It's not quite a donation because people are expecting something in return, I know it's not a financial investment in a traditional sense, but it's definitely not a donation, if people were viewing it as a donation, they wouldn't be as upset when projects don't work out. People feel like companies owe them and are indebted to them for funding a game.
I'm speaking strictly legally. Legally they're donations. Most people use Kickstarter as a pre-order service. But that's why when projects bomb and die before release there is nothing they can do to get their money back. I will guarantee you that in the next five years you will see laws and legislation passed that will prevent people from walking away with money without giving a product back.
Also yes. Companies do owe them for funding a game. If you gave me art for a game and I didn't pay you for it and said be happy you have a portfolio piece and a credit, I don't see why I should feel indebted to you any further, how would you feel? You'd feel like I ripped you off. It's the exact same situation.
I'm speaking strictly legally. Legally they're donations. Most people use Kickstarter as a pre-order service. But that's why when projects bomb and die before release there is nothing they can do to get their money back. I will guarantee you that in the next five years you will see laws and legislation passed that will prevent people from walking away with money without giving a product back.
Also yes. Companies do owe them for funding a game. If you gave me art for a game and I didn't pay you for it and said be happy you have a portfolio piece and a credit, I don't see why I should feel indebted to you any further, how would you feel?
It's the exact same situation.
No. The project creators are legally required to give out the backer rewards. It's a financial transaction. The project creators are NOT required to finish the project in any form.
I only ever donate to Kickstart projects for games that wouldn't or couldn't be made otherwise, and I really don't expect to play the game. I'd like to, but I don't expect to.
if they were investors he wouldn't be thrown in jail because he failed to meet his proposed goals. he would be sacked, the project shut down and the assets sold off - and all the investors would take a financial loss. that's how it works - you don't invest in a startup tech company then arrest the guy who founded it because it didn't succeed. investments are a risk/reward business opportunity. the only way legal action the point of incarceration could come to pass is if actual laws were broken - like if you KNEW what you were proposing was never going to happen and DELIBERATELY mislead investors - and both of those things could be proven in court.
which is a moot point becausae kickstarter backers aren't investors, they're customers.
that being said i don't think suggesting that game players have no right to harass the people who make games for them is shitting on the audience. I think games, more than ANY other consumable product, has an audience that feels entitled to things they're simply not entitled to.
should you expect to get what you paid for? yes. should a refund be available if you're not? yes (something games don't do well. that's a whole other can of worms) should it be ok for you to write hatemail or perfor DDOS attacks or spew vile nonsense all over the internet? no. should you be allowed to? yes. but how that kind of behavior gains so much traction i will never understand.
99 out of 100 game developers are trying their best to make the best thing they can. some are better at it than others. some to more stupid things than others. but if you read games "journalism" like this - and this kind of article isn't exactly uncommon - you might come to the conclusion that game devs are a bunch of overpaid con artists just trying to take as much of your money as possible while delivering as little as they can. it's just not true in most cases. people take this crap to such an extreme that it's absurd. come out to the silicon valley some time and see how many startups fail. (hint: it's more than 50%)
Sidenote: If you don't like entitled gamers, then don't make games. Get out of the industry and do something else. Otherwise stop shitting on your customers. It's ballsy that you want their money but don't want to be beholden to them for the product you push on them.
This. Indie, you have to be available and honest with your customers. Peter came from big budget hype and used the same in Kickstarter which contrary to what he said, does not need a push for overselling. The only reason to oversell is if you don't have enough confidence in your own project.
(Also for the person who said EA games do the same thing. 1. No. 2. Valve also changed it so your store page can only show what's in the game.
Sidenote: If you don't like entitled gamers, then don't make games. Get out of the industry and do something else. Otherwise stop shitting on your customers. It's ballsy that you want their money but don't want to be beholden to them for the product you push on them.
But developers don't push products onto gamers, developers show off their products and gamers willingly choose to back the product. The problem of entitlement arises when the gamer realizes that what they bought and what they think they bought are different. Is that really the fault of the developer?
If you don't want developers to respect and defend their decisions, then simply don't buy their game. Of course that won't happen because it's much easier for a person to insult somebody instead of realizing that they could have avoided the situation entirely if they had a spoonful of common sense.
