Project Eternity, developed by Obsidian Entertainment Kickstart for those interested.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity

Project Eternity is an isometric, party-based computer RPG set in a new fantasy world developed by Obsidian Entertainment.


Obsidian Entertainment and our legendary game designers Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, and Josh Sawyer are excited to bring you a new role-playing game for the PC. Project Eternity (working title) pays homage to the great Infinity Engine games of years past: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment.
Project Eternity aims to recapture the magic, imagination, depth, and nostalgia of classic RPG's that we enjoyed making - and playing. At Obsidian, we have the people responsible for many of those classic games and we want to bring those games back… and that’s why we’re here - we need your help to make it a reality!

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1716423


A bit over 2 hours left.

Whoof... just got my $20 backing in. 1 left!

Chipped in. Did my part. Gogo.

Give them $20, they pocket Millions.

bigdogchris said:

Give them $20, they pocket Millions.

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They are professionals and this is their own IP ... I think we can expect them to deliver a quality product that meets the backers expectations ... and if they make a profit doing that ... who cares ... this is America ... not Communist Russia

Profit means they can invest in more games also, etc..

bigdogchris said:

Give them $20, they pocket Millions.

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That's why I pledged.

bigdogchris said:

Give them $20, they pocket Millions.

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You know, if the demand for the game is clearly as high as it is, that's just further proof that crowd-funding was completely unnecessary. I stand by my belief that they should have used the normal project funding channels rather than emotionally manipulating gamers into donating and subsidizing their financial risk.

Daggah said:

You know, if the demand for the game is clearly as high as it is, that's just further proof that crowd-funding was completely unnecessary. I stand by my belief that they should have used the normal project funding channels rather than emotionally manipulating gamers into donating and subsidizing their financial risk.

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And what makes you think they didn't try traditional methods? Name me one publisher that has the ability to take a million dollar + advertising cost risk and would actually do it without forcing Obsidian to sell the IP or do it at all? Sure you can look at the numbers now and say "see? There is a market" but that's now, not however many months/years ago they started working on the concept. Now Obsidian has complete control over their game and don't have to deal with the whims of publishers who they have not had terribly good experiences with. Outside of Sega and SquareEnix (as far as we know) everyone else they've worked with has fucked them over.

You know, if the demand for the game is clearly as high as it is, that's just further proof that crowd-funding was completely unnecessary. I stand by my belief that they should have used the normal project funding channels rather than emotionally manipulating gamers into donating and subsidizing their financial risk.

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Penny Arcade had a nice video explaining the advantages of crowdfunding over the other means ... http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/crowdfunding ... in this case there are several detriments to normal publisher funding

1. They would lose their IP to the publisher ... publishers who hand out millions still expect even bigger returns

2. If you think 76,000 consumers is a lot you don't understand the projects that publishers want to fund ... they want projects with millions of consumers ... not a few hundred thousand

3. Publishers have shafted Obsidian on their previous efforts ... they have given them lower payouts for failing to hit stretch goals (including mega critic results and sales targets) ... this probably makes them a little gunshy

There are also distinct advantages to the crowd funding model:

A. They have more control of their project and communication on the project

B. We as donators have access to more information on the game and for those that chose the option, to help them with testing

If you don't like KS or this project then no one breaks down your door to take your money. Why do you care what others want to spend their money on? Also, there is nothing wrong with having some higher budget KS games. Although there are some great Indie games that do cost $50K or $100K to make, they are rarely comparable to a big AAA title. Having a few BIG KS projects is probably good for KS and definitely good for gamers who want to see some high profile high quality titles.

Small devs and indie houses have done fine before crowd-funding ripoffs became a thing, so clearly Obsidian could have done just fine without it too.

Publishers investing money and expecting a return? Go figure, that's how it's supposed to work.

Daggah said:

Small devs and indie houses have done fine before crowd-funding ripoffs became a thing, so clearly Obsidian could have done just fine without it too.

Publishers investing money and expecting a return? Go figure, that's how it's supposed to work.

