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[loganclaws]

There is nothing wrong with making a profit off of a KS. After the project is funded, anything after that is just extra sales, or people going for their perks. I guess I see stretch goals as a collective pre-order bonus than something that should be motivating sales.

Also, the reality is that a lot of that so-called "profit" will be eaten up by unforeseen delays. Or they might choose to hire more people to speed up production, or to get back on track after unforeseen delays.

And because of the psychology of KS, where you want to hit the goal as soon as possible, most devs choose to shift any budget padding into the stretch goals. And that padding is likely to be the thing that actually gets the game out.

The fact that you think , that a project will break , based only on the initial estimate of funding shows that you don't understand how bad things can do during develloppement.
There is an exemple on this very page about lab zero when , from their POV , they had to limit their revenue a Lot in order to suceed .
You're talking about profit AFTER , when this is an unknow , something NO one can possibly predict.
Also No offense taken , since i'm a 31 year old devellopper, people having no idea what this work trully is, are often seen from my POV.

It's a delicate balance but it is definitely disingenuous from my POV if a developer plans their profit margin before going to KS and makes up some BS stretch goals to pad out their budget just to maximize their profit margin (not accusing any dev of doing this). That's not what KS is for. Make a good game and then profit will hopefully come.

This is not to say that the devs shouldn't plan their KS budget with a certain contingency in mind. Yes things do go wrong in every project, in every industry. Budget overruns in the game industry are a joke compared to others like construction where it can be in the billions. There is always a budget contingency plan and that is what risk analysis and planning is aimed to minimize. I have no problem with that.

 

[Gbraga]

Italian SF2 bootleg?

I don't think I've ever seen this before.

 

[Amakuni]

I think it's great that all these devs are reviving beloved franchises through crowd funding, but I'm pessimistic about the outcome of this project solely because it's a 2.5D game made using the Unreal 4 engine. While concept art like this:

looks great, its a very misleading as I feel the average person looking at the Kickstarter will assume that the final game will use amazing 2d sprites rather than 3d polygons. I understand they can't use sprites because it would be too expensive to produce, but I wish they wouldn't create mock-up screenshots of gameplay for the Kickstarter. It's intentionally misleading, just another way to drive up hype. For comparison Mighty No. 9, another Kickstarter game being made by the same developers, also had mock-up screenshots in 2D (even though it was stated in the Kickstarter that it would also use the Unreal engine), and the final game looks nothing like them:

 

[InfiniteNine]

The new one, he might be thinking of the old ones. But weren't those full 2D?

Well the target they were talking about was Xrd and the old GG's had 2D backgrounds.

looks great, its a very misleading as I feel the average person looking at the Kickstarter will assume that the final game will use amazing 2d sprites rather than 3d polygons. I understand they can't use sprites because it would be too expensive to produce, but I wish they wouldn't create mock-up screenshots of gameplay for the Kickstarter. It's intentionally misleading, just another way to drive up hype. For comparison Mighty No. 9, another Kickstarter game being made by the same developers, also had mock-up screenshots in 2D (even though it was stated in the Kickstarter that it would also use the Unreal engine), and the final game looks nothing like them:

I'm not sure how providing a concept mock up is misleading especially when they're really upfront about it being labeled on the image and the KickStarter itself saying it will be 2.5D and on top of that spent like an hour answering questions about that on the stream.

 

[SonyToo!™]

Guilty Gear has shown that 3D can be done right, but I'd still prefer 2D even if it's not pixel art. edit ^ Yeah MN9 doesn't look good, it reminds me of Explodemon.

I do think a full on pixel art vania would probably cost too much as most games just reuse SotN assets to keep costs low. (although at the rate the KS is been funded that might not be the case)

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

It's a delicate balance but it is definitely disingenuous from my POV if a developer plans their profit margin before going to KS and makes up some BS stretch goals to pad out their budget just to maximize their profit margin (not accusing any dev of doing this). That's not what KS is for. Make a good game and then profit will hopefully come.

This is not to say that the devs shouldn't plan their KS budget with a certain contingency in mind. Yes things do go wrong in every project, in every industry. Budget overruns in the game industry are a joke compared to others like construction where it can be in the billions. There is always a budget contingency plan and that is what risk analysis and planning is aimed to minimize. I have no problem with that.

But you can't end a kickstarter campaign early, nor can you realistically endlessly add new features to justify over funding.

At some point, if you have funding for everything you want to make, and contingency funding, then there is nothing wrong with considering the rest to just be profits.

