Suits get a bad rap, you know. But stuff doesn't happen without suits.

Man, I love(d) dizzy

Malc

As for Mr Burns imitator Moleytwat, I was understanding that 22 cans were going to do 22 "experiments" and just one game. So what is Godus? An "experiment" or the game? If it's an "experiment" such as Curiosity, not interested. If it's another flat-land-maintainer Populous, not interested. If it's another Black & White, certainly not interested. He has a track record of not delivering on promises made and now he expects people to be financially liable for those promises? Well...

I thought the Wasteland 2 kickstarter was handled pretty well up to now, but it seems that despite raising over 3x what they needed to make the game, inXile are asking artists to do spec work for them.

That's what I said, except it doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

Edit: They got 3x their required funding for the game from Kickstarter. Why can't they hire an artist?

Edit2: and Unity asset store prices are notorious for being significantly lower than any contract artist would get.

The issue is/was that dev Christopher Williamson, of Dreamquest, had originally sought $500,000 for Alpha Colony, but closed down the initial Kickstarter when it became apparent this wouldn’t happen, though $100k had been pledged. So he returned with another KS looking for just a tenth of that mighty sum, which wound up $28 short when the line of death was crossed. This may have been a good thing.

“Although many consider this a failure and unfair, in the end, it is perhaps the kindest thing the universe could have done for us,” Williamson told Gamasutra. “To be committed to deliver my dream game underfunded, understaffed, and sub-par, and to lose even more time and money would have been even more heartbreaking.” He reckoned that, after staffing and pledger incentive costs, he’d have been left with very little with which to actually create meet his ambitions for the game. As such, they’d put up the deliberately low $50k Kickstarter “in the hopes that we could at least achieve the same $100k level we got before.”

They aren't investments! They are donations in return for things. Investments (sometimes) make money.

He reckoned that, after staffing and pledger incentive costs, he’d have been left with very little with which to actually create...

If pledger incentive costs are using up a significant chunk of your cash, I'd suggest you're doing it wrong. I wonder how many "$50 : Free t-shirt with game!" type tiers actually end up losing people money.

That's the same AFP tour that she asked for background musicians to play for free, right?

Only 14 days until we get to laugh in the faces of the Oliver Twins. We need some kind of advent calendar for it.

Seems exploitative to me.

I almost feel a bit sorry for them now.

Not really. Would have been hard for them to pay full rates for the tour, so giving willing volunteers a chance to play on stage with an idol of theirs is awesome. I doubt many/any regretted it.

I know that if a writing hero of mine wanted some help doing something that only took a small part of my time and effort, and I'd be able to say I collaborated with them, I'd bite their hand off.

Donations in return for maybe getting something but no share of the profits. That's what I mean.

Just how much money do you expect in return for a $20 investment? Presumably subtracting the $20 as payment for the product.

Since I started writing, Molyneux has picked up another £1308. As for Braben, he's up by £3371. Perhaps all of the people who pledged that money understand that they have not put down a pre-order, and that it might not work out. But I doubt it. The fact that "Kickstarter Is Not A Store" is an official blog post - published as a warning back in September - speaks for itself. "It's hard to know how many people feel like they're shopping at a store when they're backing projects on Kickstarter," the blog begins, "but we want to make sure that it's no one."

Unfortunately, until these big game developers stop using Kickstarter to fund their work, I find it very difficult to believe that it will be no one. I will be happy to play a new god game, a new Elite, a new Double Fine adventure and Wasteland 2, but I would rather they were happening on other terms, and Kickstarter was left to the likes of FTL and Sportsfriends.

Looks like the Oliver twins have admitted defeat...and will not be making a new Dizzy game until we all apologise for not giving them cash.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12 ... ore-135292

Maybe.... just maybe.. this'll stop the retro gaming magazines writing about them and/or it.

Code Hero's Kickstarter concluded on February 24, 2012, with 7,459 people pledging $170,954, almost doubling the project's requested amount and pushing that cash straight to developer Alex Peake. Peake described Code Hero as a game to help people, especially kids, learn how to code, and said he would use the money to launch a version of the game on August 31, with a Code Hero webseries and MMO also in the works.

Ten months later, on December 12, Code Hero had yet to launch in any form and Peake was absent from the Kickstarter conversation. Backers of the Code Hero Kickstarter fumed in the comments, informally requesting their money back, asking Peake where their rewards were, and questioning if Code Hero was a legitimate project at all. Leading the comment swarm was Dustin Deckard, a backer who had given Code Hero $300, but was now considering legal action against Peake and his studio, Primer Labs.