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I didn't say it shouldn't ... however, the easiest way to maximize profit in a down economy (especially one where all the publishers are suffering) is to avoid risk ... a old style 2D isometric RPG like what Obsidian proposed is nothing but risk (from their standpoint) ... any major publisher would be crazy to sign up for a project like this

As to whether Obsidian should have used their own money, I don't know if they have 4 Mil in the bank to devote to one project (I suspect they do not) ... but that is a lot of money for most businesses ... at least this way they have tens of thousands of sales and the potential for more as the donators can become evangelists for the title on the web

You clearly don't feel the need to support crowdfunding ... there is absolutely nothing wrong with that ... the question is, why do you care that someone else does ... it doesn't take any money out of your pocket

Daggah said:

Small devs and indie houses have done fine before crowd-funding ripoffs became a thing, so clearly Obsidian could have done just fine without it too.

Publishers investing money and expecting a return? Go figure, that's how it's supposed to work.

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Indie games don't cost over a million dollars to make either. You are using strawman arguments and not remotely supporting your case at all. Your entire "point" boils down to "WHAA! I don't like crowdsource and no one else should too! WHAA!!" It is incredibly sad and pathetic.

Derangel said:

Indie games don't cost over a million dollars to make either. You are using strawman arguments and not remotely supporting your case at all. Your entire "point" boils down to "WHAA! I don't like crowdsource and no one else should too! WHAA!!" It is incredibly sad and pathetic.

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Maybe Daggah works for a publisher or no one funded his KS project

Seriously, though, I think this does highlight an opportunity for a really forward looking company ... one of the bigger PC supporting companies (Intel, NVidia, Microsoft, etc) who has a lot of cash reserves could use this focus on smaller independent projects to establish their own Angel Funding mechanism

They could create an account with several hundred million or something ... a drop in the bucket for some of these companies that are sitting on billions in cash reserves ... they could then allow applications for these projects from 100K to 4-5 Mil ... they could grant the money to applications they deem worthy and get prominent placement on the developer website and game splash screens in return (maybe a small cut of the profits, say 10% or something) ... if they target developers that will focus on their platforms they could get some nice games out that help their sales and market position ... it would be a pretty strategic investment but it might pay off tremendously

Daggah said:

Small devs and indie houses have done fine before crowd-funding ripoffs became a thing, so clearly Obsidian could have done just fine without it too.

Publishers investing money and expecting a return? Go figure, that's how it's supposed to work.

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This bullshit again, go ahead and list the small devs and indie houses that are doing "just fine."

I do agree that prepaying $20-25 for a new game is practically ripping off the developer.

kbrickley said:

Maybe Daggah works for a publisher or no one funded his KS project

Seriously, though, I think this does highlight an opportunity for a really forward looking company ... one of the bigger PC supporting companies (Intel, NVidia, Microsoft, etc) who has a lot of cash reserves could use this focus on smaller independent projects to establish their own Angel Funding mechanism

They could create an account with several hundred million or something ... a drop in the bucket for some of these companies that are sitting on billions in cash reserves ... they could then allow applications for these projects from 100K to 4-5 Mil ... they could grant the money to applications they deem worthy and get prominent placement on the developer website and game splash screens in return (maybe a small cut of the profits, say 10% or something) ... if they target developers that will focus on their platforms they could get some nice games out that help their sales and market position ... it would be a pretty strategic investment but it might pay off tremendously

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Well I wouldn't trust Intel with that. Not after Project Offset.

kbrickley said:

I didn't say it shouldn't ... however, the easiest way to maximize profit in a down economy (especially one where all the publishers are suffering) is to avoid risk ... a old style 2D isometric RPG like what Obsidian proposed is nothing but risk (from their standpoint) ... any major publisher would be crazy to sign up for a project like this

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Clearly not, because clearly there's a demand for it.

As to whether Obsidian should have used their own money, I don't know if they have 4 Mil in the bank to devote to one project (I suspect they do not) ... but that is a lot of money for most businesses ... at least this way they have tens of thousands of sales and the potential for more as the donators can become evangelists for the title on the web

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I don't care if they have 4 million in the bank or not. Businesses have found ways to generate startup costs before. Why does the responsibility for funding the risk now suddenly have to fall on us gamers? We shouldn't be subsidizing risk for a company, especially when commercial success for the project will send them laughing all the way to the bank. That's not how capitalism is supposed to work.

You clearly don't feel the need to support crowdfunding ... there is absolutely nothing wrong with that ... the question is, why do you care that someone else does ... it doesn't take any money out of your pocket

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Because it's monetizing one of the last bastions gaming has for the idea of games being created purely for their artistic and creative value. Before crowd-sourcing, indie games were our last hope for games being created for the sake of creating a game itself. Now, with kickstarter, even that is dead. Even indie games are now about money. Crowd-funding has driven the final nail in that coffin. So thanks a lot for furthering the corruption of the gaming industry.

