names2hard4you
Member
I take this is a joke post?
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Koji Igarashi Kickstarts Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (2.5D, backdash, 2018)
- Thread starter PranooY
- Start date
dont fall for it.
The people who didn't want the Vita/WiiU or Generated Stages Mode pulled their pledges.
Father_Brain
Banned
Er, no?
The typical Igavania castle consists overwhelmingly of bland, generic rooms filled with enemies and a few simple obstacles, with little to nothing in the way of puzzles or platforming challenges designed around your newly acquired abilities. They've always been more side-scrolling loot-based dungeon crawlers than Metroid-style platformers, despite borrowing their basic structure from the latter.
Jinfash
needs 2 extra inches
I replayed the DS games last summer and I completely agree.
AcademicSaucer
Member
Fuck, you are right, BRB cancelling my pledge.
Wow, such a big boom in funds since yesterday! We can reach 5000000$ by tomorrow if this trend continues. It's kinda surprising how much more money this generates in comparison to Castlevania games on DS. Being multiplatform must help it a lot. I hope Konami learns a lesson here, but who am I kidding?
Replaying SotN it had more interesting map design, nothing amazingly ingenious or tough but enough to keep everything interesting and novel. IGA seemed badly constrained by budget after SotN so I'm hoping this is better on that front, especially with Inticreates building the game.
This picture pretty much sums up the whole situation
As I said earlier, I feel that there is a disconnect between publishers simply not understanding that demand for these sorts of games indeed exist, yet they firmly believe it doesn't.
The above three examples in the image simply prove the opposite. It's a unfortunate situation but I understand these publishers don't want to take risks. It's just a shame they have the mindset that everything needs to be a AAA seller or nothing nowadays.
At least I'll be able to play Bloodstained when the time comes. From what I can see so far, it'll contain everything I want in a Igavania game (multiple playable characters, large Castle to explore, multiple modes, etc) It's hitting all of the right notes.
But in one hour we are approaching the last 24 hours of this campaign. It is soon time to celebrate an amazingly successful kickstarter, and less to grieve about publishers thinking they know more then us about what we want.
I almost forgot that MS owned Banjo Kazooie. Considering the nostalgia behind it, it seems like a waste for them to not do it considering how much money they seem to be dropping trying to move Xbones.
It's not so much that. The money pulled in by this Kickstarter isn't huge money to Konami. They decided a few years back to just reboot the series as a triple A franchise because they didn't feel the smaller but fairly steady returns IGA's games were worth it.
The irony is that they probably lost a ton of money going that route with the second and third game seeming to bomb hard.
Yeah it's pretty much this. They want all the money they can get and a reliable mid range game isn't enough for them to bother with when they can roll the dice for AAA profits (or losses).
I'm kind of disappointed in it, after seeing the comic with the whip that had a bunch of swords in it I was hoping for something like that.
Kind if surprised how little traction that seemed to be getting. I realize it's an old franchise that hasn't gotten much attention in a long time aside from that reboot, but the last time I checked it hadn't even funded (I'm assuming it has by now though).
Honestly though I'm not sure why they felt the need to do another Kickstarter, weren't the last couple of games rather successful?
I actually swore off Kickstarters for a while with the exception of a possible IGA Kickstarter (was waiting quite a while for this). This was in response to the DRM shenanigans with the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter which the refunded me on and later reneged on so I've gone back on the policy as the situation ended up changing.
Fuck you Konami
So much this.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
I held off and I was reluctant because I'm low on cash...but I couldn't let this go by without putting my money where my mouth is. Just jumped in for the physical copy!
So far I've backed only four KS projects and had good results so far (with the exception of the longggggg wait for Under the Dog). So here's to hoping this is smooth as well!
So far I've backed only four KS projects and had good results so far (with the exception of the longggggg wait for Under the Dog). So here's to hoping this is smooth as well!
Fair assessment, although I don't totally agree. SotN wasn't amazing in that regard, but the series took a further step back with the handheld entries. I'm sure budget and time constraints had a major part in it. Its an issue that affects the abilities within the games as well. Minimal level design catered to taking advantage of unique traversal abilities, and thus the abilities available are typically pretty standard stuff like double jumps, bat flight, or abilities simply used to get past a single path block.
Comparatively Metroid has things like the grappling hook, space jump, ice beam, etc., that are put to the test by in game obstacles, platforming, and bosses.
Remembrance
Member
I did the same. If this is going to be the biggest video game Kickstarter then it no longer looks crazy to put in my biggest pledge.