If a successful game developer really cared so much money, they could quite easily make 2x their current salary in a related field, in addition to getting plenty of benefits and better hours.
I'm tired of hearing Peter say, "the problem with kickstarter...". No, the real problem is that he decided to ask for money BEFORE he had the gameplay systems worked out. It doesn't cost millions of dollars to work out gameplay ideas, you don't need a programmer or a team of artists to do that. Just sketch it on paper! Thoroughly. You know, before asking people for half a million dollars.
He tried to come up with gameplay ideas while he had 22 people on the payroll. That's just dumb and shows he hasn't learned as much as he should have during his 30 year career.
A completion guarantee (sometimes referred to as a completion bond) is a form of insurance offered by a completion guarantor company (in return for a percentage fee based on the budget) that is often used in independently financed films to guarantee that the producer will complete and deliver the film (based on an agreed script, cast and budget) to the distributor(s) thereby triggering the payment of minimum distribution guarantees to the producer (but received by the bank/investor who has cash flowed the guarantee (at a discount) to the producer to trigger production).
Key to the completion guarantor company's risk assessment process will be a careful scrutiny of key persons on the production team to determine whether the film is "bondable". Of particular interest will be the director, first assistant director, line producer, production manager, producer, cast and cinematographer, since these personnel will ultimately be responsible for keeping the production on budget and on schedule.
I think a completion guarantee or bond would be a huge barrier to entry for indie and small devs, and kinda defeat the purpose of Kickstarter. Why not give away something immediate like a prototype, demo, older games, or physical rewards like shirts, and have the actual game be an extra part of the backer rewards. Using Kickstarter like a preorder system is bad for devs and bad for gamers.
I think a completion guarantee or bond would be a huge barrier to entry for indie and small devs, and kinda defeat the purpose of Kickstarter.
There needs to be a third-party putting pressure on developers to complete their projects. Completion bond is one way to apply that pressure but there's probably less drastic options.
There needs to be a third-party putting pressure on developers to complete their projects. Completion bond is one way to apply that pressure but there's probably less drastic options.
I think that has a negative effect on anyone making indie games.
Requiring any form of bond or guaranty implies a 'secured financial service', which carries with it pretty heavy obligations that would carry through to the Investor (the person 'donating'). Even then it would not mean 100% money back upon project failure either - Crowdfunding is an (unsecured) Investment service not a sales or exchange type service; persons are not buying anything or entering into contracts of exchange like that. So it's up to the individual to do the same kind of due-diligence as would be required of any financial investment before laying down only what they can afford to loose. This is all made explicitly clear in the respective ToS of ALL crowdfunding services (they are required by law to notify Investors of what they do and the relationship they have with all parties involved) but alas as always people just don't read then lash out at everyone for their own lack of foresight.
The number cited is actually a pretty good return, traditional venture capitol funding has a 3 in 4 chance of failure (c.25% success rate, depending on where you look) so at 30+% it's well over the odds.
Requiring any form of bond or guaranty implies a 'secured financial service', which carries with it pretty heavy obligations that would carry through to the Investor (the person 'donating'). Even then it would not mean 100% money back upon project failure either - Crowdfunding is an (unsecured) Investment service not a sales or exchange type service; persons are not buying anything or entering into contracts of exchange like that. So it's up to the individual to do the same kind of due-diligence as would be required of any financial investment before laying down only what they can afford to loose. This is all made explicitly clear in the respective ToS of ALL crowdfunding services (they are required by law to notify Investors of what they do and the relationship they have with all parties involved) but alas as always people just don't read then lash out at everyone for their own lack of foresight.
The number cited is actually a pretty good return, traditional venture capitol funding has a 3 in 4 chance of failure (c.25% success rate, depending on where you look) so at 30+% it's well over the odds.
Fair enough, a guarantee or bond is the wrong option, but I still think a neutral third-party should look at these projects and inform consumers/backers when developers are meeting their milestones.
At least have the information on their Kickstarter page if they were succesfully funded but didn't deliver on their milestones.