 

[Bluefoot]

Uh, it's not in Unity. It's in Unreal 4, thankfully.

And Slain is not a pretty game. I'm tired of pixel stuff, most of it does not look very good on modern displays. If Iga gets anywhere remotely near the GGX style like they want it will look far, far better than any pixel game ever could.

Well, Slain is a bit basic, but it still looks great, especially as a game. Like I said, we don't get SF III level stuff.

Tired of pixel stuff? I'm tired of rudimentary pixel stuff. But then again I'm tired of rudimentary polygon stuff too. Well, a bit of both anyway.

Theres some rudimentary stuff out there, but the good stuff looks incredible. Just not much out there.

 

[JoBo4]

Everything is 3D in Guilty Gear including the characters.

I know xrd uses 3d models, but didn't the earlier ones use sprites? Or was he just referring to xrd?
I remember somewhere he did mention not wanting to reuse sprites.

 

[vcc]

For successful games, this isn't really true. The number of people willing to buy a game that already exists is drastically higher than the number willing to buy a game a year or more in advance, even when dealing with niche genres.

For pillars of eternity it was 3.5m owners on steam with 51k backers. Which is a pretty big success and a small backer to sales ration. I think it's just more prudent not to expect a smash hit and be pleasantly surprised.

 

[BassForever]

Can we please stop comparing this to mn9, and FFS can we get over the fact that concept art is not a definitive version of what the final game will look like

 

[InfiniteNine]

I know xrd uses 3d models, but didn't the earlier ones use sprites? Or was he just referring to xrd?
I remember somewhere he did mention not wanting to reuse sprites.

The old ones were fully 2D for the most part so it wouldn't really make sense to use it as an example for 2.5D when Xrd fits that description.

 

[loganclaws]

But you can't end a kickstarter campaign early, nor can you realistically endlessly add new features to justify over funding.

At some point, if you have funding for everything you want to make, and contingency funding, then there is nothing wrong with considering the rest to just be profits.

Agreed, but I think if you ask any game developer, they would unanimously tell you that you can never have enough money to polish and bug fix a game.

 

[vcc]

The final shot looks acceptable.

 

[Mr_Antimatter]

Can we please stop comparing this to mn9, and FFS can we get over the fact that concept art is not a definitive version of what the final game will look like

True that, though, it would be nice to see something, anything, of what ingame assets will look like during the campaign itself.

 

[Dimitri LH]

I know xrd uses 3d models, but didn't the earlier ones use sprites? Or was he just referring to xrd?
I remember somewhere he did mention not wanting to reuse sprites.

Pretty sure Iga was talking about Xrd since its also made with Unreal4 and looks 2D while using 3D models.

EDIT: it does? My bad.

 

[InfiniteNine]

Pretty sure Iga was talking about Xrd since its also made with Unreal4 and looks 2D while using 3D models.

Xrd uses UE3.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Can we please stop comparing this to mn9, and FFS can we get over the fact that concept art is not a definitive version of what the final game will look like

Don't you know? MN9 looks different from the concept art and, even though nobody has played it yet, we all know it's the worst game ever and proves that Kickstarter is a scam and nobody should ever back anything ever again.

 

[wwm0nkey]

Pretty sure Iga was talking about Xrd since its also made with Unreal4 and looks 2D while using 3D models.

Actually whats impressive is that Xrd was done with UE3, can only imagine how much of a looker it would have been on UE4

 

[georly]

So you're basically agreeing with me that it all depends on what sort of cheat codes they are talking about? Well, we know nothing because they provided nothing. So they talked about one potential silly cheat code in the stream which you brought up as an example. Is this "bad voice acting" mode really something that is worth paying more money for? Let's look back at the previous games in the Castlevania series, were there any meaningful cheat codes at all? SOTN had those stat modifiers if you entered certain names when you started a new game, which I bet not many of you actually used for any extended periods of time. Were there any others? I assume secret modes like Julius mode doesn't fall under cheat codes.

Even if it's a simple cheat code like infinite health, it still depends on how the game is programmed to know how quickly it will take to implement. Sure, in a lot of environments, it could be as simple as a day's worth of work to code in, but it still has to be tested. Either way, unless you know how the game is coded, you can't assume it'll only take a day, that's all I'm trying to say.

 

[hawk2025]

Y'all are making me want to play Xrd.

I regret not buying it at that one $22 flash sale.

