AstroZombie
Banned
Kickstarter? Yes. But the highest crowdfunded game still is Star Citizen.
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Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter by InXile [Complete; $4.3 million funded]
- Thread starter Perkel
- Start date
Kickstarter? Yes. But the highest crowdfunded game still is Star Citizen.
trab pu kcip
Member
Yeah, I feel that way also. Why not? We're getting a revitalization of both the Baldur's Gate style and the Torment style - best of both worlds. The Project Eternity team also isn't one for great use of cliche so I don't doubt Eternity will be off-kilter in its own way despite leaning more traditional fantasy.
charlequin
Banned
This can't be overstated. Tides of Numenera -- which, again, is now the most highly-funded videogame Kickstarter ever -- attracted only 75,000 backers, at an average pledge of $56. That's revenue equivalent to the sales of, at best, an ultra-niche RPG title released through traditional means. (In comparison, a hundred people bought a Dragon Age game for every person who backed Torment.)
SquiddyCracker
Banned
The question is, will these Kickstarter CRPGs compare (in terms of quality, polish, length, etc) to ultra-niche RPG titles released today through traditional means?
yeah it's actually science fantasy, they got a name for that shit
Ah, yeah, that's the term I was looking for.
Oh, and here is your new avatar:
trab pu kcip
Member
like what?
Sentenza
Gold Member
Exactly.
I don't think the comparison between a full-flegded retail title with a large EA-driven marketing budget behind it and a 2-years-away-from-release classic RPG on a niche crowdfunding site is apt. There are too many differences between the two.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Pretty much.
I guess without these kickstarters, we just wouldn't have these games in this day and age.
Yet they certainly get a much higher percentage of these purchases than ones going through publishers and retailers. It's true majority of sales will be outside of KS though, even among gaffers there are those who would not risk pledging to a product that isn't proven.
We might have them, but they might go more in the way of Dragon Age 2: Shit Mountain and less the kind of "this is the creators' imaginations/skills set free of the chains of upper managment, no watered down, focus tested mass market crap" that Kickstarter is supposed to be about.
The idea appears to be that it's set so far into the future that their technology is more or less indistinguishable from magic. Reminds me of Dying Earth settings, just without the angle that the Earth/universe is about to end from old age.
Probably the ONLY examples are JRPGs, which is kind of like trying to compare Street Fighter with Smash Brothers as fighting games. The closest you're going to get on the JRPG side actually matching WRPGs are games like Etrian Odyssey, and that's just going back to the roots of the genre rather than what most of us REALLY want to see more of, the kind of design we were seeing in the latter half of the 90s and early 2000s.
trab pu kcip
Member
The question is, will these Kickstarter CRPGs compare (in terms of quality, polish, length, etc) to ultra-niche RPG titles released today through traditional means?
Ah, yeah, that's the term I was looking for.
Oh, and here is your new avatar:
what? I thought I should go back to my old one? I also really liked the mccomb cult idea, but okay you're the boss ;P
Z
ZombieFred
Unconfirmed Member
Pretty hyped now for this and I am glad I backed this project. I decided to play PS Torment on Friday (never got passed the beginning years back) and only just finished it now, managing to complete a lot and only missing a few side quests. The journey was incredible and the ending was quite the powerful touch when it come to the dialogue "What changes the nature of man?" It was kind of odd finishing it and thinking how much it reminded me of The Dark Tower in some aspects (in a good way because it's my favorite fictional universe). This is my most anticipated game of 2014
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I couldn't find the old one, but figured this would be hilarious.
and very confusing
trab pu kcip
Member
I couldn't find the old one, but figured this would be hilarious.
and very confusing
you're right, I already like it
I feels like I'm undercover & everything I say is going to fall back at you now. time to enthuse about mass effect 3 somewhere.
you're right, I already like it
time to enthuse about mass effect 3 somewhere.