Example, here's the Godus Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22cans/project-godus
Quote from the Kickstarter page:
GODUS will take seven to nine months to complete, but if we exceed the amount of funding were asking for, well use the extra to enhance the game further and support additional platforms which will add a little more time to the development schedule.
And
Funded!
This project was successfully funded on December 21, 2012.
So, three years later, they haven't delivered.
Developers should get a big red X next to each of the milestones they fail to meet. If they are late, show much extra time they needed to complete a milestone.
I realize Kickstarter is not about project management so that's why I'm suggesting a third-party could provide the information and Kickstarter would make that information clearly available. It would be relatively inexpensive since they would only need to play a build and see if the milestone was met.
Save me the trouble of having to read game journalism to find out if a team are good, average or terrible at delivering on their promises. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Who is going to pay for an outside third party firm to watch over independent projects around the world.
What a logistical nightmare.
I think you are missing the point. Kickstarter is all based upon reputation. Not being able to do it again and having your name dragged through the mud should be punishment enough.
Having a third-party involved doesn't indemnify anyone. And they, rather than the project owner or service provider, would likely be liable for project failure as they gave "X" the 'OK'. That's a huge financial risk (60%+ failure rate based on what you posted) so they would likely want to be remunerated appropriately - they would basically have to cover 60+% loss from the 30+% gain. In addition developer reporting doesn't implicitly equate to project success - that's just a developer basically publishing investor reports (that can contain fluff).
As for Godus... given Molyneuxs' alleged track-record it should have been plainly obvious that any project with his name attached is of greater risk (but with perhaps greater reward, game wise at least). So yes, three years later and no delivery would constitute a failed project in which Investor will have lost. That's the nature of that particular endeavor (investing).
Bear in mind however, there's a difference between failure to fulfill and misleading investors, the latter is more provably actionable.
Who is going to pay for an outside third party firm to watch over independent projects around the world.
What a logistical nightmare.
I think you are missing the point. Kickstarter is all based upon reputation. Not being able to do it again and having your name dragged through the mud should be punishment enough.
This thing right here!
A vast majority of kickstarters will be late, and many of them even made successful products in the end, the deadline is just a rough estimate that devs might overshoot, just like in regular development.
Heck some might even fail, that's perfectly fine, all that is asked of them is to fail with style, they do their best and present the numbers and hard facts in the end.
Backers lose a few moneys but the projects will have to pay with their reputation.
I still think a better fix would be to require there to an item in each reward that is not dependent on a game being finished in the next 1-3 years. Want to back this new game of ours? With this $15 backer reward, you get 2 of our older games and a digital artbook, and if/when the game is finished you get an early copy and the soundtrack. That way backers at least get something and are less likely to feel completely screwed over when there's changes and delays. Much simpler than trying to hold the dev responsible or having to deal with a third party.
TotalBiscuit for example says you should view Kickstarter as throwing money away, and as helping fund a game that would otherwise not exist.
Who is going to pay for an outside third party firm to watch over independent projects around the world.
What a logistical nightmare.
I think you are missing the point. Kickstarter is all based upon reputation. Not being able to do it again and having your name dragged through the mud should be punishment enough.
Yeah, probably. I don't think it's really that hard to get a build and see if it works, but it's probably overkill. *shrugs*
I get that reputation is a part of Kickstarter, but Molyneux has been Molyneuxing for decades and he still got over a million dollars.
You can be an angry gamer but still be professional and let the developer have room to breath and talk. TotalBiscuit does a nice job of being harsh and honest, without being a complete dick (if you don't count Twitter, 140 characters forces you to be blunt).
But RPS just comes across as toxic and it reads like youtube comments. Jimquisition walks that line, but doesn't cross it as much as RPS. It's like RPS is trying to pretend to be a bad cop on a TV show interrogation.
I used to really love total biscuit but he keeps saying and doing things that make me think, "hang on, is this guy actually a giant shithead?"
I feel like RPS is the same. So much about the site I love, but it's such a small team that love to tackle their own niches. They rarely branch out and even with recent changes, their coverage of anything hardware or esports is pitiful... and on a PC gaming website these things though be pretty important! They go on great crusades but its always hitting the same targets. I really feel like they need to stop preaching to the choir.
