NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Further giving up control of the IP, which allegedly people said was the point of the KS to begin with.
So, no.. thank you!
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Republique Kickstarter by Ryan Payton - NOW FOR PC AND MAC! [Ended, $555K funded]
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Further giving up control of the IP, which allegedly people said was the point of the KS to begin with.
So, no.. thank you!
Ignis Fatuus
Banned
You either have the rights to the IP or you don't. Your new premise, no less silly than the old, is that any outside funding means surrendering the IP, in which case there would have been no use for the Kickstarter to begin with considering that they always said they would be making up the other half of the budget with venture capital. When you are capable of realizing that not all business offers are created equal, you may complain about tagquotes.
Pretty much.
Except that the budget for the DoubleFine Adventure wasn't 3 million dollars, it was $400,000. Their initially meager goal could have been amassed through means other than Kickstarter. It's great that their expectations have been exceeded and they will be able to make a better game than proposed, but I don't see the point in pretending that the game would not have happened without Kickstarter.
DoubleFine has 65 employees -- if they can't put together 400K of their own money in a snap, they are in pretty deep trouble.
The game that will be made wouldn't have been possible without Kickstarter. Yes, they could have made a cheap game on their own. Most people use DFA as an example of people raising money for a game that will rival the old Lucasarts adventures in scope and budget, not for a $273,000 (after expenses for the documentary and Kickstarter and Amazon's cut), low-budget adventure game.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
It was sarcasm. I thought the whole theory of IP control as a reason to KS was BS to begin with. Others said it, not me. I have brought up the point of the outside VC's bringing in half the money to begin with, then Payton said the game will be made regardless of KS success.
What I am confused about is your connection to this project, as you seem to have a much greater interest in it than just a fan. Between this and the Hodapp thread, you appear to have an agenda to get this funded, and defending it to no end.
This is just a curiosity to me, post DF-Kickstarter projects. This whole Republique KS has seemed like a giant social experiment to see if they can fund something just to see if they can fund it.
Sure! All they'd need is for every last employee to agree to take home 7k less from their paycheque for the year. I'm sure that'd be dead simple.
In which case, you're... agreeing with his point?
Ignis Fatuus
Banned
Guess the Kickstarter. Hint: It's not Republique.
Why am I defending the PC version? Because I spent the first half of this thread bitching at Ryan for a PC version and he delivered. Do you want me to turn around and walk away, thus sated? Would seem like a dick move to me.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
So do you work for Kickstarter?
I kid, but seriously.. do you?
I have no problem really with the PC version, if it was from over-funding or there to start.
I kid, but seriously.. do you?
I have no problem really with the PC version, if it was from over-funding or there to start.
You realize that you were one of the people "crying about" the lack of a PC version, and very vehemently insisting that the project would have no trouble reaching its goal if only they announced one...
If the total budget rises with the addition of a PC version with extra content (which it will), and the percentage of that budget derived from outside funding increases accordingly, it's reasonable to ask if they're going to sacrifice more than they'd originally planned. Ryan et al haven't been clear about that.
Ignis Fatuus
Banned
I never said that, I said it would've had no trouble if they had put it on PC to begin with.
No. I would love to though. I am indeed a big believer in crowdsourced funding.
And Schafer said they were about to layoff some people because of lack of funds.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
I kind of look at the DF KS as we've wanted to do this, but we could do something else.. but fuck it let's put it on KS and let the fans choose... and did they ever.
I disagree with that, but I did misremember your posts, so apologies for that.
Tim Scahefer says no, they couldn't. I'll take his word over yours.
Which would mean Kickstarter is about getting a bigger budget for games that have small budget......not about making an impossible game possible. I am fine with that, but the poster I initially responded to claimed that Kickstarter is only for games that wouldn't get made otherwise (and that using it for another purpose is disingenuous).
It's clear that KickStarter has other purposes and is not always a make-or-break thing. Some people will use it to make a game better (DoubleFine). Some people will use it to let them finish the game faster (Grim Dawn). Some people will use it to retain creative control (Republique). Some will use it for all of the above.
I'm not talking about taking it out of everyone's salary. I'm just saying that with 65 employees you probably ought to have enough operating capital to cover a small-scale project like this.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Tim Shafer maybe could've gotten the funding for an adventure game, maybe not. But in the end, he is Tim Shafer. Who the hell is Ryan Payton? I don't mean that literally - I know who he is, obviously. But I mean, he's not Tim Shafer. MGS4 was the worst MGS game by a mile - not necessarily due to his contributions, but it is. He bailed on Halo 4. I am sure he had good reasons, but he still bailed on it.