 

[JoBo4]

The old ones were fully 2D for the most part so it wouldn't really make sense to use it as an example for 2.5D when Xrd fits that description.

you're right, my bad. I have not played much GG before. But yeah, i'm listening to that 2 hour interview with him and he JUST said it'll be fully 2.5D. No sprites. but they will use shaders to get the "2d" feel

 

[Kojirospath]

True that, though, it would be nice to see something, anything, of what ingame assets will look like during the campaign itself.

Maybe near the end Int createa guy did say something about experimenting with shaders but also that that was something they want to determine together with backers after KS.

 

[Dimitri LH]

Actually whats impressive is that Xrd was done with UE3, can only imagine how much of a looker it would have been on UE4

Now im more excited with this revelation haha.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

I guess people flock to whatever big name puts anything on kickstarter. One day it won't surprise me anymore.

The final shot looks acceptable.

For Vita maybe.

 

[cj_iwakura]

If so, what's the sin in that? Are you complaining this KS was too well organized? I'm confused.

My concern is that this is focused on making the people involved as much money as possible first, and making a great game second. There's other people involved here, and those people are here to get paid.

At least it'll help avoid the faceplant a team working with a certain other well-loved, well-respected Japanese auteur jettisoned from the company he helped to greatness dabbling in a KS!

I'm not sure if you mean Inafune or Matsuno. But I have some faith in one, and not the other. At least Inafune's involved in #9, and he's not just a figurehead.

 

[AwShucks]

But you can't end a kickstarter campaign early, nor can you realistically endlessly add new features to justify over funding.

At some point, if you have funding for everything you want to make, and contingency funding, then there is nothing wrong with considering the rest to just be profits.

This so hard. Like I've already said in this thread, as a retail game sales more copies the people who have already bought the game don't say "Oh that means I'm getting more things added to my game!" Those extra copies sold mean that developer has profit which is what every business wants, and that means the employees can keep getting paid and start working on the next thing.

The difference between that and Kickstarter projects? People who already have a money buffer don't generally go on Kickstarter. If a Kickstarter always adds stretch goals for more money, then they are never making profit before the game comes out. They work on the game, the game comes out, and at that moment they wouldn't have any more money to keep paying employees after the game is out. They will have to wait on extra sales to non-backers and wait until they actually get that money. If they had money to keep paying employees, they wouldn't need crowd funding.

 

[Fiercedeity]

Yet mighty number 9 still looks pretty damn good.

 

[vcc]

For Vita maybe.

Japanese studios aren't known for pushing the tech envelope.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

But you can't end a kickstarter campaign early, nor can you realistically endlessly add new features to justify over funding.

At some point, if you have funding for everything you want to make, and contingency funding, then there is nothing wrong with considering the rest to just be profits.

Thank you, this is the point I was trying to make but succint.

A well planned KS should have a good idea of what the final product will be and the necessary funding needed to get there. If it goes over and above that, the developers should feel fine 'pocketing' the excess, either as early profit, a contigency or just paying themselves more, hey you could argue that a better payed development team is a happier, more motivated development team.

Asking that there are a bunch of big feature stretch goals waiting in the wings to me suggests that people see KS as a way to give a pitch a massive blast of feature creep.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

I know apparently most people look at this and think "wow, what a let down!", but I think the final game looks great. The concept art, to me, doesn't even look like a game. Maybe people have different expectations for sidescrollers after Tropical Freeze.

Then again, maybe MN9 doesn't have any effects and looks like this static screenshot 100% of the time.

 

[Eusis]

The new one, he might be thinking of the old ones. But weren't those full 2D?

Guilty Gear pre-Xrd = Full 2D (far as I know, maybe some throwaway 3D gimmicks)
BlazBlue = 2D sprites on 3D field
Guilty Gear Xrd = Full 3D, models that'd easily pass for 2D sprites if you weren't paying very, very close attention.

Just to get it all out there for anyone that wants to know. I said before I'd like to see BlazBlue style, but be more than happy with Xrd style if done well.

 

[Boogz]

edit: wrong thread.

 

[loganclaws]

I know apparently most people look at this and think "wow, what a let down!", but I think the final game looks great. The concept art, to me, doesn't even look like a game. Maybe people have different expectations for sidescrollers after Tropical Freeze.

Then again, maybe MN9 doesn't have any effects and looks like this static screenshot 100% of the time.

You can watch a very video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im1qgnFzR3s&hd=1

It doesn't look very good.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

Japanese studios aren't known for pushing the tech envelope.

That's true but they usually make stuff a bit more esthetically pleasing. Some style could really help. It looks like a budget portable game.