Like many have said, Molyneux is becoming bad for developers. Godus was a wreck, and eurogamer covered it much better. RPS just seems to have gone in for the kill without any thought. Total hyperbole and a really shitty way to make news.
I used to really love total biscuit but he keeps saying and doing things that make me think, "hang on, is this guy actually a giant shithead?"
How about we stop judging people with blanket statements. People on the internet are far too likely to boycott people because they do somethings they disagree with.
You can actually enjoy the content of somebody without ideologically agreeing with everything they think.
some Kickstarter people can be highly annoying :poly117:
Tim Schafer and Peter Molyneux might have been involved in the past in making pretty known games but to still get money and regain fans or get fans in todays time, they should simply stop imitating this;
all in all they are hurting the industry in a whole especially newcomers which aren´t getting all these chances those guys got in the history.
edit:
the interview itself wasn´t nice and while you might disagree with someone, being as nice as possible should be common sense. and the interview failed on that.
An indie game (especially a large indie game, I'm not talking about Flappy Bird) is not 100% plannable right from the start. Precisely because it is not comparable to a Call of Duty sequel where it's 98% known how the development will look and how much time will be needed. An indie game is a garage effort.
I also don't think three years is too much time to develop a game, even if the initial estimation was way off.
Molyneux is a bad manager, he can be rightly slammed for mismanagement in his company. He should have hired someone who does that for him. And it appears that he finally understood that and someone was brought in to help with the planning. At least he seems to have learned that.
90% of Kickstarter backers have no idea how an indie game is made, it isn't something that pops out of the oven magically after 12 months. It isn't something that rolls off a manufacturing line according to some simple plan (again, it's not Call of Duty.) These expectations are part of the problem.
People discuss this as if the project in question was just an engineering task. But there is creativity involved. And that doesn't necessarily keep to a schedule.
And the idea of giving indie developers "grades" or hang it out publicly if they don't meet a milestone reminds me of school. This is totally misplaced, you cannot grade or rate creative people. If you do, you end up with an assembly line instead of a creative process, and that will lead to sequel-land where no one dares to veer of course anymore for fear of being slammed as a pathological liar.
You are funding an indie developer. Yes, he's famous, but you could have known beforehand that he has a reputation for being difficult, finicky, not a good manager, all these things. If you still give him money, you should be prepared for stuff like this.
And the interview was horrible, it was just sensationalism and gratuitous assholery. Why didn't John do this thing to Blizzard when the Diablo 3 fiasco was still fresh? "Are you a pathological liar, Blizzard?" Why not Elite: Dangerous? Why not Sim City?
Someone like Molyneux is an easy target, that's why.
An indie game (especially a large indie game, I'm not talking about Flappy Bird) is not 100% plannable right from the start. Precisely because it is not comparable to a Call of Duty sequel where it's 98% known how the development will look and how much time will be needed.
---
People discuss this as if the project in question was just an engineering task. But there is creativity involved. And that doesn't necessarily keep to a schedule.
And how many call of duty sequels did you work on?
One could argue the other way around, an indie title is much easier plannable because in general it is a much smaller undertaking.
Of course this doesn't apply, but don't underestimate the amount of creativity and work needed to finish the next AAA sequel.
Actually the whole third party bit might be good. But what if it was based on milestones and each one had a certain amount attached of total donated. Developer would have to show backers they reached X milestone at which point donaters could vote to release next portion of funding.
So the third party would be the backers themselves while the crowd funding site would act as the bank and voting hub. If a project closes and fails to get past a milestone, any left over funding is returned to backers.
Dont really see why people care what Molyneux does or say anymore. He is a guy who a long time ago make a really cool game or two. He made games and they turned out to be great. No prefluff was needed.
Since then, especially since Fable instead of making great games all he does is he TALKS about what would be great. He talks about ideas he has for what he would like to do well before he can actually do anything.
Instead of talking about what could be he should make something and put it out there. Let the product speaks for itself.
Actually the whole third party bit might be good. But what if it was based on milestones and each one had a certain amount attached of total donated. Developer would have to show backers they reached X milestone at which point donaters could vote to release next portion of funding.
