Some of us use Kickstarter in that manner. Would you?

I would consider it, yes.

I use Kickstarter as a way to encourage games I want to see more of and/or encourage designers I want to see more from. I guess, for me, this attitude is the same as with Early Access games, although Kickstarter is always much more speculative in my mind.

I Kickstarted At the Gates by Jon Shafer because I want to see more games by him. I Kickstarted World of Magic because I am still looking for a good new Master of Magic game. I Kickstarted some space 4x games because someone someday will make a better Master of Orion style game and I want to encourage developers to keep trying. Some have hit and others have not but that's how it goes. I am lucky that I am at a stage in life where spending $35-ish on a speculation is not that big a deal. I understand not everyone is in a similar place, so can empathize.

I would never Kickstart certain developers because of their track record. I would rather give money to someone with little or no track record than someone who has over-promised and under-delivered in the past. I also won't Kickstart games that are content-heavy because content is hard. If a Kickstarter has a lot of crazy tchotchkes I will think long and hard, because to me that is a sign that the people running the Kickstarter are focused on the wrong thing and tchotchkes are hard.

To me, Kickstarter translates as pre-ordering an Early Access title sight-unseen.

It's a model that screams "buyer beware" and I have zero sympathy for anyone getting burned by it.

It's why I'm happy to hang onto my money until there's a product that exists that I can evaluate whether I want to spend my money on. To date, I've backed precisely one Kickstarter, the Rob Zacny published Funemployment. Partly out of GWJ-brotherhood, partly out of confidence in Rob's track-record to be a professional, and partly because it's a low-risk project - there's only so much that can go wrong in printing a second edition of an existing design.

And if it goes tits-up, I'll sigh, remember that risk was what I bought into, and move along.

Gremlin wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

Really, what gets me is the whole heroic, entrepreneurial dream we feed people. I think KickStarter pulls a lot from people who think that's their path, and from the thousands of people who want to cheer for them.

Telling people to follow their bliss is cheaper than actually paying most people a living wage, though. I don't regret the paths I've gone down, but I'd discourage anyone else from following unless they knew what they were willing to risk giving up.

This connects back to the social history of Silicon Valley, where companies sought "passion" from employees in a way that didn't differentiate from "harmful behavioral disorder" – the important thing is that the employee didn't care/notice how many extra hours they were putting in.

BGFH wrote:

I've definitely noticed fewer gaming Kickstarter projects as of late, but three are still some good ones out there.

Do you think that's a function of what you've noticed, or a function of how many there are? I feel like my inbound ports for noticing new projects are probably the bottleneck in my pipeline.

tboon wrote:

I use Kickstarter as a way to encourage games I want to see more of and/or encourage designers I want to see more from. ...Jon Shafer ... Master of Magic ...someone someday will make a better Master of Orion style game and I want to encourage developers to keep trying. ...spending $35-ish on a speculation is not that big a deal....I would never Kickstart certain developers because of their track record. I would rather give money to someone with little or no track record than someone who has over-promised and under-delivered in the past....

This whole post! +1,000!

I've backed a bunch of stuff on Kickstarter. Hang on...

Okay, 50 projects, for a total of $3250. Video games-wise, a bunch of stuff is still in development, but I've been happy with things overall. I've played demos and betas and all of that sort of thing. And the stuff that has come out has been pretty good (FTL, Shadowrun Returns, Dragonfall, Two Brothers, Legend of Dungeon, Shovel Knight). I've obviously been throwing money into the void and hoping for the best, but so far it's been treating me pretty well.

All that said, I do try to be discerning. Over time I've gotten a better eye for which projects are likely to be worth my faith, and when to wait and see. I'm sure there's an actual skill set involved there, but I navigate mostly by intuition now. Sort of like knowing what kinds of links you shouldn't click on. Sometimes it's tricky to express why you know to someone, but it's just so obvious when you look at it.