And it's worth supporting a game having this many modes, considering how rare it is now that a game will try something completely different for replayability.
hodayathink
Member
Don't forget that the game already has a publisher that's putting in, at minimum, 4.5 million dollars on it. So we're looking at a game with something around a $10 million dollar budget at the minimum, and even if all the sales were digital with a Steam-like 70-30 split, that's a little over 475,000 copies sold just to break even at $30 a piece, and a little over 350,000 at $40 a piece.
I think Igavania games has really excelled in having a sense of exploration compared to other games in the same genre. They don't have a lot of difficult platforming, but I don't think they were ever supposed to have that (there's been several times Iga has said he's not a fan of pixel perfect platforming).
I could be wrong, but I think that he's only part of the backer edition ($60+ tiers).
Alex_Mexico
Member
You guys still think the publisher will fork over "at least" $4.5 million after this KS's massive success? I'm beginning to think they may back pedal a bit and say "you have a shit ton of money, you don't need everything we promised" and give less now?
After all, they were thinking they'd get $800,000-1,000,000 max plus $4.5 million from the publisher for a total of $5.5million. Who's to say the publisher will still be willing to make this game a $10 million budgeted game now?
That still really makes me sad
I donated 28 and I feel like I'm being excluded from the community...
I don't see why that would be the case, but I'm sure there is some sort of written contract in place.
Alex_Mexico
Member
What I'm trying to say is: until they confirm it lets stop assuming they're getting an automatic $4.5 million budget from the publisher. They were always vague in that part from the beginning and they only spoke about it when this KS was only starting.
AmethystEnd
Member
I don't think any publisher would risk burning bridges like that. Besides, I imagine they have things in writing. Do you really think Iga/Inti/others involved started the campaign off of a simple verbal "Yeah, sure, we'll give you 5 million if you raise 500k." without getting something in writing?
I'd actually argue most of the handhelds improved the layouts of the rooms and overall Castle. The Castle layouts seem more deliberate and it's more likely you'll find something that's actually worthwhile from exploring and the enemy layouts feel like they are set up better.
Yeah I feel more like I am actually exploring when I play an Igavania and more like I'm following a path set by the developers in Metroid. I think it's a difference in design philosophy as the IGA games continued with the more open feel while the Metroid games evolved to a more linear playstyle while continuing to be developed under Sakamoto.
I can't imagine IGA had any idea they'd pull down this amount of cash but I don't think they will have the agreement change unless there was some stipulations in the original agreement which I doubt. And regardless of anything else they need Deep Silver's distribution channels to properly sell the game at retail.
J
Jotamide
Unconfirmed Member
Exactly, and if MN9 does well on retail you can bet they will back this up properly.
Interesting note: In the Playism podcast (after about 30 minutes in) that accompanied today's update, Ben Judd teases that there is going to be a big, Kickstarter related event/announcement/happening that is going to be "precedent setting" at E3. It seems more publishers may be moving into the funding model displayed here by Bloodstained.
There is such a thing as reasonable assumptions and unreasonable assumptions. While what you're saying is possible, it assumes IGA and his agent(s) are stupid and/or Deep Silver is malicious or mypoic enough to think essentially cutting the funding of the game to a level even less than what it would have been if it had only hit the 500k goal (remember, they don't get all the Kickstarter money due to fees and reward fulfillment) is a good idea.
There is such a thing as reasonable assumptions and unreasonable assumptions. While what you're saying is possible, it assumes IGA and his agent(s) are stupid and/or Deep Silver is malicious or mypoic enough to think essentially cutting the funding of the game to a level even less than what it would have been if it had only hit the 500k goal (remember, they don't get all the Kickstarter money due to fees and reward fulfillment) is a good idea.
Besides the fact that any publishing deal worth speaking about is going to already be in writing, if the purpose of the kickstarter was to gauge the interest of the market, and then see the market responds with ten times their initial expectations, why would the publisher respond by investing less? Especially at the risk of jeopardizing the relationship with the developer?
Bjoern the Smexy
Member
I'm pretty sure they have a contracted deal that makes sure the publisher forks over the $4.5 million in the case of this campaign's success. Otherwise basically all of the stretch goals would probably be cancelled, as they surely managed that they need "this amount of monies" to be able to deliver this and that stretch goal.
Deep Silver: "OH NOES too many people are interested in paying significantly above market price for a product we are thinking of making O_O We better step back guys, this seems like a bad deal!"
