Cliffski's Blog - Kickstarting inequality.
Kickstarter is the absolute poster-child for inequality amongst gamers, based on income. Now I am definitely not a raging socialist, but I know a lot of gamers are, and I find it a bit weird that it doesn’t bug them that when these kickstarter games ship, not only will gamers with more money that them be swanning around with better outfits and weapons, (This already happens in F2P games), but some of the NPC’s will have the names of the ‘wealthy’ backers. Some will even have their digitized faces in the game. Elite is actually naming PLANETS after people who back the game with a lot of money.
Gamers say they hate in-game product placement and advertising. It compromises the game design for the sake of money. I agree. So why are we deciding that the best way to name our planets or design the appearance of our NPC’s is to put that part of game design up for auction? Why should gamers who are wealthy get more influence over a game that those who flip burgers for a living? The cold hard economic reality of the real world is bad enough without shoehorning it into games too.
NewMaxx wrote on Nov 25, 2012, 04:43:Thanks for the response.Dev wrote on Nov 25, 2012, 04:13:
So was my post just too long to respond to? lol
I think you made some good points, but your initial assertion of jealousy seems misplaced. I do agree, however, that the overall arguments presented in the blog are outdated or incorrect.
An example I could give is Mount & Blade, which I followed from the very start, and seeing this talented couple do it on the side with great community feedback was inspiring. Yet it wasn't until they got publisher backing and released a full version, on places like Steam, that it became profitable enough to be a full-blown occupation, which in turn enabled much faster response and rapid improvements. It's naive to think that funding isn't a huge factor or that developers can be "single-minded" and ignore their community.
So to re-iterate what I stated in my post below and on the blog, I feel that he's leaning towards the "open" aspect more than the "investment" aspect, when the reality is that the modern gaming industry for the PC is an ugly hybrid that's still very much working itself out. Yet I feel anybody who falls to the wayside in either direction will ultimately get left behind.
Community-driven is the future and to ignore disparate funding would be like Wikipedia demanding a specific donation amount, or the government charging everybody the same tax. The whole point of open is that people can be involved to a level of their choosing, and more importantly for transparency regardless of investment.