Squiddy talks to himself. MADNESS
Shake Appeal
Member
And Numenera can surely expect at least a modest amount of post-release sales from the kind of people who don't obsessively scour the Internet for news of crowd-sourced dork RPGs from the '90s.
trab pu kcip
Member
that's what happens if you choose the silver tide.
I'm just the gold & indigo good guy side in him that's rebelling right now.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I'm proudly going silver!
Its basically sci-fi fantasy as it is set in a world that has gone through nine civilizations rising and falling after each other. The Numenera world is currently in their version of the medieval era while finding ancient artifacts from the long dead civilizations (the artifacts being called Numenera) that they use for their daily life. Bizarre creatures exists that are remnants, either mutated experiments or a result of weird evolutions. Ancient machines still following their protocols roam the world like for example giant storms made of nano robots that tear asunder everything they come across. It was this setting that made me pledge for the Numenera PnP RPG and had me really damn excited that there would be a sprititual Torment sequel set in Numenera.
yeah it's actually science fantasy, they got a name for that shit
Are you guys familiar with Storm? It's a an old comic series and set in a post-apocalyptic world. Lots of crazy stories centered around ancient death machines, fighting robots with swords and stuff like that. Pretty cool.
trab pu kcip
Member
woah never heard if it, looks awesome though.
if you think about it shadowrun is pretty much like this too. it takes familiar fantasy elements and traditional classes and transfers them into a futuristic blade runner-esque setting. so it's also a mix-up.
Yeah, Shadowrun is cyberpunk with elves and trolls. I've played a little Shadowrun p&p, it was fun, but I think I prefer classic fantasy.
trab pu kcip
Member
yeah that's like the main concept behind it but it just occured to me that it's actually kinda true that there are no "real" upcoming sci-fi CRPGs in the traditional sense. it's all mashed up.
I don't mind at all though, but since it has been mentioned etc.
charlequin
Banned
That's the entire point. I'm comparing how many different people actually engage with the crowdfunding campaigns for games like this to how many people buy completed games from big publishers, with big budgets, off the shelf. As Tuco was saying, the audience that crowdfunds these projects is always going to be extremely niche.
Shadowrun is the opposite, it's a sci-fi setting with trappings of fantasy sprinkled in to give a unique texture. Numenara is more like Earthdawn, the fantasy equivalent of Shadowrun, which is a fantasy world with sci-fi trappings sprinkled in.
(Which makes me think how awesome an Earthdawn RPG would be....)
trab pu kcip
Member
yeah I know, I was referring to the mentioned storm comic, since it's a sci-fi setting that also uses fantasy elements.
the games we discuss here are all mix-ups though, that's what they all have in common compared to something like project eternity e.g.
Sentenza
Gold Member
Well, my point actually wasn't strictly about belittling these games comparing them with "triple A products".
It was more about stressing that they have probably yet to reach the largest part of their potential fanbase (i.e. people willing to purchase these titles as soon as they pop out on GOG or on the Steam Store's page).
In other words: I'm betting that [some of] these games will eventually make very good money once released to the public.
Certainly. If we were judging these Kickstarter campaigns solely in terms of the number of distinct people supporting them financially, they'd be huge failures.
But they are ultimately funded owing to their relatively low budgets, and individual backer averages often hovering around $50 or $60 for the major ones. And it just means the potential amount of sales is fairly decent, due in part as you noted to the number of people who are fans of the genre who don't dig Kickstarter and are waiting for the game to come out.
It's going to be interesting to see just how well these big Kickstarter games are able to do in sales after release.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I think these games will actually do quite well just on word-of-mouth alone.
Maybe they'll pull in some publishers once the games are out to get some extra advertising, without having to worry about the publishers ruining their creative vision.