#Kappa
thomasmahler
Moon Studios
It's easy to make the mistake to think that - because there are long corridors and simple level designs - the Igavanias don't have that much to offer level-design wise. In reality, it's just a shift in balance: Instead of challenging the player through platforming (Super Metroid has quite a lot of somewhat frustrating jumping challenges), they put the focus on combat instead - and you have to fight while being aware of the environment around you.
It's not bad level-design, really. It'd be bad level-design if the levels would be all empty - but they're not. They're filled with enemies that all have varying patterns and the environments are designed to fit their behaviors. Put an interesting enemy into an empty room and you still have an interesting thing going on. In comparison, most enemies in games like Super Metroid are fairly simple.
We had a similar thing to fight with during Ori and the Blind Forest. We changed the balance back to be platforming-focused, so we tried to make sure that there'd never be straight corridors without any interesting platforming situation. At the same time, the enemies we created for Ori couldn't be as crazy as the ones in the Igavanias. Since our focus was on platforming, most enemies followed similar patterns, but then navigating the environment itself was already fairly challenging, so you can't go too crazy.
Both design-directions are viable, in my opinion. It just depends on whether you put the challenge on Platforming (Super Metroid, Ori, etc.), or combat (Igavanias).
AmethystEnd
Member
Without accounting for however much more PayPal has raised past 150k, we're now at $4.753m with 20 hours to go. So roughly around 12k an hour to 5 million.
DaSorcerer7
Member
Quick question. Kickstarter noob here. When does your account get charged after pledging?
orthodoxy1095
Banned
It always gets charged after the Kickstarter is over, assuming that it was fully funded (not an issue in this case lol).
charlequin
Banned
Yes, as a risk-averse video game publisher what I really want to do when I see a title I am publishing be surprisingly successful is claw back my own investment so that I receive less of the profits when it is released.
When the campaign ends.
Red Arremer
Member
The problem is that to most big publishers, games like Mega Man, Castlevania or Banjo-Kazooie are just not lucrative enough.
Because publishers don't want some money, they want all of the money. It's the same reason you see so many Call of Duty games and so many other publishers try to get in on the Call of Duty market because Call of Duty makes a shitload of money. Sadly the publishers don't realize that people who want to play Call of Duty already have Call of Duty and are unlikely going to swap horses, so they're never going to make the money they want (which is all of it).
You just need to look at both the budgets and sales expectations of triple A titles. Tomb Raider has sold 3.5 million copies in the first month of its release, but Square-enix said it failed their sales expectations. They called it an "extraordinary loss"; it wasn't until nearly a year later that it "hit profitability". It had a budget of around 100 million $.
And this is the problem - big publishers nowadays just want to throw money at a developer, tell them to make "the next Call of Duty" or "the next or whatever else is super popular right now", and they use focus groups, and they try to add all the features that these focus groups say they like (e.g. multiplayer), although it's not necessarily the best feature for that particular game, and then they expect everybody and their grandmother to buy it, if not pre-order 3 times to get all the store-exclusive pre-order DLC bonuses.
Unless he used the PayPal option (like I did), which charges right away.
Alex_Mexico
Member
Since when does logic impere with videogame publishers? You've got to give me some credit here. What you say is the logical conclusion, yes, but who's to say that that's what this publisher would do? If they can see a way of making the same game while risking less money than originally planned I'm willing to bet at least one would go my hypothetical route. (I wasn't implying the publisher would back out completely, just that it might fork over less money than originally planned).
Remember we live in a world where Infinity Ward had to fight ferouciously against Activision's reluctance of bringing CoD4 to modern times because they thought it wouldn't succeed and that people only wanted WW2 shooters.
Benzychenz
Member
Just changed my pledge from $60 to $100.
The little snippet of early gameplay and seeing them talk about what they're doing sealed the deal and I'm feeling really good about how this is gonna turn out in the end.
The little snippet of early gameplay and seeing them talk about what they're doing sealed the deal and I'm feeling really good about how this is gonna turn out in the end.
People have thrown around a figure of 15k for Harmony of Despair, aside from that I've seen nothing.
Crimsonclaw111
Member
Just 15k? That seems insanely low.
No way...
AmethystEnd
Member
No. Just, no. They'd have to be pants on head crazy.
Alex_Mexico
Member
Would you be willing to bet your house that the videogame industry is lacking those types of people? I mean, look at Konami!
This whole thing would have to be pretty poorly planned if they didn't make a solid contract with the publisher regarding the budget. I don't think they would have come up stretch goals all the way up to $5 million if there was the slightest chance the publisher might pull the rug from under them.