So the third party would be the backers themselves while the crowd funding site would act as the bank and voting hub. If a project closes and fails to get past a milestone, any left over funding is returned to backers.
And how many call of duty sequels did you work on?
One could argue the other way around, an indie title is much easier plannable because in general it is a much smaller undertaking.
Of course this doesn't apply, but don't underestimate the amount of creativity and work needed to finish the next AAA sequel.
Its just so very hard to predict group dynamics, especially if you have a new team like Molyneux had (i think?)
Ive known before, but funnily it stuck me very hard while searching a group for
rated battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. I invited (hired) all those people, checked them, and they seemed fine. The composition was good and we were ready to go.
Then in the first match, nobody took any initiative, people all did their thing, but it didnt work out at all, and there was no way to find a specific weak point. It was so hard to tell what is going wrong and why those dynamics drifted so far off. You can maybe see some broad mistakes, but without watching everyones computer theres no way to find out what everyone did wrong in detail. We disbanded after the first match. Molyneux cant just search a new group like that. There are so many factors that takes many eyes to spot. I dont think Peter didnt do his 8+ hours a day, theres only a certain amount you can carry.
Suddenly that networking code needs 3 months instead of 2 weeks. Did X write so badly or is that the time it takes ? Youll never know.
An indie game (especially a large indie game, I'm not talking about Flappy Bird) is not 100% plannable right from the start. Precisely because it is not comparable to a Call of Duty sequel where it's 98% known how the development will look and how much time will be needed. An indie game is a garage effort.
I also don't think three years is too much time to develop a game, even if the initial estimation was way off.
Molyneux is a bad manager, he can be rightly slammed for mismanagement in his company. He should have hired someone who does that for him. And it appears that he finally understood that and someone was brought in to help with the planning. At least he seems to have learned that.
90% of Kickstarter backers have no idea how an indie game is made, it isn't something that pops out of the oven magically after 12 months. It isn't something that rolls off a manufacturing line according to some simple plan (again, it's not Call of Duty.) These expectations are part of the problem.
People discuss this as if the project in question was just an engineering task. But there is creativity involved. And that doesn't necessarily keep to a schedule.
And the idea of giving indie developers "grades" or hang it out publicly if they don't meet a milestone reminds me of school. This is totally misplaced, you cannot grade or rate creative people. If you do, you end up with an assembly line instead of a creative process, and that will lead to sequel-land where no one dares to veer of course anymore for fear of being slammed as a pathological liar.
You are funding an indie developer. Yes, he's famous, but you could have known beforehand that he has a reputation for being difficult, finicky, not a good manager, all these things. If you still give him money, you should be prepared for stuff like this.
And the interview was horrible, it was just sensationalism and gratuitous assholery. Why didn't John do this thing to Blizzard when the Diablo 3 fiasco was still fresh? "Are you a pathological liar, Blizzard?" Why not Elite: Dangerous? Why not Sim City?
Someone like Molyneux is an easy target, that's why.
This is wrong though, game design is problem solving just as engineering, making the artwork or audio is a very creative role, ironically that is also the most easy part to put down to time in game development, you can estimate quite good on how long an asset will take to make.
The difference between independant game development and regular one is that one of them has a publisher, often with some requirements, and often with more funding. Otherwise game development does not differ between these.
We put grades on everything, indie-games are not some holy icon that cannot be defiled, they're just like anything else, they're the hard or sloppy work of a game designer.
As molyneux himself said, you can estimate a time and then have contingency, if the game is done faster than expected then that means more money for more features, if it takes longer then you have the contingency.
Regarding the interview... If he was a she, or identified as a she, do you think the interview would have gone that way? I just wonder how much race and gender play a role in how you are treated by some of these sites.
RPS and sites like it just end up stinking like Yellow Journalism. Kind of sad, really.
Angry Joe interviews with the same kind of questions. Really interesting interview.
i think its not fair that they do this to the "good guys" who are actually willing to let you do something like this to them, opposed to a big publisher like ea or ubisoft who wouldn't even allow something like this to happen, but who would deserve a critical interview like this.
