kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
Kickstarter is bad for gaming because all of a sudden, Kickstarter is necessary for anything that's not the next Battlefield or Call of Duty game. Before Kickstarter, if you (general you directed at developers) wanted to make a niche title, you found a fucking way. Now, it's somehow necessary for the gaming community to subsidize your risk to guarantee you get something out of it? Bullshit. Fuck off.
There is nothing wrong with someone trying to reduce their risk a little. If a publisher comes to KS I doubt they would be well received by that community (I could be wrong but judging from the comments I have read they don't seem to be very publisher friendly). There also seem to be a lot of the Linux crowd in KS and they are definitely an anti-establishment crowd (or they would be on a REAL OS, like Windows )
Since 80% of the games I buy normally comes from publishers I am used to the occasional preorder. Especially if they offer a meaningful Collectors Edition. I love game soundtracks. I love strategy guides and art books. I love small little knick knacks (like coins or cards or stuff like that). And, since I only play SP games, I like extras at the start of the game (special configurations, extra weapon, whatever). Most of the current Indie developers don't offer these items. They also tend to make too many MP oriented games, which I don't like. KS forces them to offer these collector's edition extras, if they want the higher price points in their donation drive. KS also allows games with a more SP focus to get made. Publishers don't generally like SP games since they don't have as many extra revenue opportunities and that is a smaller gaming audience right now (unfortunately).
There are some good SP Indie games but I generally only buy an Indie game if it is offered on Steam or GOG. I rarely buy games directly from the developer. If more developers start selling their games on Steam, GOG, and Amazon I might purchase more Indie games. But KS right now gives me the confidence of purchases on Steam, GOG, and Amazon and the extras I expect to earn my dollar. I will continue to be picky about which KS projects I support since I have a budget. I can't spend hundreds of dollars on games a month. Nor do I have time to play that many games, unfortunately. Between work, exercise & bike commute, and other interests besides gaming there are only so many hours in a week. The two projects I have supported on KS were titles I might have missed (Grim Dawn) or titles that might not have been made (Project Eternity). I am not sure how many more titles I will support on KS but I don't see it hurting me or the game industry currently.
I think KS is like every other form of entertainment ... you only have to decide is the cost of the entertainment worth your time and dollar ... if it is then BAM, it is good (for YOU) ... if it isn't then BAM, it is bad (for YOU) ... for Daggah that answer is obvious ... for others the equation comes out different ... that doesn't make either group wrong ... but don't expect others to have exactly the same value calculation that you do