Clearly not, because clearly there's a demand for it.

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A demand of at least 100,000 ... that is nothing to a publisher ... D3 which everyone seems to want to whine about sold millions of copies on day one ... the big AAA titles (Battlefield, CoD, GTA, etc) sell millions of copies ... as much as I love the Baldur's Gate style RPG it would be a stretch to sell a million copies of a game like that ... the RPG genre just doesn't have mass appeal and the few that have tried to gain mass appeal (Elder Scrolls, etc) have had to make compromises to do so ... it would be nice to see a game without these compromises

I don't care if they have 4 million in the bank or not. Businesses have found ways to generate startup costs before. Why does the responsibility for funding the risk now suddenly have to fall on us gamers? We shouldn't be subsidizing risk for a company, especially when commercial success for the project will send them laughing all the way to the bank. That's not how capitalism is supposed to work.

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So a shareholder subsidizing risk is acceptable (that is how the stock market works and that is absolutely PURE capitalism) but individuals donating funds to a company so they will produce a niche product that appeals to them is wrong ... if we were requiring people to donate to these or using public (aka government) money to fund these I could see your issue ... people used to do these microfunding ventures all the time before ... they just weren't so organized or such large scale ... since I can't pick and choose what games most Indies or publishers will choose to make normally, I don't mind using my own personal dollars to encourage development of a project that I like ... I don't mind skipping projects that don't appeal to me and let other folks fund those either

Because it's monetizing one of the last bastions gaming has for the idea of games being created purely for their artistic and creative value. Before crowd-sourcing, indie games were our last hope for games being created for the sake of creating a game itself. Now, with kickstarter, even that is dead. Even indie games are now about money. Crowd-funding has driven the final nail in that coffin. So thanks a lot for furthering the corruption of the gaming industry.

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And you still have that independence ... if someone wants to code out of their den and make a low budget indie project, they can still do that ... I think the opportunity that Crowd-funding opens up is that a developer who couldn't afford to make the project he wanted or had a medium size project (too big to do on their own but too small to interest publishers) now has a venue to make this type project ... to me that is only good for gaming ...

if the game studios were more like the movie studios we wouldn't need this ... a movie studio likes to make the big blockbusters that will be low risk and high profit ... however, they will use some of the profits from those cookie cutter projects to help fund higher risk projects or niche projects with more artistic appeal ... the game studios do not do this ...

if you want to go small there are still opportunities for the small developer to do a project and release it themselves (or through Project Greenlight) ... if you want to go big and mainstream there are still lots of publishers who will give you money ... now with KS there is an opportunity for the company that wants to go medium and provide a quality product for a niche audience ... WIN-WIN in my book ... I get a potentially good game that I will love to play ... the publisher gets to make a game they are interested in that might not otherwise be made ... nothing wrong with that in my book

kbrickley said:

A demand of at least 100,000 ... that is nothing to a publisher ... D3 which everyone seems to want to whine about sold millions of copies on day one ... the big AAA titles (Battlefield, CoD, GTA, etc) sell millions of copies ... as much as I love the Baldur's Gate style RPG it would be a stretch to sell a million copies of a game like that ... the RPG genre just doesn't have mass appeal and the few that have tried to gain mass appeal (Elder Scrolls, etc) have had to make compromises to do so ... it would be nice to see a game without these compromises

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Quit insisting that the only publishers out there are the mega-size ones.

So a shareholder subsidizing risk is acceptable (that is how the stock market works and that is absolutely PURE capitalism) but individuals donating funds to a company so they will produce a niche product that appeals to them is wrong ... if we were requiring people to donate to these or using public (aka government) money to fund these I could see your issue ... people used to do these microfunding ventures all the time before ... they just weren't so organized or such large scale ... since I can't pick and choose what games most Indies or publishers will choose to make normally, I don't mind using my own personal dollars to encourage development of a project that I like ... I don't mind skipping projects that don't appeal to me and let other folks fund those either

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It's not an investment, it's a donation. You don't get shit for this game being successful other than getting the game. Guess what? I can do that too. And I don't have to put any money at risk in some kind of ridiculous pre-preorder to do it, either.

