mute688

Hahaha I haven't really been following this. Really? HAHAHA. http://i49.tinypic.com/2e4hp48.jpg The backer only update. pinkiesquare.com is now up and running.

I blame Kickstarter for ignoring their own rules in not taking down reported violations. I don't expect them to thoroughly investigate each and every project that is submitted, but when a project is reported and clearly violates their rules, it should be taken down. If they are willing to bend the rules in this case, how long before Kickstarter is swamped with "fund my life' projects? What other rules are they willing to bend or waive? In what circumstances? There is a reason why rules are necessary for something like Kickstarter. It provides a framework of, if not certainty, at least confidence that projects are legitimate and your money is going where you think it is. When the rules are no longer rules, but simply good intentions that can be overlooked for indeterminate reasons, the framework of Kickstarter is invalidated. The simply solution for this was to have the project taken down and create a new project with the new goals. The money raised here is no longer going to summer camp for the little girl. It's to start a .com that will assist young kids to learn about game making, staffed with industry volunteers. It is to be used to try and start up an annual event where young people can show their work. Susan is now looking for corporate sponsorship to back this idea. She now has a new brand name that she will own (pinkiesqare.com) due to the funds raised in this campaign. That is not what people pledged money for. Kickstarter have stood back for too long now and I have no faith in them. If you do, great. I don't.

Wow. This lady is in for a surprise. She's now threatening the internets. Withdraw your pledge and she'll out you. Make a negative comment and she'll out you. Name, address, any dirt she and the collection agency she owns can find on you. I really have no faith left in Kickstarter. The original goal isn't even in play any more. The summer camp this was to pay for is now being paid for by the family. The game is no longer being made by the 9 year old. She's going to "be the lead" as the game is made by a group of industry volunteers. Now Susan is virtually attempting to bully everyone into silence or she'll use her collection agency to break you. Kickstarter have failed misserably.

Good luck. If they take the project down I'd reconsider backing projects in the future, but if they are willing to allow personal "warm and fuzzy" feelings of goodwill to over-ride site rules, then I lack the confidence in the Kickstarter concept as they are implementing it. The only thing separating this from outright charity is the perception of structured rules and terms of use. Without them the kickstarter concept loses much of it's appeal.

The easiest way is to go to the particular campaign page that you are complaining about. At the bottom of the page is a "Report this project to Kickstarter" button. There is also a "Contact" button below that. I don't think it will make any difference though. As far as I can tell there have been hundreds of reports made against the project but the project creator has quoted an email from a Kickstarter staff member who congratulated her on her project and told her to ignore the complaints. Bolding was hers, not mine

Yes, it does. Here's the link to the relevant page: http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines As for backers not receiving an actual game, it is in the terms and conditions that if rewards are not given, backers are entitled to a refund. http://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use

Personally, I don't care about the campaign itself. If it's a scam, people have had ample warning and they still chose to back it. My concern is the integrity of kickstarter itself. If the site rules can be ignored in this case, what guarantee do we have that other rules are being monitored and policed equally and consistently? I've lost confidence in the long term integrity and viability of Kickstarter and wont be backing any more projects. Stated goal on the campaign page, " My goal is to raise $829 to cover the cost of RPG Camp." From the Kickstarter Guidlines page: Prohibited uses: No "fund my life" projects. Examples include projects to pay tuition or bills, go on vacation, or buy a new camera. Everyone keeps focusing on the game that is being given as a backer reward but it is just that, a backer reward. The game is not the goal of the campaign any more than the mugs and other merchandise given as backer rewards. The goal is to raise tuition.

