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| [May 08, 2012, 09:28 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
Gamasutra - How long before the Kickstarter bubble bursts?
We are still in the early days of our Kickstarter relationship, the early days of falling in love. Everything our partner does is wonderful. We gloss over the risks, we ignore the downsides, because the glory of falling in love is everything.
I think we have about six months left of that period. Towards the end of this year, some Kickstarter projects are going to start slipping. Some will see their teams collapse amidst bicker recriminations. Some pledgers are going to start getting very angry.
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| 54. |
Re: Op Ed |
May 8, 2012, 15:42 |
Beamer |
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Eberron wrote on May 8, 2012, 14:47:
Beamer wrote on May 8, 2012, 14:38:
There's a difference between failing to launch and failing to fulfill. I'm talking more something like Zeyez. These guys got completely overwhelmed, ironically in large part due to how many orders they got.
And that is the difference between being a backer and being a customer. You are paying to help them launch, not necessarily to fulfill. People who don't understand that should stay away from Kickstarter. There is a legitimate demand from gamers like myself to help launch certain projects just to see what the developers can do.
Honestly, there is a demented side of me that wants to see a couple of developers fail just to watch the drama unfold. Isn't that worth $15? The whole process is a game in and of itself.
But most people aren't looking at Kickstarter that way. Are the people giving Pebble $300 saying "I'm backing this company?" No, they're preordering a cool watch.
I'm not sure why so many people are splitting hairs here. Do people here really think the 9 million going to Pebble isn't stupid? Do people here really think someone running out and spending $60 on Dragon Age 2, when reviews are out there saying it's terrible and when word of mouth is there and when they can watch gameplay videos on YouTube is a similar risk to spending $15+ on a product with no track record and no gameplay videos that is barely in prototype stages and may never be released?
Some of you are so swept up by this that you aren't even admitting that there will be failures and that people are throwing money in excitement thinking they'll definitely get things that meet expectations. I don't even want to compare this to modern publishers, as I don't care in this regard, all I'm saying is that people are going to get burnt and then money will slow down. I am not saying it will disappear, or nothing will ever get funded again, I'm saying that right now it's a crazy gold rush and that will not last forever. We've already had several companies come out and say they did not plan properly and are struggling. How many others aren't being public about it?
And, for the record, pretty much everyone in the mortgage industry knew that they were giving money out very stupidly. No one knew the extent of the crash that would happen, but the people on the front line actually selling the mortgages knew they were shady. |
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