And you still have that independence ... if someone wants to code out of their den and make a low budget indie project, they can still do that ... I think the opportunity that Crowd-funding opens up is that a developer who couldn't afford to make the project he wanted or had a medium size project (too big to do on their own but too small to interest publishers) now has a venue to make this type project ... to me that is only good for gaming ...

if the game studios were more like the movie studios we wouldn't need this ... a movie studio likes to make the big blockbusters that will be low risk and high profit ... however, they will use some of the profits from those cookie cutter projects to help fund higher risk projects or niche projects with more artistic appeal ... the game studios do not do this ...

if you want to go small there are still opportunities for the small developer to do a project and release it themselves (or through Project Greenlight) ... if you want to go big and mainstream there are still lots of publishers who will give you money ... now with KS there is an opportunity for the company that wants to go medium and provide a quality product for a niche audience ... WIN-WIN in my book ... I get a potentially good game that I will love to play ... the publisher gets to make a game they are interested in that might not otherwise be made ... nothing wrong with that in my book

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And again you simply make the mistake of assuming that the only publishers out there are the mega-publishers like EA and Activision. Your argument relies on that being correct, but it's not. Games of all scopes have been made over the last three decades, none of them with crowd-funding. But now Kickstarter is a fad and all of a sudden it's either mega-publisher, crowd-funding, or basement-dweller indie titles? Bullshit. Get fucking real.

Because it's monetizing one of the last bastions gaming has for the idea of games being created purely for their artistic and creative value. Before crowd-sourcing, indie games were our last hope for games being created for the sake of creating a game itself. Now, with kickstarter, even that is dead. Even indie games are now about money. Crowd-funding has driven the final nail in that coffin. So thanks a lot for furthering the corruption of the gaming industry.

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One additional note ... KS games can still and often will be made for the sake of the game ... yes, Obsidian is a bigger developer and will try to turn a profit on this ... but if they stay within the budget they are given from the KS folks they won't lose money even if they don't ... that does give them a lot more flexibility to make a game for the sake of gaming rather than for other rationale

If you looked at the video link I provided earlier they actually did a good job summarizing the difference of the different funding type:

- Publisher is all about the profit, they want mass appeal, they want to avoid controversy, they might want product placement or structures that facilitate expansions or DLC (high profit elements for them) ... they are almost certainly going to want full rights to the IP and final authority on many design and product decisions ... in return for this they can fund projects that cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars

- Venture Capitalists are about increasing the value of the company so that it can be sold or go public ... they also fear controversy and like projects with mass appeal ... they also want certain types of projects that might give the company more value or perceived value

- Crowdfunding is all about the game ... if the developer actually gives an accurate assessment of his development costs and receives that money he should be able to develop the game he proposed ... he doesn't have to worry about a Pepsi marketing tie in ... or a tie in with another franchise ... he also doesn't have to worry if his project is optimized to seel 5 million copies on day 1 ... even if he (or she) doesn't sell a single copy beyond the KS funded ones he (or she) has made a successful project ... I don't buy into the concept that an indie programmer must live in their parent's basement and eat mac and cheese for a year so they can make a game for artistic purposes ... if that's what they want then power to them, but now there is an alternative

One last thing I like with KS now is the the Kick it Forward project ... where the developer commits to use 10% of his profits (this is revenue earned after the KS funding and not the KS funding itself) to support other projects ... this will get us more of the big dollar donators (5K, 10K) and make some of these projects more likely to see the light of day ... I am not a rabid KS supporter (I have only supported 2 projects so far) but I don't think it will hurt gaming or degrade its artistic integrity ... if anything, it should only make it better

I'm not clicking that video link. Penny Arcade is biased given that they're another organization that should never have been on Kickstarter, yet they attempted to Kickstart a project (I never followed up to see if it succeeded.)

And again you simply make the mistake of assuming that the only publishers out there are the mega-publishers like EA and Activision. Your argument relies on that being correct, but it's not. Games of all scopes have been made over the last three decades, none of them with crowd-funding. But now Kickstarter is a fad and all of a sudden it's either mega-publisher, crowd-funding, or basement-dweller indie titles? Bullshit. Get fucking real.

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We'll just have to agree to disagree then ... I don't think you are right (and I haven't found your arguments compelling to change that opinion) ... and you will not be swayed by my arguments either ... change is good, in my opinion ... choice is good too, in my opinion ... whether KS is a fad or not still remains to be seen ... but I just view it as an expensive preorder right now ... if one of the projects I support fails to launch I will reevaluate that approach

Daggah said:

I'm not clicking that video link. Penny Arcade is biased given that they're another organization that should never have been on Kickstarter, yet they attempted to Kickstart a project (I never followed up to see if it succeeded.)

