Republique (story driven stealth game by Camouflaj Studios, founded by Ryan Payton)

I like that the EIC has written the biggest rant on the whole subject, and I sincerely mean that. I didn't really know anything about kickstarter until Joystiq did a bunch of posts for Auditorium a month ago and there were similar arguments against it in the comments section. Then of course the Double Fine thing happened....

Kickstarter suffers from the same thing any democracy does in that anyone can do it. It's almost fun to surf it to see what kind of crazy ideas people are trying to fund.

The problem with Eli's analogy is you don't need a million to fund a lemonade stand. You do need a mil to have mo-capped cut scenes. The big question there is does an iOS game need that? Does it even deserve it?

.The main reason I wanted to chime in was because the comments on IGN are totally opposite to this thread. Seriously, I recommend reading them because the consistant message is "iOS? no thanks".

I think it really is a an interesting question on whether true AAA development should exist. Right now other than a publisher answering that question Kickstarter is the only other logical place to answer it.

I'm not exactly sure of the harm done by Kickstarter other than irritate Eli's sense of work ethic, though. Seriously, can the money be kept without product delivery? Do the contributor lose 5% even if the product never comes out? Those would be likely dealbreakers for me as I'm on the fence about kickstarter too and I doubt there FAQ is entirely honest about the security measures of the process.

There are some success stories that make sense though through crowdfunding. The Shadowrun thing is a great example. It's easy to see a ton of publishers saying that the IP is dead and then the original dev goes and gets 800k selling the IP. It's easy to see how extremely useful Kickstarter is in that scenario so we'll just have to see on Republique.

I also have to say, the first game we made was built around a non-existant budget. If our game is successful we got tons of more expensive ideas to jump right into.n I don't begrudge a vet like Payton aiming big, but it is a little odd he would essentially go for the biggest iOS budget ever heard of for his first game. Wish him the best though.

 

Certainly. App development is expensive and games can be more so. I can point out several cases studies of simple looking apps that cost $250k to develop. Infinity Blade wasn't cheap either.

Why shouldn't the iOS platform be used to it's full extent? Gamers of all types obviously love it.

I think that's more a sign of IGN's core readership (and perhaps Ryan's historical audience) being console gamers. They look down on iOS because of Angry Birds but that's just myopia and prejudice.

It's exciting to create a game that uses the iOS features that make it such a successful computing platform - high res, touch, gestures, and it's intimacy.

Should exist? If people buy AAA games, it -will- exist. (I'd be a little nitpickish and say that $1m isn't an AAA budget or that Republique would be an AAA title. But I would say that it looks like it will have AAA qualities.)

When a project goal is met, the funds are immediately distributed - Kickstarter gets 5% and Amazon gets 3% (for payment processing) and the project gets the rest. If the project doesn't deliver, funders can not get their money back.

It's a great example of the problem with the traditional publishing model. Publishers are naturally risk adverse (for numerous corporate reasons), and have different objectives, ideas and goals than creatives and devs. Selling right to your fans makes tons of sense.

A $1m budget for an app is no where near the "biggest iOS budget ever heard of". Disney Mobile is plowing much more than that into casual titles like "Where's My Water" and their catalog. Same can be said for many other studios and publishers. (iOS is not a 2nd rate platform, it's the future of computing.)

Just because budget size doesn't equate with success it doesn't mean game designers and creators shouldn't strive for the freedom and capabilities that a large budget offers.

 

And double standards are double standards. Through exhaustive research, aka googling "toucharcade preview no gameplay" this can be found as recently as March 20th, 2012.

http://toucharcade.com/2012/03/20/the-walking-dead-teaser-trailer-is-awesome/

That trailer shows less in game footage and less impressive visuals than Republique's. It's also from a developer whose track record on iOS is less than stellar.

Are you seriously going to act like you guys don't consistantly provide coverage of games with far less being shown off than Republique? The game has been in development for three months. They've already done some voice recording, motion capturing, and have an engine built. It's obviously far more than just a "concept."

If you don't want to post about it because of your personal beliefs on "shitfarter" than that's your prerogative, but you could at least be honest with your readers (and yourself?) about the situation... I also wish that you could let your readers make up their own minds about Kickstarter, as I believe they're intelligent enough to do so.

Also, virtually every gaming website except this one has covered Republique. IGN, Shacknews, Game Informer, 1UP, Kotaku, GameSpot, Giant Bomb, etc. These aren't small time "blogs." Sadly, the concensus in the comments is, "lol, iOS." Unfortunately, iOS isn't viewed by many "hardcore" gamers as a viable platform for "AAA" games. Equally unfortunately, the only gaming website I'm aware of where the concensus would disagree with that statement, has an editor with a bizarre stance against Kickstarter where he won't even acknowledge that Republique is at the very least...news worth reporting on.

 

I think spending a lot on development is easy but I also think traditional cost models are crazy too. Having finished a game with a 0$ budget I'm pretty convinced 100k could go an extraordinarily long way.

But that is the audience; the enthusiast, right? I really have concerns (as someone who heavily invested in a quality story based experience in my own game) that casual gamers don't really want to support unknown intellectual properties that require a serious time commitment. If your hardcore gamers are your mavens and they don't want it, then who is going to spread the word? Infinity Blade is a good example but I think a lot of other high budget games have failed with similar aspirations. Oddly enough, that the sentiment of one of the Halfbrick guys speaking in an IGN article.

