Do you usually support games in development?
I used to frequent this thread. Help funded a few projects too.
It's not updated very frequently now. But I still bump it once in a while.
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I second that emotion, especially when it comes to The Withering :P
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Been burned too many times, I stay away from that flame now.
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The majority of my early access library has turned into abandonware. I still sometimes pull the trigger on those titles but much later than I did previously - once there has been significant advances. I would never in a million years fund a project via kickstarter or other nonsense crowdfunding sites. Why should I? It is kind of disgusting to be honest. Developers ask the community to pre-order a game years in advance so they can have the funds to develop the game. Talk about a scam to the biggest extent. Become an investor in our game project and get no return on your investment other than a copy of the game!
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Well, you can always have the satisfaction of having helped a game that you think that is interesting to become something real. It's usually a chance for developers with good ideas but little budget to get to finish their games, and luckily produce even more.
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Starbound is one I started supporting before release. Mostly, though, I just wish I could. lol
I'm sure there's plenty of others, but Starbound was probably the earliest. Actually, I did support Heart&Slash's KickStarter, so there's that too.
EDIT: That game you supported looks pretty funny, hopefully it succeeds.
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Only if I trust the devs involved. I backed Torment:Tides of Numenara, Divinity: Original Sin, and Pillars of Eternity because I had games from all 3 dev teams and they have good business practices and track records. Haven't been disappointed by any of them. The one time I broke the rule, the game didn't turn out to be something I enjoyed. I played it once, and the ending combined with the lackluster gameplay made me regret breaking the rule.
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Nope. Non-profits need supporting, but this is business. I may invest in exchange for the company shares but for that I'd need something more than 2 guys saying "trust us, we will deliver, promise" and not showing anything substantial to back it up.
65k is way too little to develop a game from scratch (divide it by 2 years of development to see how little it is). Both would have to be exceptionally talented and expirienced programmers, designers and artists. In other words, jack-of-all-trades. Strange that they were unable to save up 65k with such skills. Or didn't say on what positions they worked before and where. But at least most crucial info is known: one of them visits disney world every year. lol
My opinion right now is, this cash will be like unemployment benefits. With about the same effect
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Well, yes, you have a point there. But you dont always have enough money to do your projects, and maybe they thought that these 65k were enough to make sure that the game gets the results that they expect. Of course, you have to "trust" the devs.
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Trust is built on facts. So far all that was shown is they have and idea, can make 3ds animations and want earn money off of it.
2 years long time horizon indicates there is nothing substantial done yet. With that in mind, 65k budget indicates either they have no clue what they are doing or they know very well and this is cash grab.
If someone wants their business funded, he should show realistic businessplan with decent chances of succeeding. Hopes, wishes and enthusiasm won't do.
I wish I were wrong, but I think you paid so they can have fun with their hobby nothing wrong with that - if you do it consciously
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I don't know much about game programming or development (about how much time or money is necessary to do it right), to be honest. Just wanted to give some developers from my country a little bit of trust with an idea that seems good to me. And yes, it can go wrong, of course.
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a little bit of trust
And this is the center of it. A little bit. Would you pat on a head big growling dog when the owner swears you won't get hurt? This is what you do when someone claims 10y of expirience and has shown zero of his past work. If they had shown, it would be like putting mouth cage on the dog.
Maybe another analogy. Those devs are like user randomly adding you and offering a trade where you go first. He says "trust me, I'm your countryman". Will you? Or check him up to see if he has decent amount of +rep?
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Well, it's me, who I've decided to be first in the trade or to pet the dog, it's not the owner or the other trader who forced me.
It's just a "gamble", in which I think the price is worth the bet. I didn't bet too much anyway, so if the project ends up in nothing, the worst that can happen is that I get no prize. And yeah, you could say that it's not a safe bet, because you don't know if the dog bites or the trader is a scammer, but at least you haven't seen the dog bite anyone yet, or the trader hasn't negative rep. I think that it's not bad to sometimes give the other a chance helping them to achieve something that can benefit you too.
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No need to go into defense, I'm not attacking ). You asked a question and I'm discussing the subject, nothing more. Exchange of opinions and arguments makes the way of progress.
As to the bet, I cannot agree. The stake in this particular case is $65k, possibly more if stretch goals are met. The question I ask myself is: if I had this kind of disposable cash, would I fund it in full? (Of course I take into account it is high risk project)
Idk how much money scammer "earns" per month. Let's be generous and assume it can reach 5k. On crowdfunding it's ten times more. It would be strange if it didn't enticed criminals.
Project can be also flop not because of malice, but simply from the lack of planning: underestimating running costs, external services, time and materials.
Whatever is the reason, end result is the same. Money were wasted. If there ratio of fails to sucesses of backed project rises too high, backer will stop funding new projects. This is one more reason to back only projects showing hard evidence indicating decent chance of sucess. Nobody will join the platform if he reads on the web that only 1/1000 of projects is a sucess and malice is met often
There are no safe bets on croudfunding sites. If it were, they could as well get a loan. But there is risk and risk. Say, someone comes and says: I've got a method of making this new material for use in xyz. Here are the lab experiments results. I need $XXX to buy/build machines A,B and C to test it on production scale and later $YYYY to start manufacturing. This is entirely different then: I want to invent a new material for use in xyz, I'll do it, trust me.
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I know, just that I'm a little bit tired of this discussion. I mean, yes, things can go bad, and it's more likely if you don't know almost anything about the other, but hey, maybe they really are skillfull people that can do it. Who would have thought that Leicester could win the BPL, right?
Anyway, I appreciate your comments, and the fact that you actually read the thread, not just "bump" it. You got a WL because of that :P
And Happy Cake Day! :D
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I've backed a few that I think are great or will be great (e.g. Obduction, Torment:Tides of Numenara, Divinity: Original Sin, Divinity: Original Sin 2, The Bard's Tale IV), and also some which are flops... I still check kickstarter once in a while and will back those that I find appealing. Hardly any nowadays though... The latest one I'm backing is Learn Japanese To Survive! Katakana War and that's because I have the first learn Japanese game they developed.
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I've bought a few games in early access but it was mainly because they were so cheap and I was in my "buying games simply because they were cheap" phase. I tend to avoid them these days. I have actually contacted the devs of a few of the games and received responses (full of empty promises.)
I've so far supported one game via kickstarter. It's the sequel/next chapter the the first Bertram Fiddle game. The devs seemed trustworthy and have upheld that trust so far. And they have the first game so far that was good quality.
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Well, I once bought early access for a F2P games from studio I trusted.
Not sure I will do that again. :-(
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I don't usually contribute to the development of upcoming games (in sites like Kickstarter, for example), maybe because I just feel that my money could end up in nothing if the game is finally not released. However, I just contributed to my first one (this one), since it was developed by Spanish devs (where I'm from), and I thought that it was worth to help your country's videogame industry. So, I asked myself... Do people usually support games in development?
You can comment the ones you support or find interesting too, might be a discovery for other ones ^^
Also, my ratio is a little bit lower than I'd like, do here is a little something to try to balance it a bit more.
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