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

[L.Lawliet]

Wow... it's incredible. Speechless.

[Dietlama]

Republique is the first Kickstarter project that I have chosen to back. Ryan Payton's line in the video is what sold me on the idea. If I'm going to complain about the direction of iOS game development (which trends toward quick, disposable, though often great, experiences) then I should be someone who supports development of longer, more in-depth, traditional games designed from the very beginning with iOS in mind.

I hope that Touch Arcade will run a story for this project. I've seen front-page posts for games with far less potential to expand the breadth of games on the platform. Those posts have been extremely positive for much smaller scale endeavors.

A title like Republique (if it gets made) does not have to squash the current style for iOS games (nor will it, even if it becomes wildly successful). There's room on iPhones and iPads for all kinds of gaming experiences; please support this team in its effort to stretch the boundaries.

[Codhisattva]

This looks great! I hope they make their budget.

[Dietlama]

Republique is the first Kickstarter project that I have chosen to back. Ryan Payton's line in the video is what sold me on the idea. If I'm going to complain about the direction of iOS game development (which trends toward quick, disposable, though often great, experiences) then I should be someone who supports development of longer, more in-depth, traditional games designed from the very beginning with iOS in mind.

I hope that Touch Arcade will run a story for this project. I've seen front-page posts for games with far less potential to expand the breadth of games on the platform. Those posts have been extremely positive for much smaller scale endeavors.

A title like Republique (if it gets made) does not have to squash the current style for iOS games (nor will it, even if it becomes wildly successful). There's room on iPhones and iPads for all kinds of gaming experiences; please support this team in its effort to stretch the boundaries.

[chickdigger802]

Originally Posted by Hodapp

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 30% 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?

They get 5%. Y'all sure have double standards... Weren't y'all all over Star Command last year when it was pretty much just 3 screenshots?

[Codhisattva]

Originally Posted by Hodapp
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.

It's true that funding on Kickstarter is a risk for the funder and that funders need to be aware of that. It's not a guaranteed pre-order unfortunately.

Yet, there is something important about funding models that can't be ignored either. A new game studio has a few choices to get started - and funding a studio is much more expensive than a lemonade stand. One way is to make a deal with a traditional publisher in exchange for some creative control and some of the revenue. Traditional publishers are having a lot of trouble today so good luck with that. Another way is to find an angel investor among friends, family or your network. They are few and far between. And another is to find an investment group to partner with. There is a lot of VC money running around the Bay Area but they seem intent on web properties and social things, not creative adventure games.

Crowdsourcing is an important alternative. It allows a studio to maintain complete creative control as well as the entire revenue stream. Good things for the creative people, developers, and independent studios. And good things for the creative people mean good games for the players.

Sure, there is risk for the funders. And I think Kickstarter does a lousy job of messaging that. I also think there will be some spectacular failures in the next year on Kickstarter that's going to squelch the enthusiasm a bit. It's inevitable that unscrupulous people will abuse it, or ambitious dreamers won't deliver.

Kickstarter should have a better mechanism for punishing failure, but frankly I don't think that's possible. What could they require? Escrow, liens, guarantees, bonds, or insurance? Maybe but the complexity increases rapidly.

But consider comparable risks game players, shoppers, and consumers in general take every day. Is that $5 breakfast cereal any good? Will this $15 movie suck? Will this $50 play be worth it? Will my $300 console be obsolete in a year? Is my $1500 laptop on fire? What's that sound my $15,000 car is making?

The risk involved in Kickstarter is small if you choose. The delay between ponying up the cash and opening the box to find bugs is longer than typical consumer behavior. But it's the same sort of risk as "what if I get my $60 game home and I don't like it" for the most part.

Do the benefits of Kickstarter outweigh the risks? I really think it's a win-win for the studio and the player. But one thing is for sure, we're going to see a lot of projects start there and hopefully they will be awesome and entertaining.

[Eli]

Originally Posted by chickdigger802

They get 5%. Y'all sure have double standards... Weren't y'all all over Star Command last year when it was pretty much just 3 screenshots?

Evolving standards are very different from double standards. You'll notice when we no longer cover many free to play games either, despite how excited we were for the first batch of them. If you want to read about Kickstarter stuff, there's tons of blogs out there that are more to happy to cover them. We're focusing on actual games that exist in a form beyond "Hey wouldn't this be cool, can we have some money?".

[Codhisattva]

Originally Posted by Hodapp

Evolving standards are very different from double standards. You'll notice when we no longer cover many free to play games either, despite how excited we were for the first batch of them. If you want to read about Kickstarter stuff, there's tons of blogs out there that are more to happy to cover them. We're focusing on actual games that exist in a form beyond "Hey wouldn't this be cool, can we have some money?".

Good to know and a good choice. There's tons more vaporware out there than real games, that's for sure.

Does that editorial standard extend to advertising?

[Eli]

The editorial and advertising sides of TouchArcade couldn't possibly be more segregated. I don't have anything to do with advertisements, and I don't want to! You can read more here if you're curious- http://toucharcade.com/toucharcade-a...rial-policies/

Regardless, it'd be weird for someone to buy advertising for vaporware, wouldn't it?

[Codhisattva]

Originally Posted by Hodapp

<snip>
Regardless, it'd be weird for someone to buy advertising for vaporware, wouldn't it?

Ha! Yes it would. Advertising is a likely important aspect for any large Kickstarter campaign. Like you point out, most of the free buzz is over in a few days (unless you're Double Fine or Notch) so more expensive, on-going communication is fairly necessary for funding success.