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Defense Grid 2 Kickstarter by Hidden Path Entertainment [Ended, $271K funded]

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
Searched, found nothing.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hiddenpath/defense-grid-2

Now you can help the Hidden Path team build a great Defense Grid sequel: a DG2 that exceeds your expectations and goes beyond the award-winning gameplay and amazing reviews of the original. A great sequel is our passion too, but it's an expensive undertaking, costing $1 million more to build than we can self-finance, so we're inviting you to join the Defense Grid family and help us make DG2 real.

KICKSTARTER-DG2a-05%20copy.jpg
 

Iadien

Guarantee I'm going to screw up this post? Yeah.
Oh no, a bunch of kickstarters I want are coming out at the same time again.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
I absolutely loved Defense Grid.

Is the purpose of the KickStarter purely to just support them early on? I mean I guess taking money from people who are going to buy your game is way way better than getting a loan, or asking some other company or investors.
I have no doubts at all it would sell and make a profit. The staged tiers just makes it look even more like that.

*
Don't you have enough money already for DG2, from DG1, or Valve on CS:GO?

We put everything we had into Defense Grid; we wanted the game to be able to reach a lot of people, and looking back we probably sold the game at too low a price. It paid for it’s cost, but not enough for us to make DG2 on our own. It takes a lot of money to make games (especially ones with 3d art instead of 2d sprites). We've been pitching it for several years but it's not f2p social (where the money is now in small games), or AAA (where the money is in big games). We still think there's enough interest to be successful, but that's what we're finding out by doing a Kickstarter.

Since Defense Grid shipped, we’ve been working for other folks who look for people who make high quality games – most recently Valve for the Counter-Strike franchise – and that has been great work that helps our team gel even further and allows us to create great game experiences, but it also isn’t going to provide enough to fund a Defense Grid 2.
 
Their description makes it seem like they couldn't get a publisher for DG2. They say that if they don't get the million funded they'll eventually make DG2 on their own dime after possibly making other games to fund it.
 
I thought the first one sold really well?

Hell I bought it twice.

Yes, the point of Kickstarter is slowly eroding...


Their description makes it seem like they couldn't get a publisher for DG2. They say that if they don't get the million funded they'll eventually make DG2 on their own dime after possibly making other games to fund it.

I don't understand how publishers fooled developers into thinking they would still need a publisher to launch on a service like Steam. Especially when the team at least had a minor hit with their previous game.. you'd think they have the funding for the dev costs of DG2.
 
Hm... on one hand, a million bucks is a lot of money.

On the other, I played the crap out of the first game and the new additions like multiplayer and a level editor sound fantastic.

Hope they can get this funded.
 

Mechazawa

Member
Surprised they wouldn't be able to fund this with all the glorious Counter Strike money they're going to be bathing in pretty soon.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Their wording for the tiers is odd, it makes it almost sound like they will withhold content if they don't get the money. I don't know.


I really want that $500k version though. I love Mutliplayer Tower Defense games.

I wonder if they are trying to hide the fact that they don't have enough money to keep on their staff though. They may need that much money to keep their entire staff long enough to finish the game. Or it is possible they need it just to pay for the license to an engine they want to use.
 

Digoman

Member
Don't know if they can hit $1 million, but even the $250k goal is good enough for me, considering how much I played the original. Now to look in Steam to see how hours was that... ok... nevermind... waaaay to much.
 

Striek

Member
I really enjoyed the first, but I'm sceptical that it wasn't successful enough to guarantee a sequel in its own right. I think they just feel that not doing a KS would be money left on the table, and they're probably right.
 

Kifimbo

Member
Hmm. Loved the first one, excited for the sequel but...why do they need money ? The first one clearly did well on PC and the XBLA version probably reached 150k. Not to mention CS:GO.
 

kswiston

Member
I have a hard time believing the first game barely broke even. Even with the large discounts. They sold over 100k on 360, and probably many times that on PC. Also, weren't they in one of the humble bundles a couple years after the initial PC release?
 

gdt

Member
I played 4 hours of the first, then it started getting hard for me, never went back. Its still on my to play list though, so I'll go back.

Everyone owns and loves this game...so odd that there isn't enough for DG2.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
I really enjoyed the first one, but I don't care how flashy your TD game is, the budget should be more in line with 6 figures (or less) than 7.

Good luck for them, hope they make it, because I'll be sure to get it for a few bucks on Steam :p
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Seems a bit high... I can see, maybe 500k. Especially since they have code they can reuse from Defense Grid.

1 Million though, for a sequel? For a Tower Defense game?
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
I don't understand this one.

Basically they are adding more content to DG1? Rather than 2, until they hit 1million?
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
I don't understand this one.

Basically they are adding more content to DG1? Rather than 2, until they hit 1million?

At 500k it sounds like they will have enough money to finish the D2 engine, and they need anther 500k to make the new content for D2.
 
So this is why the cs go updates stopped coming?
They've been bug fixing on a content lock. Not sure if that's related but sometimes it's best to double back and ensure everything is working good in development before you make more changes. Potentially they're going to go open beta soon so I'm hesitant to say this is why.
 

kswiston

Member
Next up we can kickstart sequels to other indie games that struggled to break even, such as Audiosurf and Braid. The World of Goo sequel is probably held up due to a lack of funds as well. We should fund that too.
 

Instro

Member
What did they do with all the money from the first one? That thing has surely sold a ton of copies at this point, particularly with all the steam sales over the years and its involvement in the ARG last year. This just seems like a way to get fans to pay more for the game than they want to.
 

Card Boy

Banned
What did they do with all the money from the first one? That thing has surely sold a ton of copies at this point, particularly with all the steam sales over the years and its involvement in the ARG last year. This just seems like a way to get fans to pay more for the game than they want to.

Exactly also it did really well on XBLA IIRC. The numbers seem way off to me, something is really amiss here.
 
What did they do with all the money from the first one? That thing has surely sold a ton of copies at this point, particularly with all the steam sales over the years and its involvement in the ARG last year. This just seems like a way to get fans to pay more for the game than they want to.
Maybe they sunk it into CS:GO, which hasn't paid out yet.
 

Therion

Member
I pledged as soon as I heard about this, but doesn't their policy for sending out game keys seem like a bad idea? I'm sure that many unscrupulous folks are going to take advantage of it. Or maybe those people will really like the game and want to pledge for a sequel, but I'm not too optimistic about that.
 

dLMN8R

Member
I loved the first Defense Grid but come on... a million dollars?

How much, exactly, do you think games cost to produce?

Don't just throw a number out there. Tell me how you reached that number.

Tell me the number of people you think it takes to create a game, how much it costs to employ those people, how much extra business costs add to that total, and then consider taxes, the cut of the total money Kickstarter and Amazon both take out of the total, and then how much they need to profit so that they can continue to exist in the future rather than simply breaking even.


I eagerly await your response.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
I played 4 hours of the first, then it started getting hard for me, never went back. Its still on my to play list though, so I'll go back.

Everyone owns and loves this game...so odd that there isn't enough for DG2.
More gun towers.
At 500k it sounds like they will have enough money to finish the D2 engine, and they need anther 500k to make the new content for D2.
The engine looks totally fine to me. Gimme more content for $250,000.
 

Grayman

Member
Next up we can kickstart sequels to other indie games that struggled to break even, such as Audiosurf and Braid. The World of Goo sequel is probably held up due to a lack of funds as well. We should fund that too.
I laughed. It reminds me of that time id started underground street racing to fund DOOM II.
 
Would have thought that they made more than enough for a sequel and were already working on it.

How much do you even have to pledge to get a copy of the game when it's released?
 
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