Yeah, that's a fun but whole other discussion. The content and assets from a highend 360 game wouldn't work on an iPad3 in retina or even standard display. The GPU isn't there and the whole On Live cloud argument is a non starter for me right now.

This is insane, why isn't it like an escrow? Kickstarter could easily afford it.

If Where's My Water development (not marketing) costs are over a million then Disney is throwing away money. I know development isn't cheap and I'm very famliar with burn rate as a previous PM but just like the traditional publishing model is broken, so is the traditional development model. Many small iOS teams can (and should) e-commute to keep costs down. Couple that with amazingly cheap (or free) tools like Unity and I become more skeptical on development costs of start up iOS devs with unproven track records.

Sure, but skepticism is fairly deserved and it always seems like the industry is blamed for not having a culture of gamers interested in willingly gambling with their money. As I said, I'd love this to succeed, but it won't necessarily be a tragedy if it doesn't. I'd imagine Payton and Co. could make an amazing game for 100k if they needed a vision a little more conservative to start.

 

Kicktraq shows this game currently trending towards $900,000. I'm sure this can't be right.
BTW, I don't understand the concern about financial risks here since Ryan Payton is not exactly a scam artist, he has a reputation to lose. Anyway, I already pledged a couple of dollars to the cause.

 

That thing is naturally not very accurate during the first few days.

 

Apologies for joining the discussion so late, everybody. As you can imagine, I've been really busy since I pushed the "launch" button on Kickstarter. But man, it's really cool to see everybody's thoughts on the game on here.

To be honest, we started off with a much smaller game idea but our hearts really weren't into it. Most of us come from big game projects with a large emphasis on story, so I guess it was natural that we settled on the vision for Republique.

The thing that I need to be more sensitive to is the subject of the relatively large budget for an iOS game. Based on my experience, I think it's incredible that our small team can make a game with these high production values for the proposed budget. But with that said, we're entering a marketplace with great games being developed for a fraction of what we're asking for... So one thing we're talking about doing is being really transparent with the game's budget within the next few weeks. Should be good.

 

Awesome to see a dev in here. I also think ultimately you will get a much more enthusiastic view of Republique than what's been on IGN et al and hopefully a better reflection of the actual potential of the project.

Mo capped cutscenes is to me are the real identifier of your goal to make a AAA game on iOS. I agree that your budget is quite reasonable for that level of production. The main question is knowing that those things effect the experience and not the game, do you feel they are critical to the production? I'd hate to see you make an endless runner because Republique couldn't be made. I was just wondering if you have any flex in feature set to bring the budget down.

Being more transparent with your costs will probably be awesome BUT if you surf Joystiq you'll find posts a similar breakdown from the devs that made Auditorium. Sadly, a lot of comments there were from kids who thought getting paid 20 bucks an hour was too much for a mid thirties programmer and back seat tech directors who said you could build the whole thing with freeware if only you knew how. To put on my evil publisher hat for a second though, I would suggest potentially posting something numbers wise that indicates you have confidence you could recoup your money since you just asked the world to copublish your game.

Best of luck.

 

It's pretty disappointing, isn't it? I'm actually a little outraged that a site which should be the greatest ally to ambitious iOS game projects is undercutting them if they have the bad taste to associate themselves with a site that the editor has a personal vendetta against.

I've been using Toucharcade pretty much exclusively as my iOS gaming news resource, but now that I know they're blacklisting news items associated with "shitfarter," I need to find another iOS game site willing to report and let me decide.

Anybody have any suggestions?

 

Oh wow. I didn't know that. Those guys will hate us, then. Building a cinematic pipeline is not cheap and requires the help of very talented (and also expensive) people. With that said, we still plan on offering up more details on what we're doing...

I wasn't under the impression that Touch Arcade has anything against Republique. (Unless I said something that upset them?) My assumption is that they just have A LOT of games to cover every day.

Hopefully some of the announcements we'll be making in the coming weeks will entice them to do some coverage!

-rp

 

Competing sites slidetoplay and pocketgamer both posted a news item about this Kickstarter campaign.

 

I don't think the cost/value ratio evens out in development though in many ways. While making a simple app ussually means more competition (endless runner, tower defense, etc.) I'm skeptical that multiplayer or huge backend support or production pay for themselves either. I won't even say I'm skeptical because it really is a question mark for me. Also, doing work for hire and calling out a 150/hour rate for programming is not a realistic measure of cost considering that most games are self funded and most engineers in games don't make 120k+ unless they are pretty senior or amazing.

Right but my main concern is that Republique is communicated to the hardcore first. The hardcore iOS market is an unknown to me as well. It's the same reason Nintendo continues to struggle with good 3rd party support. They have consistently communicated their system as a Nintendo software system. Do genuinenly thing that a high production iOS game for mature audiences could grow organically?

 

I figure Touch Arcade will cover Republique when they're ready. (That is, unless I've said something to offend them!) The amount of games seeking coverage on their site must be ridiculous.

 

What's this? Finally a game exclusive,deep and good-looking for IOS? The selfish Apple company should funds the developers who help to make the IOS devices the better masterpieces.

 

I love how against this project you are hodapp yet you splooge all over the same awful games GameLoft continues to shit out.

Keep continuing to sell out, wouldn't expect anything less from this site anymore.

 

Republique is not vaporware. In fact, I'd be willing to fly out to wherever you are, show you the game and have you play it on an iPhone or iPad. I think you'll like it!