That Angry Joe interview was fantastic ! Very different from the Molyneux case, which was conducted over the phone. Joe showed a great amount of journalistic integrity here, and that didn't prevent both parties from discussing hard topics. It was a pleasure to listen to, thanks for the link !
Regarding the RPS interview itself : being able to hear the original audio would be very enlightening.
Yeah, the Joe interview was harsh, no punches pulled kind of a thing. I liked it and would love to see more interviews like this. It still shows a certain divide between Joe and Paradox guys. Some questions were really good, but I felt like other questions put them in position of having to explain the basics of game development, rather than addressing any specific issues.
That's sort of the main problem for me. I often feel like interviewers approach game development in the same way they would approach non-interactive media. While they often ask questions about game mechanics and systems, you rarely hear any good questions that address software development aspect of making games. I feel this is one of the things that leads to a certain assumption that the devs must be full of shit if something is broken.
Of course, I don't think that customers should know about how games are made to criticize them. People hardly know how anything is made yet we accept criticisms of movies, music, hardware products, etc. But I feel that if press knew how to ask better questions everyone in this relationship (devs, press, gamers) would be much happier. Perhaps if we have more interviews like this, rather than the usual PR fluff things would get better.
I get the sense he was surrounded by great people who were able to actually make the awesome games he was known for. Sort of like Lucas with the original Starwars.
Replies
I'm speaking strictly legally. Legally they're donations. Most people use Kickstarter as a pre-order service. But that's why when projects bomb and die before release there is nothing they can do to get their money back. I will guarantee you that in the next five years you will see laws and legislation passed that will prevent people from walking away with money without giving a product back.
Also yes. Companies do owe them for funding a game. If you gave me art for a game and I didn't pay you for it and said be happy you have a portfolio piece and a credit, I don't see why I should feel indebted to you any further, how would you feel? You'd feel like I ripped you off. It's the exact same situation.
No. The project creators are legally required to give out the backer rewards. It's a financial transaction. The project creators are NOT required to finish the project in any form.
are we talking about game dev or slinging Crack?
which is a moot point becausae kickstarter backers aren't investors, they're customers.
that being said i don't think suggesting that game players have no right to harass the people who make games for them is shitting on the audience. I think games, more than ANY other consumable product, has an audience that feels entitled to things they're simply not entitled to.
should you expect to get what you paid for? yes. should a refund be available if you're not? yes (something games don't do well. that's a whole other can of worms) should it be ok for you to write hatemail or perfor DDOS attacks or spew vile nonsense all over the internet? no. should you be allowed to? yes. but how that kind of behavior gains so much traction i will never understand.
99 out of 100 game developers are trying their best to make the best thing they can. some are better at it than others. some to more stupid things than others. but if you read games "journalism" like this - and this kind of article isn't exactly uncommon - you might come to the conclusion that game devs are a bunch of overpaid con artists just trying to take as much of your money as possible while delivering as little as they can. it's just not true in most cases. people take this crap to such an extreme that it's absurd. come out to the silicon valley some time and see how many startups fail. (hint: it's more than 50%)
This. Indie, you have to be available and honest with your customers. Peter came from big budget hype and used the same in Kickstarter which contrary to what he said, does not need a push for overselling. The only reason to oversell is if you don't have enough confidence in your own project.
(Also for the person who said EA games do the same thing. 1. No. 2. Valve also changed it so your store page can only show what's in the game.
If you don't want developers to respect and defend their decisions, then simply don't buy their game. Of course that won't happen because it's much easier for a person to insult somebody instead of realizing that they could have avoided the situation entirely if they had a spoonful of common sense.
If a successful game developer really cared so much money, they could quite easily make 2x their current salary in a related field, in addition to getting plenty of benefits and better hours.
He tried to come up with gameplay ideas while he had 22 people on the payroll. That's just dumb and shows he hasn't learned as much as he should have during his 30 year career.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completion_guarantee
What do you think Einstein?
There needs to be a third-party putting pressure on developers to complete their projects. Completion bond is one way to apply that pressure but there's probably less drastic options.
