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

[arta]

Originally Posted by wendezeit

A triple-A game designed exclusively for iOS? This needs to be on the toucharcade front page.

Agreed, this game needs the exposure. The word of mouth on other traditional sites ranges wildly from excitement to open scorn (since it's an iOS exclusive).

Right now the Kickstarter is at 43000, which is ok after two days but it needs more hype before it dies down for it to scrape past their goal. I asked the dev to check out our forum, hope they do it soon.

[mister-k81]

Originally Posted by wendezeit

A triple-A game designed exclusively for iOS? This needs to be on the toucharcade front page.

Yup, I just submitted a link to the Kickstarte page to here tips@toucharcade.com

Hopefully the Touch Arcade editors actually read their inbox (Does anybody read their email these days?) .

[Eli]

Originally Posted by mister-k81

(Does anybody read their email these days?) .

Yes.

[chickdigger802]

lol. Some kinda vendetta against Payton? Didn't like MGS4?

[squarezero]

Originally Posted by chickdigger802

lol. Some kinda vendetta against Payton? Didn't like MGS4?

And here I thought that Eli had a cogent and mature argument against Kickstarter...

I mean, shitfarter? Really?

[Eli]

Kickstarter is everything that is wrong with the "millennial" generation, wholly concentrated into a single web site. Back in my day, if you wanted to open up a lemonade stand, you did everything you could to get the funding together to make that happen. If you couldn't finance it personally, you'd borrow money from whatever family, friends, and fools you can drum up, and be personally responsible for its repayment. You'd then take that money, open your lemonade stand, hopefully turn a profit, then pay everyone back. Alternatively, if you didn't turn a profit or couldn't get your lemonade stand off the ground for one reason or another, you still needed to worry about the money you owed everyone. This caused you to only ask for money when you really believed in your lemonade stand, or, at least, enough to risk your neck for it.

In this crazy Kickstarter-laden world we live in now, the scenario is totally different. You decide on the vague idea that you want to start a lemonade stand, you don't have the means to do it, so you jingle around a change jar with a line on it. You sucker people into giving money to you because they like lemonade, and you offer them some sort of commemorative sticker as "thanks." Meanwhile, while people might be filling up your change jar, you're free at any time to up and decide that you don't want to run a lemonade stand anymore, and instead you're going to sell Kool-Ade, fruit punch, or any other number of derivative things.

In fact, you don't even have to open anything at all. What's stopping you from actually fulfilling your promises? Not Kickstarter, that's for sure.

From their own Help pages:

-Kickstarter does not investigate a creator's ability to complete their project.

-Because projects are usually funded by the friends, fans, and communities around its creator, there are powerful social forces that keep creators accountable.

-At the end of the day, use your internet street smarts.

So, essentially, you don't have to do anything you say you're going to do. Kickstarter gets their 5% rake, and as someone who donated you're left with "powerful social forces" such as complaining on Twitter when things don't pan out.

We're not posting about Kickstarter stuff anymore because of how silly it's getting. Here we have someone looking for half a million dollars based on a four minute video with no gameplay, and three concept images. Anything we post about games in this stage is little more than a post that says "Hey give these people money and cross your fingers."

I appreciate what they're trying to do, but, how many paid games out there that target a hardcore audience even gross half as much money as these guys are asking for on Kickstarter?

[LOLavi]

As much as I hate Hodapp's negativity, half a million dollar is a lot of money as they've pledged 50k so far... 29 days to go and this could happen, but I still don't think they'll reach that half a million, at least not in a month.

[Eli]

They've already hit most of the big blogs that would post about something like this to create the $50,000 surge they've gotten so far. Typically it seems most Kickstarters see a massive influx of contributions in the first few days (which has already mostly happened), then a lull throughout the month, and potentially another similar burst towards the end as people rush to get in on the last moments. That final contribution boost generally only seems to occur if something is very close to or exceeding its goal.

I have no clue where they are going to get the extra $450k from.

[Kepa]

Originally Posted by squarezero

And here I thought that Eli had a cogent and mature argument against Kickstarter...

I mean, shitfarter? Really?

Uh seems like an innocent typo to me.

If he meant to type that, he'd probably have properly capitalized Shitfarter.

[famousringo]

Originally Posted by LOLavi

As much as I hate Hodapp's negativity, half a million dollar is a lot of money as they've pledged 50k so far... 29 days to go and this could happen, but I still don't think they'll reach that half a million, at least not in a month.

They're not looking for a half million, they're looking for a full million. The other $500,000 is conditional on Payton proving, through Kickstarter, that there is a demand for large budget games on iOS.

Pretty sad that even a web site dedicated to iOS gaming thinks iOS is too small time to warrant a budget just 1/10th of a console title, and somebody trying to prove otherwise isn't even worth a blog post. Keep dreaming small, Eli.