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I think Notch of Minecraft fame supports lots of KS projects ... isn't he the darling of the Indie crowd

Daggah said:

words

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If you don't like kickstarter start a thread about it! Or join one of the ones already out there.

You would think after your last post about kickstarter were deleted in the other Obsidian thread you would get that.

Daggah said:

I'm not clicking that video link. Penny Arcade is biased given that they're another organization that should never have been on Kickstarter, yet they attempted to Kickstart a project (I never followed up to see if it succeeded.)

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You seem upset. Did you just lose your job at EA? Why should devs have to be beholden to a publisher? This isn't any different than selling shares in your project. If you don't like it, don't buy one. You'll still be able to play the game when it comes out at retail/Steam. What difference does it make to you, as the player, who actually financed the game?

People like Daggah and Thuleman like to come fuck up threads with their bullshit instead of discussing their issues in the appropriate thread.

LeninGHOLA said:

People like Daggah and Thuleman like to come fuck up threads with their bullshit instead of discussing their issues in the appropriate thread.

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Hey, at least he was crapping in the duplicate thread this time .... the discussions don't go very far since the KS supporters are the flexible ones ... the opponents are the "my way or the highway" crowd ... it always reminds me of the scene from Matilda ... "I'm right and you're wrong ... I'm big and you're small ..." ... some people just have weird ways of getting their Kumba yayas ... they do remind one of the famous micromanager line though ... teamwork is everyone doing exactly what I say

LeninGHOLA said:

People like Daggah and Thuleman like to come fuck up threads with their bullshit instead of discussing their issues in the appropriate thread.

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And what appropriate thread would that be? You Kickstarter zealots immediately get your panties in a twist the moment someone dares to criticize it. You can't let yourself realize that you're being emotionally manipulated. Basic human nature at work right there. So instead you keep trying to throw out distractions like "oh, Daggah must work for the publishers" or some other bullshit.

Anything to avoid addressing the simple fact that gaming has been doing just fine for several decades now without crowd-funding donations being in the mix, I guess.

CEpeep said:

You seem upset. Did you just lose your job at EA? Why should devs have to be beholden to a publisher? This isn't any different than selling shares in your project. If you don't like it, don't buy one. You'll still be able to play the game when it comes out at retail/Steam. What difference does it make to you, as the player, who actually financed the game?

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No, it's not the same as selling shares. If I bought a financial stake in a project, then I stand to gain something from that. This tired "kickstarter investment" argument is played out and obviously incorrect.

Subsidized risk is bad for consumers in a capitalistic system. If the game is bad, then the developer deserves to lose money on it. With crowd-funding, that won't happen.

Personally I expect this game to be a better game than a typical indie game.

I believe there's already an indie isometric RPG game that recently came up on GOG site. With a very limited budget, that's what you can expect. This project PE aims to be something much bigger than that, and they certainly require the kind of budget that indie dev don't have.

Of course its still no where as large as what publishers spend on AAA titles, but then again some spend millions just on advertising alone. Crowd funded project don't do those kind of spending. It would be interesting to see what they can do with Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity.

Daggah said:

No, it's not the same as selling shares. If I bought a financial stake in a project, then I stand to gain something from that. This tired "kickstarter investment" argument is played out and obviously incorrect.

Subsidized risk is bad for consumers in a capitalistic system. If the game is bad, then the developer deserves to lose money on it. With crowd-funding, that won't happen.

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There have been a couple of thread in the past that discuss crowd funding in general. I think one is in the news section. You can either search for them, or if you feel you have something to say about crowd funding, you can always start a thread of your own if you feel its justified.

The purpose of this thread is specifically to discuss this project. So there's really no point in going into every Kickstarter project and repeat your criticism, it doesn't serve the purpose of the thread.

Daggah said:

No, it's not the same as selling shares. If I bought a financial stake in a project, then I stand to gain something from that. This tired "kickstarter investment" argument is played out and obviously incorrect.

Subsidized risk is bad for consumers in a capitalistic system. If the game is bad, then the developer deserves to lose money on it. With crowd-funding, that won't happen.