Maybe they'll pull in some publishers once the games are out to get some extra advertising, without having to worry about the publishers ruining their creative vision.
trab pu kcip
Member
mh that's going to be interesting to follow indeed. I think WL2 & PE might have the best potential to do so, simply because they seem to be the most "generic" (not in a bad way) + the other titles are bound even stronger to prior video- and p&p games and naturally their fanbase will be a bit more limited. or let's use the term exclusive
The good thing about crowd sourcing is that the developer, if they planned carefully and stay within budget, has no risk involved and the release will bring in only additional money for future projects and will easily cover marketing and distribution. The essential difference in comparison to a normal publisher is that crowd sourcing most of the time exceed the initial goal by far. If they'd have found a publisher they'd have got 900k and that's it. Now they have over 4 million to make the game, which will cover any problems they will run into and have the leniency to actually release the game "when it's done" rather than "when the time's up".
SquiddyCracker
Banned
This is the major benefit with the KS model.
exmachina64
Banned
Shin Megami Tensei, other Atlus titles.
Sentenza
Gold Member
JRPGs are an entirely different thing, in a different market, mostly on different platforms.
charlequin
Banned
Right, I agree with you. I wasn't trying to belittle them either, just trying to really honestly establish the scope. Kickstarter is a great way to raise money for these kinds of projects but it has a far smaller target audience than, say, Steam does. I wouldn't be surprised if a game like Torment could easily triple its "sell-through" over the first year of release.
Arh, I misunderstood you then. I thought you meant that the genre of the game itself was ultra-niche regardless of distribution methods and marketing channels, and that even putting it on Steam and other high-exposure distribution channels wouldn't make a difference in terms of sales.
If the game is good, if it is promoted through Steam's deals and release banners, if there's plenty of good word-of-mouth, I definitely see how especially high-profile Kickstarters like Torment 2 and Project Eternity can sell a lot of digital copies, possibly around ~1 million units each.
Spiderweb's stuff. Although those go a layer more old-fashioned again, having more in common with middle-trilogy Ultima than Baldur's Gate.
Brother None
Member
Yeesh. That's way too much for us, haha
Like Brian mentioned in an recent Forbes interview, if we'd want to ballpark a "smash hit", it'd be something like 200K sales at full or near-full price. Not quite what publishers aim for, is it, haha, but since it's self-distributed, you'd have to think 100K such sales already surpass the profit margin of the money we raised with the WL2 Kickstarter.We haven't set any hard targets yet so I'm just ballparking and spitballing. It's not like we really *need* sales with the game's budget done and the next game's budget done, but there are levels at which you could call it a smash hit, and they're way lower than what you'd think of for a publisher.
Sentenza
Gold Member
While I appreciate that you guys aren't going in this with inflated expectations, I'm going ot insist that in a market where legend of Grimrock can achieve 600K sales, it's not out of the question that "high profile" crowdfunded products like Wastelands 2, Project Eternity and Torment could aim for a million sales, if they turn out good and visually appealing enough in the end.Yeesh. That's way too much for us, haha
We haven't set any hard targets yet so I'm just ballparking and spitballing. It's not like we really *need* sales with the game's budget done and the next game's budget done, but there are levels at which you could call it a smash hit, and they're way lower than what you'd think of for a publisher.
On a side note, let me suggest your next project: a Darklands remake.
Yeesh. That's way too much for us, haha
Notice the 3 conditionals of my suggested sales target.
We have till end of April for paypal backers to raise the missing funds.
Read their last update.
They will accept pledges including their rewards via paypal until the end of april. If it will reach 4.5million up to then, they'll include the last stretch goal as well.
Basileus777
Member
Paypal reaching 320k isn't going to happen anyway.
exmachina64
Banned
Brother None
Member
I don't know how much that Grimrock sales figure really means tho. It's a habit in the games industry to just announce number of copies sold which is a relatively meaningless measure of success unless it also notes "at or near full-price". Bargain bin or humble bundle style-sales aren't too meaningful. If we're talking years in the future after multiple crazy Steam sales and the like then sure, they can reach a million sales, but a lot of those won't be too meaningful to the bottom line.
Do want, tho to me that kinda feels like something JE Sawyer should take charge of. He's the biggest Darklands fan I know.