I don't know why I should be giving this guy my money to make sure he has control of his IP. I've said from day one if they think the market for iOS games is so great they should've just made a game and proven it. Next time around they would have a fanbase willing to throw in for a Kickstarter, guaranteed. It just seems like these guys are trying to do a shortcut here by taking advantage of well-meaning gamers. I don't like it.
I don't know why I should be giving this guy my money to make sure he has control of his IP. I've said from day one if they think the market for iOS games is so great they should've just made a game and proven it. Next time around they would have a fanbase willing to throw in for a Kickstarter, guaranteed. It just seems like these guys are trying to do a shortcut here by taking advantage of well-meaning gamers. I don't like it.
No, the game they are making would be impossible without Kickstarter. It's not a bigger budget version of the same game. The budget is over 10x the original game. They were going to do a cheap 20-room game with no voice acting, under $300k budget, to be spit out by the Fall. It's now going to be over $3 million, fully voiced, and on the same scope gamewise as Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Curse of Monkey Island, etc. That was an impossible game to make.
But games that are possible with a larger budget are not possible with a smaller budget. Reducing a budget means cutting stuff means a different game.
Dreams-Visions
Member
29 hours to get $125k.
naaaaaaaah
naaaaaaaah
Yeah, in retrospect that was a really dumb thing for me to say. The money's *for* to people's salaries, they'd be taking money out to pay themselves. Brainfart, sorry.
Nevertheless: Assume they self-fund. They have to lay people off, because they were going to have to do that anyway; they're not getting an influx of money to compensate for it. Since they're working on DFA, they can't take projects from other sources, so there's going to be hardly any money coming into the coffers - just whatever comes from various royalty deals - until DFA actually starts *selling*. And then if it's a flop, the company is dead.
That's not exactly a small risk.
It'd require a massive final spike. That said, Starlight: Inception made $50k in the last 24 hours, and this is higher-profile. I don't think it's impossible, but I do think it's unlikely.
The project, as initially pitched, is still "disingenuous" as defined by the post I responded to ....it was a game that could have been made with more traditional funding. It became something else over the course of the Kickstarter, obviously.
I guess I don't get how you can call Camoflaj's Republique disingenuous when there are established developers with published games on shelves and dozens of employees asking for what amounts to pennies in the game development world. DoubleFine has a revenue stream from their stuff on Steam and XBLA.....and probably still sees money from Sesame Street at retail. By comparison, Camoflaj probably staffs less than 12-20 and has no revenue coming in from their catalog of titles. Their KickStarter is far more "make or break" than DoubleFine's.
Are you talking about "make or break" in the sense of the game being made? They've been fairly transparent in saying that the game will be made regardless of Kickstarter. DoubleFine was planning on laying people off, and their latest major titles were basically financial failures. I don't think they were in any position to self-fund a 2D adventure game on a lark. Especially not one of the scale and scope of the one that they are making now.
Camoflaj have said they'll pursue other avenues of funding if the KickStarter fails....I don't think anyone has said that it's definitely getting made. If DoubleFine didn't get the money up front or have a publisher I don't know if it would have been a good idea to self-fund, but I think they could have (assuming the initial budget was probably below the 400K they asked for).
I still gotta imagine that they could have struck a deal with an online store for a limited exclusivity period, or co-funded it with a company like TellTale that knows there's money in adventure games.....if they were that committed to the idea of a new point-and-click adventure.
I still gotta imagine that they could have struck a deal with an online store for a limited exclusivity period, or co-funded it with a company like TellTale that knows there's money in adventure games.....if they were that committed to the idea of a new point-and-click adventure.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
They had something, they quit their jobs to form this studio before they got the idea of KS.
They said it in one of their first interviews. They've been developing the game for the past 6 months.
The point of the DoubleFine Kickstarter is that they are making a game with a scope and budget that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
civilstrife
Member
Question:
What exactly would stop one of the developers from ponying up the last 100k or so himself and then just have the company pay him back afterward and not get caught because kickstarter provides absolutely no accountability to backers?
What exactly would stop one of the developers from ponying up the last 100k or so himself and then just have the company pay him back afterward and not get caught because kickstarter provides absolutely no accountability to backers?
But only after the fact are they doing this, and only because contributions exceeded the initial budget by a great magnitude. The project as proposed could have been made anyway, though at much greater risk.