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You are gaining input and a say in the direction of the project. In addition, you are normally purchasing a copy of the product or service ahead of time at a rate less expensive than a "preorder" price. If the game sucks, it's not going to sell well and the developer will lose money on the sales and distribution of the product. If you are suggesting the people involved shouldn't be paid if the product fails, that's not anything like a publisher model. If a publisher agrees to publish your game, they pay your staff and materials costs regardless of whether or not the game tanks at market. If subsidized risk is so bad, why have games been available for preorder forever? People preordered Duke Nukem Forever years in advance and were disappointed, but it doesn't stop everyone from ever preordering again or shake anyone's faith in preordering things that they think are going to be cool.

Again, the more important question, which you completely ignored in your response is this: what difference does it make to you as the player of a game where the money that resulted in its creation came from? Is it somehow more comforting to you if a megacorp financed the game, and if so, why?

CEpeep said:

You are gaining input and a say in the direction of the project.

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Yeah...no, you're not. Your $20-$50 donation is not a voice in the development process.

P.S. I'm also 99% against preorders.

Daggah said:

And what appropriate thread would that be? You Kickstarter zealots immediately get your panties in a twist the moment someone dares to criticize it. You can't let yourself realize that you're being emotionally manipulated. Basic human nature at work right there. So instead you keep trying to throw out distractions like "oh, Daggah must work for the publishers" or some other bullshit.

Anything to avoid addressing the simple fact that gaming has been doing just fine for several decades now without crowd-funding donations being in the mix, I guess.

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Gaming has been doing fantastic ... if you like only what the big publishers offer you and what the limited resources of the independent developers can crank out ... FPS shooters are becoming dumber and dumber (they are all about MP now and the SP campaigns are totally emasculated) ... RPGs are all about the 3D environments (at the price of complex RPG elements and story ... because people want these sandbox worlds to explore) ... aRPGs are doing great (if you are Diablo or PoE ... everyone else is on the sideline)

Change is actually good for gaming occasionally ... prevents it from falling in a rut ... I don't think every project should go KS (nor would I be able to support them if they did) ... I think it provides a nice alternative for projects in the middle ground ... if you are small you can still do it yourself ... if you are big then the big publishers are still the best approach ... even though they have their failings they are the only reasonable approach for a true AAA title ... KS is good for projects that fall between those two ... it helps a developer make the game he wants without having to simplify it down to the low budget indie level or make the compromises needed to make it capable of selling millions

As I said, I like corporations and I wish they supported developers more, if an Intel or an NVidia, or a Microsoft started a fund to pay for these projects instead of KS I would be in favor of that and I would buy titles from that evil cabal ... but until we have that I will preorder from the big pubs (when they have a AAA title I want) ... I will buy the occasional Indie title when Steam puts it on sale ... and I will support the occasional KS project that fills a gaming gap for me the other two don't offer ... choice is good for me

Daggah said:

Yeah...no, you're not. Your $20-$50 donation is not a voice in the development process.

P.S. I'm also 99% against preorders.

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What's with the emote and a complete lack of any actual argument to back that up? I have developer forum access to multiple things I have contributed to on Kickstarter. It wasn't on Kickstarter, but I paid to be in the Endless Space beta/dev program, which was essentially the same thing, and suggestions I made and voted on made it into the game. How can you make the claim that I had no influence when I could clearly see the results of it in the finished product? It just makes you look foolish and ignorant when you say things like that.

Even though you keep ignoring it, I'll ask again because it's really the only part of this discussion that's actually relevant to anything. What difference does it make to you as the player of a game where the money that resulted in its creation came from?

CEpeep said:

What's with the emote and a complete lack of any actual argument to back that up? I have developer forum access to multiple things I have contributed to on Kickstarter. It wasn't on Kickstarter, but I paid to be in the Endless Space beta/dev program, which was essentially the same thing, and suggestions I made and voted on made it into the game. How can you make the claim that I had no influence when I could clearly see the results of it in the finished product? It just makes you look foolish and ignorant when you say things like that.

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OK, say I have a KS project and I give every Joe Schmoe that donates $20 developer forum access. Now I've got a huge group of Joe Schmoes all trying to tell me how to make my game. Guess what? I'm not going to listen to most of those Joe Schmoes. Again, your $20-$50 donation does not give you a voice in the development process. If the developer is stupid enough to think it does, then you already threw your money away on a shitty game.

