|
|
 |
| [Feb 12, 2012, 6:12 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
Cliffski's Blog - The kickstarter reality.
But this is not *the* new publishing model, far from it. RPS noted that the developers ‘don’t have a publisher breathing down their necks’. Really? Maybe they have 10,000 publishers now, impatient, possibly wanting contradictory stuff (almost definitely…in fact), and not restrained by the politeness of scheduled milestone meetings behind closed doors. I hope it goes well, but it could get messy.
Plus the developer is boxed into a corner, they know exactly what they have to do with that money. This is not always a good thing. I ship maybe half the games I start. Gratuitous Tank Battles was not the game I intended to make. I intended to make a life-sim game, then abandoned it to make an RTS, then it morphed into GTB.
Post Comment
Enter the details of the comment
you'd like to post in the boxes below and click the button at
the bottom of the form.
 |
| 60. |
Re: Op Ed |
Feb 13, 2012, 16:41 |
Beamer |
|
|
Dev wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 16:36:
Beamer wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 15:54:
Dev wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 15:50:
But that's the beauty of the system. People can set whatever funding minimum they want and if its not reached, no one gets charged. There's really very little risk to backers. So no harm if it suddenly gets a bunch of big budget kick starters. If they all indeed do fail, then that will be noticed too and in a few months it should settle back down. And who knows, maybe one or a few will succeed.
There's always risk when you're paying for something that hasn't been created yet. You're really asking a lot out of consumers, and they will remember getting burnt. People don't get charged if funding isn't reached, but there's nothing if completion isn't reached. And yet, with the average successful funding rate being 40%-50% in the last 2 years, odds are anyone who has funded more than 1 project has already experienced a funding failure (unless they only fund projects after they become successful, which is a valid strategy). And the funding success rate increased last year over the previous.
So far there's no sign that that failure rate has decreased the popularity of the service. In fact it QUADRUPLED in size in a year (approx $25 million in 2010 and approx $100 million in 2011).
It's been too soon for significant failure, plus that quadrupling in size indicates plenty of new users.
Like I've said - I've used this plenty. I think it's a very cool tool with very specific uses. I just don't think we should be celebrating it as a game changer. This isn't Kiva, especially as it doesn't safeguard you in the same way Kiva does.
Can it turn into a gamechanger? Sure. There's a chance that tons of incredible indie games will come through this. There's a chance bigger games will manage to get millions through this. I wouldn't bet on it, though. I'd wager that, well into the future, indie games are coming out regardless of kickstarter funding, that only a percentage use kickstarter funding successfully, and that kickstarter funding doesn't have a meaningful impact on gaming in any way.
Most developers that people would trust their money with do not need this. Most developers that need this wouldn't be trusted with significant amounts of our money before they have a product to show. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
Twitter 