Payton has always said they have plans for funding beyond the KickStarter, but nothing is guaranteed. Do you think DoubleFine would have just abandoned their adventure game if it hadn't made the goal?
They also could have made a sequel to Brutal Legend written in PASCAL, but they wouldn't. Tim has made it clear this project existed because of kickstarter. Without any money from that, this project would not have happened and he would have had to lay people off. Now we can dream of a world of infinite possibilities, but what you keep trying to state as fact belongs in fantasy land.
I think this is against Kickstarter TOS if they get caught.
I think the only thing that would stop something like this would be that the person cannot acquire said $100k.
edit:
Just jumped a bunch. Like $13k or so in the past hour.
Doublesith
Member
It's getting very weird indeed. I sure hope that all of the gaming press people actively publicizing this abstain from reviewing the final product.
Vyse The Legend
Member
Yeah, it has accelerated quite a bit. It may make it, but if it slows at all, it will probably fall short.
Someone just pledged $10k.
Yes, they would not be making the current game if the Kickstarter failed. The scope of the project changed that very first day when they reached $400k in less than 9 hours. There were 9 hours when the Kickstarter was focused on making a sub-$300k title, and the rest of the month was focused on getting it to be a big budget adventure. If they couldn't reach $400k in 30 days, why would a company struggling with funds concentrate their efforts on an unprofitable genre with an original IP? Their whole premise is that they wanted people to prove that there still is a willing audience for 2d point and click adventures. If it failed to make $400,000 on Kickstarter, we will not be seeing the game they are now making, nor would they self-fund a $400k budget game that couldn't garner enough interest in a month of Kickstarter. Would the game they are currently making be possible without Kickstarter? I don't see any scenario where they would raise a budget larger than Grim Fandango. Backers gave 10x more money and continued pledging after it reached its goal because they wanted to see a game like Grim Fandango.
Payton has been clear from the Kickstarter and the first interview that the funding is to get them to retain IP ownership. He's had fundraising meetings already after the Kickstarter was launched. His first interview said the game was definitely getting made even if the Kickstarter failed.
kruis
Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
What would happen if someone from the team or an investor would put up the remaining amount in order to reach $500,000? The Kickstart Project would be funded after all, they can collect almost all of the pledged money immediately after the deadline and retain more control of the Republique game.
1) A single investor can only donate at most $10k.
2) It's against KS's TOS; if they get caught, things go bad.
Embarassing realisation: I've not actually backed it yet! I could have sworn I had; I must have got halfway through then done something else.
Holy shit! Haven't checked in on this in a while because it looked pretty doomed when the mac/pc thing got it to 100k and then it started crawling again. Looks like they might actually do it now. Going to be close though. Imagine how brutal it would be if they only hit like 495k and didn't get any of it. Really hope they make it!
Father_Brain
Banned
Getting a much bigger boost than I expected. It's going to be well over 400K by tomorrow, so it might actually have a decent shot.
Dog Problems
Banned
I haven't had my eye on this in over a week or so and had no idea it jumped up this high. Wow, never thought it'd happen. I'm hoping it makes it.
I think if it looks like it's on the edge, that'll push a number of people on the fence into backing.
I have no scientific evidence to back this, but I've been on the fence about a couple of Kickstarters which I helped push over when it looked like they were hanging on the precipice.
And on that note, they just zipped over $400k!
I have no scientific evidence to back this, but I've been on the fence about a couple of Kickstarters which I helped push over when it looked like they were hanging on the precipice.
And on that note, they just zipped over $400k!
blahblah...blah
Member
What I really don't like about projects like this is that they could just as easily have budgeted the game at $500,000, set a target of $600,000, and basically kept most of the surplus. As people have raised in this thread: if they can afford the voice talents of Hale and Hayter ("oh they were on board already but we totally didn't announce it until a week in, oops!)" and to create a Mac / PC version for no extra money, they clearly set the target too high in the first place.
Kickstarter seems like an absolutely fantastic way, provided your product can be digitally distributed and doesn't have variable costs in the way that physical items do, to basically scam money out of people.
Kickstarter seems like an absolutely fantastic way, provided your product can be digitally distributed and doesn't have variable costs in the way that physical items do, to basically scam money out of people.
B_Rik_Schitthaus
Banned
I donated a day or two ago... it's going to make it.
The 500k (aprox) from the KS isn't the only funding going into this game.