Creston wrote on Apr 16, 2012, 01:10:
I'm not sure why you want the two models to mix so they inevitably become the same publisher-driven shithole again.
I'm not really understanding that myself either. Don't get me wrong, I'm skeptical of the long term potential of the Kickstarter model, but if we start considering Kickstarter to be just a gimmick to get a studio off the ground, it REALLY won't do what we want it to.
Success breeds mediocrity in the games industry.
Companies who make a lot of money invariably use it to grow their company, and make bigger more expensive titles, which in turn need to sell more copies, and so on. Eventually there is so much overhead and bulk in the company that creativity is sacrificed just to keep the lights turned on at the office.
Kickstarter and similar models will depend on whether this can lead to a new breed of small independent studios run by developers and designers, not businessmen; studios content to be small and remain small because of the freedom it affords them.
Just think of the quality of game we could have if all games only had to sell 100,000 copies to be profitable. You could make amazing titles for even the smallest niche audiences and sell them for well under $60.
No, you're not going to get amazing prerendered cutscenes, full voice work, or whatever, but you'll get the gameplay you want with zero compromises. People who see Kickstarter as a way to fund a studio's way to the triple-A market are just pissing away the entire point of Kickstarter.
Do you have a single fact to back that up?