Even though you keep ignoring it, I'll ask again because it's really the only part of this discussion that's actually relevant to anything. What difference does it make to you as the player of a game where the money that resulted in its creation came from?

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Because, as I said before, Kickstarter is the monetization of indie gaming, which is a terribly unfortunate occurrence. Crowd-funding encourages greed and emotional manipulation, but the "shut up and take my money crowd" won't remove head from ass long enough to see it.

Daggah said:

And what appropriate thread would that be? You Kickstarter zealots immediately get your panties in a twist the moment someone dares to criticize it. You can't let yourself realize that you're being emotionally manipulated. Basic human nature at work right there. So instead you keep trying to throw out distractions like "oh, Daggah must work for the publishers" or some other bullshit.

Anything to avoid addressing the simple fact that gaming has been doing just fine for several decades now without crowd-funding donations being in the mix, I guess.

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Make your own thread to asperger in. This one is about the way way more than funded Project eternity.

I know I'm being "emotionally manipulated". And I don't care.

kbrickley said:

Gaming has been doing fantastic ... if you like only what the big publishers offer you and what the limited resources of the independent developers can crank out ... FPS shooters are becoming dumber and dumber (they are all about MP now and the SP campaigns are totally emasculated) ... RPGs are all about the 3D environments (at the price of complex RPG elements and story ... because people want these sandbox worlds to explore) ... aRPGs are doing great (if you are Diablo or PoE ... everyone else is on the sideline)

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And here comes this false dichotomy bullshit. I have NEVER seen this before from Kickstarter zealots.

It's not Kickstarter vs Call of Duty 2012. There's been a huge variety of games in the last few years that have been excellent, fulfilling titles NOT published by Activision or EA that were NOT crowd-funded, either. And not every big publisher game is a generic shooter either. On the small-budget/indie front, the last few years have given us games with incredible production values like Bastion and Trine/Trine 2...old-school niche RPGs like Legend of Grimrock...graphically simple but incredibly fun gems like Terraria...no Kickstarter needed. At all.

Daggah said:

And here comes this false dichotomy bullshit. I have NEVER seen this before from Kickstarter zealots.

It's not Kickstarter vs Call of Duty 2012. There's been a huge variety of games in the last few years that have been excellent, fulfilling titles NOT published by Activision or EA that were NOT crowd-funded, either. And not every big publisher game is a generic shooter either. On the small-budget/indie front, the last few years have given us games with incredible production values like Bastion and Trine/Trine 2...old-school niche RPGs like Legend of Grimrock...graphically simple but incredibly fun gems like Terraria...no Kickstarter needed. At all.

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Yes, there are always some gems from the indie crowd ... there is also a lot of crap ... I want volume so I am more likely to find the gems ... I would be happy if there were dozens of RPGs released every year ... and dozens of real time and turn based strategy games ... with dozens of story based FPS games ... unfortunately I don't get that from either the Indies OR the publishers ... if KS lets me get the games "I" want ... who are you to tell me that I want the wrong games or I should wait until one of the powers that be decide to release them ... I shouldn't need to become a programmer to play the games I want ... they should be on the market when I want them ... KS gives me a chance to pursue that ... the existing models don't

As I said, I would prefer corps to pony up the money for this ... I like big budget games more than small budget ones ... I would like to see every major and minor studio and 4-5 independents releasing the games I want to play ever year ... unfortunately I like some niche products that don't support that ... KS might provide that opportunity ... if you want to form an Indie studio to crank out all those RPG and strategy games for me I will happily buy your products if they aren't just cheap indie crap

Daggah said:

And here comes this false dichotomy bullshit. I have NEVER seen this before from Kickstarter zealots.

It's not Kickstarter vs Call of Duty 2012. There's been a huge variety of games in the last few years that have been excellent, fulfilling titles NOT published by Activision or EA that were NOT crowd-funded, either. And not every big publisher game is a generic shooter either. On the small-budget/indie front, the last few years have given us games with incredible production values like Bastion and Trine/Trine 2...old-school niche RPGs like Legend of Grimrock...graphically simple but incredibly fun gems like Terraria...no Kickstarter needed. At all.

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Bastion isn't an indie title. It was published by a major studio, WB Games. Beyond that you're pointing to the diamonds in the rough. Of the tens of thousands of indie titles released each year only a small handful are worth playing and even less than that have remotely the production value of even an A or AA title.