Only 37% of Kickstarter projects fully deliver on their promises:
http://evilasahobby.com/2014/01/18/kickstander-only-around-a-third-of-kickstarted-video-game-projects-fully-deliver-to-their-backers/
I think that has a negative effect on anyone making indie games.
The number cited is actually a pretty good return, traditional venture capitol funding has a 3 in 4 chance of failure (c.25% success rate, depending on where you look) so at 30+% it's well over the odds.
Fair enough, a guarantee or bond is the wrong option, but I still think a neutral third-party should look at these projects and inform consumers/backers when developers are meeting their milestones.
At least have the information on their Kickstarter page if they were succesfully funded but didn't deliver on their milestones.
Example, here's the Godus Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22cans/project-godus
Quote from the Kickstarter page: And
So, three years later, they haven't delivered.
Developers should get a big red X next to each of the milestones they fail to meet. If they are late, show much extra time they needed to complete a milestone.
I realize Kickstarter is not about project management so that's why I'm suggesting a third-party could provide the information and Kickstarter would make that information clearly available. It would be relatively inexpensive since they would only need to play a build and see if the milestone was met.
Save me the trouble of having to read game journalism to find out if a team are good, average or terrible at delivering on their promises. Ain't nobody got time for that.
What a logistical nightmare.
I think you are missing the point. Kickstarter is all based upon reputation. Not being able to do it again and having your name dragged through the mud should be punishment enough.
As for Godus... given Molyneuxs' alleged track-record it should have been plainly obvious that any project with his name attached is of greater risk (but with perhaps greater reward, game wise at least). So yes, three years later and no delivery would constitute a failed project in which Investor will have lost. That's the nature of that particular endeavor (investing).
Bear in mind however, there's a difference between failure to fulfill and misleading investors, the latter is more provably actionable.
This thing right here!
A vast majority of kickstarters will be late, and many of them even made successful products in the end, the deadline is just a rough estimate that devs might overshoot, just like in regular development.
Heck some might even fail, that's perfectly fine, all that is asked of them is to fail with style, they do their best and present the numbers and hard facts in the end.
Backers lose a few moneys but the projects will have to pay with their reputation.
TotalBiscuit for example says you should view Kickstarter as throwing money away, and as helping fund a game that would otherwise not exist.
Yeah, probably. I don't think it's really that hard to get a build and see if it works, but it's probably overkill. *shrugs*
I get that reputation is a part of Kickstarter, but Molyneux has been Molyneuxing for decades and he still got over a million dollars.
Yeah true I do love TotalBiscuit.
I feel like RPS is the same. So much about the site I love, but it's such a small team that love to tackle their own niches. They rarely branch out and even with recent changes, their coverage of anything hardware or esports is pitiful... and on a PC gaming website these things though be pretty important! They go on great crusades but its always hitting the same targets. I really feel like they need to stop preaching to the choir.
Like many have said, Molyneux is becoming bad for developers. Godus was a wreck, and eurogamer covered it much better. RPS just seems to have gone in for the kill without any thought. Total hyperbole and a really shitty way to make news.
How about we stop judging people with blanket statements. People on the internet are far too likely to boycott people because they do somethings they disagree with.
You can actually enjoy the content of somebody without ideologically agreeing with everything they think.
Tim Schafer and Peter Molyneux might have been involved in the past in making pretty known games but to still get money and regain fans or get fans in todays time, they should simply stop imitating this;
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all in all they are hurting the industry in a whole especially newcomers which aren´t getting all these chances those guys got in the history.
edit:
the interview itself wasn´t nice and while you might disagree with someone, being as nice as possible should be common sense. and the interview failed on that.
I also don't think three years is too much time to develop a game, even if the initial estimation was way off.
Molyneux is a bad manager, he can be rightly slammed for mismanagement in his company. He should have hired someone who does that for him. And it appears that he finally understood that and someone was brought in to help with the planning. At least he seems to have learned that.
90% of Kickstarter backers have no idea how an indie game is made, it isn't something that pops out of the oven magically after 12 months. It isn't something that rolls off a manufacturing line according to some simple plan (again, it's not Call of Duty.) These expectations are part of the problem.
People discuss this as if the project in question was just an engineering task. But there is creativity involved. And that doesn't necessarily keep to a schedule.