From the couple of responses here, I'll admit I was wrong about the influence covers have on sales. I don't understand it, but it apparently is a reality. I see no evidence that growing the market has in any way produced a greater variety of games over the last decade. Quite the opposite in fact. As publishers have moved from actually being publishers to being producers of product while investing increasingly larger amounts of money into those products, the variety in games has diminished. Growing the market may eventually lead to risk mitigation, but it's immediate effect is to take on more risk. The growth of the market requires investment in risky ventures. This is why none of the large publishers is attempting to grow their customer base into niche markets. They consider it to be too much of a risk. Why shouldn't we make gaming more inclusive? Because to those investing in the industry, that inevitably means making each game more inclusive. We are seeing the results of doing exactly that now with the vast majority of AAA games becoming mediocre, bland copies of each other. I can't think of one innovative AAA title that has released in the last 12 months. Obviously it is good investment as the publishers continue to invest in these same bland games, but as a gamer I have no interest in the games I play becoming more inclusive. If inclusion actually meant a wider variety of games, I'd cheer them on. What it actually means is games that need to appeal to a wider audience so must not be controversial or raise issues that some may find offensive or even uncomfortable. You disagree that those are the types of messages that publishers are disseminating? They aren't true, but when has that stopped a PR department?

Maybe it's more a matter of me not being familiar with his style, but as someone who hasn't watched any of his videos previously, his approach seems designed to attract a specific type of audience. I consider myself a moderate in most issues and personally I was immediately turned off by his style of commentary. He seems to be catering to an existing audience that appreciate that extreme style of commentary, which limits his ability to get his message across to a wider audience. I know I won't be going back to see more of his videos. As for marketing dollars, let's not forget that up until a decade or so ago this was almost exclusively a male market which , in my experience, was consistently derided by my girlfriends and significant others. Even today it is a predominately male market. I don't expect publishers to spend significant marketing dollars on a niche female market, just as I don't expect the major cosmetics companies to spend significant dollars marketing their beauty products to men. Neither is likely to gain significant return of investment. The fact that publishers believe that games sell less with females portrayed on the cover comes as no surprise to me. These are the same companies that tell us that people like DRM, everyone loves social gaming and that micro-transactions are a universally loved idea that enhance game-play. I have little faith in the ability of publishers to understand their markets and unless we can get the data of these supposed studies, we can't know if they targeted specific age groups, genres, etc. I could believe a study that said that CoD gamers aged 6 to 14 preferred gun toting, steroid enhanced male characters, but in my experience that doesn't apply to the adult gamers I've met across 30+ years of gaming, both male and female. We have two different criteria here. You say that Dragon Age cover art was changed to increase visibility on the shelves. This is totally different to adjusting cover content to match some supposed bias in gamers. This probably sounds rather harsh, but why is that a problem? Why do we need to increase the number of women gamers? I'm not saying I reject the idea of more women gamers, I just don't understand why the lack of women gamers is a problem. It seems to me that the most vocal on the subject aren't women who want to game but can't because of the lack of female protagonists, but those who believe that we men are deliberately excluding women and they have an axe to grind. Seriously, if you are a gamer, regardless of gender, unless you are a member of a large demographic, it's likely you feel ignored by the large publishers. It's a result of mega publishers investing increasing amounts of dollars into safe projects and has nothing to do with misogyny or any of the other catch phrases being tossed around recently. Sorry for the wall of text, I have some rare spare time and got caught up. And the usual disclaimer: this is purely my opinion and has no basis in fact. :D

Lol, buy 4 horse armour dlc's and all is forgiven.

I'm sorry, I couldn't actually watch that Jim Sterling video through to the end. I gritted my teeth through to about the 6 minute mark and then gave in and closed it down. I found him to be facetious with little to nothing to actually add to the discussion. Like many commentators, he is supporting women in video games and the video game industry by demonising everyone who doesn't share his exact view, or even if they are simply not as extreme in their opinion. He makes a huge issue of video game covers and publishers resisting depictions of female characters on the front of their games. Really?!! I have never, not once, in over 30 years of gaming, chosen to buy or not buy a game based on the cover art. I couldn't even describe the cover art of any of the games I have bought in the last year. Who here has based a purchase on the cover art? Anyone? Using the same facts and figures that Jim uses, namely, my opinion, I would say that this is purely a publisher issue and has little to do with commercial reality. Jim then proceeds into a tirade against anyone who prefers a male protagonist. The constant accusations of homophobia, the childish innuendo, the complete lack of anything of substance to say had me adding Jim to my mental list of people to avoid listening to in any circumstance. Personally, I don't care what gender the protagonist is, but to deride the players of games that have male protagonists as homophobic is simply sensationalist and motivated simply by a desire to appear controversial. Gamers simply have NO CHOICE in what gender characters the developers put in their games. Even if a player prefers a male protagonist, how often has the lack of female gamers been blamed on the lack of female protagonists in gaming? So what, it's all fine for females to not game because they prefer a female protagonist, they're just standing up for their rights, but god forbid male gamers prefer a male protagonist. That's just homophobic!! I'm sorry. I can't take anything that man said with any seriousness simply because of his extremism. If he had any valid points to raise, it was lost behind his rabid frothing.