 

[PBalfredo]

Only on Kickstarter do we have self-styled "investors" huff and puff that in-game graphics don't line up perfectly with concept art. Imagine someone looking at concept art for Skyrim

then playing the game

and claiming that they were mislead by the concept art which they somehow mistook as screenshots from the future as opposed to, you know, concept art.

 

[cj_iwakura]

You can watch a very video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im1qgnFzR3s&hd=1

It doesn't look very good.

It seems playable, at least. I'd give it a shot. I'd never have backed it, though. (And I didn't.)

I'm very picky about what I back, and they're usually established teams or creators(the Shadowrun guys, Shadowgate, Frequency, Bubblegum Crisis).

I want the Iga project to be great, but there's not enough tangible content here to give me faith yet.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

Only on Kickstarter do we have self-styled "investors" huff and puff that in-game graphics don't line up perfectly with concept art. Imagine someone looking at concept art for Skyrim



then playing the game



and claiming that they were mislead by the concept art which they somehow mistook as screenshots from the future as opposed to, you know, concept art.

Basically every game has better looking concept art than the actual game. That's why people love art books so much, and anybody with an art book can tell you how much cooler any given page will look compared to a screenshot from the game.

 

[Berordn]

You can watch a very video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im1qgnFzR3s&hd=1

It doesn't look very good.

I realize this is a bit moot as justice has already been dealt but... a dark warehouse scene and midday on the street does not a fair comparison make.

Subjective as always but I think MN9 looks nice, and is at worst serviceable.

 

[Skilletor]

MN9 looks awesome.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Uh, it's not in Unity. It's in Unreal 4, thankfully.

And Slain is not a pretty game. I'm tired of pixel stuff, most of it does not look very good on modern displays. If Iga gets anywhere remotely near the GGX style like they want it will look far, far better than any pixel game ever could.

I'm hoping it looks like SoTN, OoE, etc. except the characters are all now 3D cel-shaded instead of 2D sprites. For the PC folks, running this game in 4K would be like watching animation come to life.

Japanese studios aren't known for pushing the tech envelope.

Square Enix has always been known for pushing the tech envelope.

 

[poodpick]

Only on Kickstarter do we have self-styled "investors" huff and puff that in-game graphics don't line up perfectly with concept art. Imagine someone looking at concept art for Skyrim



then playing the game



and claiming that they were mislead by the concept art which they somehow mistook as screenshots from the future as opposed to, you know, concept art.

Maybe people wouldn't feel misled if there was even a single alpha screenshot.

 

[Skilletor]

Maybe people wouldn't feel misled if there was even a single alpha screenshot.

If people read, they wouldn't feel mislead. The developer clearly stated what the images were.

 

[Gbraga]

You can watch a very video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im1qgnFzR3s&hd=1

It doesn't look very good.

That looks fine to me, to be honest. Looks pretty fun too, I think I'll enjoy the dashing thing. Is it coming out soon?

 

[poodpick]

If people read, they wouldn't feel mislead. The developer clearly stated what the images were.

If developers had ingame screens people would have checked their expectations more I think.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Since it's gonna be UE4 and not sprites, I really, really hope one of the cheat codes is big head mode.

If developers had ingame screens people would have checked their expectations more I think.

It's to fund the development of the game... They can't publish any in-game screens because the game is in pre-production. There are no in-game screens.

 

[Eusis]

If developers had ingame screens people would have checked their expectations more I think.

They probably needed either concept art that looked less like (vaguely) plausible gameplay, or concept art that was a rendering based on approximate visual capabilities so people knew they were in for a 3D game that made no attempt to pass itself off as 2D visually. Which can be a problem here too, though the fact they're aiming for GG Xrd style visuals should hopefully prevent it from being too bad.

 

[InfiniteNine]

Since it's gonna be UE4 and not sprites, I really, really hope one of the cheat codes is big head mode.

I'm pretty sure they mentioned that on the stream. (Big head mode as a code I mean.)

 

[JoeyJungle]

I'm pretty sure they mentioned that on the stream. (Big head mode as a code I mean.)

HELL YES!

 

[Skilletor]

If developers had ingame screens people would have checked their expectations more I think.

They had a video up before the kickstarter ended, though?

 

[OmegaDL50]

Square Enix has always been known for pushing the tech envelope.

The most recent example was the Agni Cry demo that needed Quad SLI Titan X's to run it. Something that wouldn't practically run on common hardware for a very long, long time.