And the idea of giving indie developers "grades" or hang it out publicly if they don't meet a milestone reminds me of school. This is totally misplaced, you cannot grade or rate creative people. If you do, you end up with an assembly line instead of a creative process, and that will lead to sequel-land where no one dares to veer of course anymore for fear of being slammed as a pathological liar.
You are funding an indie developer. Yes, he's famous, but you could have known beforehand that he has a reputation for being difficult, finicky, not a good manager, all these things. If you still give him money, you should be prepared for stuff like this.
And the interview was horrible, it was just sensationalism and gratuitous assholery. Why didn't John do this thing to Blizzard when the Diablo 3 fiasco was still fresh? "Are you a pathological liar, Blizzard?" Why not Elite: Dangerous? Why not Sim City?
Someone like Molyneux is an easy target, that's why.
And how many call of duty sequels did you work on?
One could argue the other way around, an indie title is much easier plannable because in general it is a much smaller undertaking.
Of course this doesn't apply, but don't underestimate the amount of creativity and work needed to finish the next AAA sequel.
So the third party would be the backers themselves while the crowd funding site would act as the bank and voting hub. If a project closes and fails to get past a milestone, any left over funding is returned to backers.
Since then, especially since Fable instead of making great games all he does is he TALKS about what would be great. He talks about ideas he has for what he would like to do well before he can actually do anything.
Instead of talking about what could be he should make something and put it out there. Let the product speaks for itself.
So the third party would be the backers themselves while the crowd funding site would act as the bank and voting hub. If a project closes and fails to get past a milestone, any left over funding is returned to backers.
Its just so very hard to predict group dynamics, especially if you have a new team like Molyneux had (i think?)
Ive known before, but funnily it stuck me very hard while searching a group for
rated battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. I invited (hired) all those people, checked them, and they seemed fine. The composition was good and we were ready to go.
Then in the first match, nobody took any initiative, people all did their thing, but it didnt work out at all, and there was no way to find a specific weak point. It was so hard to tell what is going wrong and why those dynamics drifted so far off. You can maybe see some broad mistakes, but without watching everyones computer theres no way to find out what everyone did wrong in detail. We disbanded after the first match. Molyneux cant just search a new group like that. There are so many factors that takes many eyes to spot. I dont think Peter didnt do his 8+ hours a day, theres only a certain amount you can carry.
Suddenly that networking code needs 3 months instead of 2 weeks. Did X write so badly or is that the time it takes ? Youll never know.
This is wrong though, game design is problem solving just as engineering, making the artwork or audio is a very creative role, ironically that is also the most easy part to put down to time in game development, you can estimate quite good on how long an asset will take to make.
The difference between independant game development and regular one is that one of them has a publisher, often with some requirements, and often with more funding. Otherwise game development does not differ between these.
We put grades on everything, indie-games are not some holy icon that cannot be defiled, they're just like anything else, they're the hard or sloppy work of a game designer.
As molyneux himself said, you can estimate a time and then have contingency, if the game is done faster than expected then that means more money for more features, if it takes longer then you have the contingency.
Angry Joe interviews with the same kind of questions. Really interesting interview.
RPS and sites like it just end up stinking like Yellow Journalism. Kind of sad, really.
i think its not fair that they do this to the "good guys" who are actually willing to let you do something like this to them, opposed to a big publisher like ea or ubisoft who wouldn't even allow something like this to happen, but who would deserve a critical interview like this.
Regarding the RPS interview itself : being able to hear the original audio would be very enlightening.
That's sort of the main problem for me. I often feel like interviewers approach game development in the same way they would approach non-interactive media. While they often ask questions about game mechanics and systems, you rarely hear any good questions that address software development aspect of making games. I feel this is one of the things that leads to a certain assumption that the devs must be full of shit if something is broken.
Of course, I don't think that customers should know about how games are made to criticize them. People hardly know how anything is made yet we accept criticisms of movies, music, hardware products, etc. But I feel that if press knew how to ask better questions everyone in this relationship (devs, press, gamers) would be much happier. Perhaps if we have more interviews like this, rather than the usual PR fluff things would get better.