Are you sure? All I get is a page saying that they are considering ways to allow pre-orders. Probably an issue they fixed since you posted but there are links to pre-order the normal and deluxe versions now. Must be a problem on my end. I'm still just getting a page that says they are considering different methods. No links, no announcement, just a "coming soon". Edit: Solved. I had to do a hard shift + F5 refresh to get the new page instead of the cached page.

Are you sure? All I get is a page saying that they are considering ways to allow pre-orders.

No video?? I doubt this is legitimate. Their webiste, http://www.civitasgame.com/ , has nothing but a link to Kickstarter and their facebook page and a large countdown timer to the end of the kickstarter campaign. I can't find any info on Brandon Smith, the supposed head of this project. They claim to be giving any backer who donates $250 dollars or more a seat at their bi-weekly production meetings. REALLY?!!! what legitimate business would allow complete strangers into their production meetings? There is no company name on their website and the closest I can find to a company name is G.A.M that is on his kickstarter profile. Approach with caution. It seems a scam set up to play on anti-EA sentiment.

Just spotted this on Kickstarter. A simcity clone called Civatas. Here's a quote from their Kickstarter page. I lol'ed. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1584821767/civitas-plan-develop-and-manage-the-city-of-your-d

Okay, we'll have to agree to disagree then. I don't see the correlation between wanting kickstarter funding and wanting backer input. A developer wanting kickstarter funding simply indicates they want funding without publisher constraints. I think the raised expectations of input being not only listened to, but being incorporated into the game design, is going to backfire for the next round of kickstarter projects the follow after this first gen of projects are released. Even with publisher funded games, their forums are littered with fans who feel their input must be valuable to a development studio and turn hostile when a game is released that they don't like or don't agree with the direction taken. Raise that hostility to the nth degree when the developers have implied that the backers will have developmental influence. I'm not saying it will happen, but I can see this as having the potential to raise fan rage to a new level which would have a bad outcome on new kickstarter funding.

Well, that's their problem then. But with a publisher instead, neither Obsidian nor smaller start-up developers have nearly any creative freedom. Which no one is denying. My point was that I disagree that backer input is as beneficial as some people seem to think it is, especially to the newer, smaller teams that I would hope to see benefit the most from kickstarter.

I agree it all sounds just fine....in theory. I also believe OE are capable of sorting the wheat from the chaff as far as backer input goes, but how many of the smaller start up developers will be able to resist trying to pander to all the differing opinions as to what their game should be? It's always far easier for an established developer to resist outside pressure. I simply think that the expectation that some developers have created among the kickstarter community of being able to influence a games development has the possibility of having a negative effect later on.

My only concern about the kickstarter process appears to be something you consider to be a positive. I backed PE because I trust the people at Obsidian, not because I trust the backers. The games I have played and enjoyed from many of the developers at OE were made without significant customer/fan input. My concern is that the backers simply replace the publishers as the unnecessary input that directs the development of the game. I want no input into game development and have offered none. We have seen where game development has gone under the direction of large publishers and to be honest, I believe that any developer giving backers too much say in the development of the games will be even more detrimental. At least with a publisher there is one voice and one direction. With thousands of backers all trying to influence the game to be what they personally want, catering to all or even some of those wishes has the potential to create an incredibly bad game. I trust the developers to develop the game. I don't trust any of the backers. I want an OE game untarnished by giving creative control, no matter how small, to anyone else. I believe that will be a deciding factor in the future success of kickstarter - how successfully the developers can resist pandering to the backers.

Steam will consider refunds on a case by case basis. They wont admit they do because that would be the start of an avalanche of refund requests, but I have received a refund for two games. The latest was HOMM V. That game (or rather the UPLAY service it required) was such a mess that it was totally unplayable, literally in my case.

I am not a huge fan of publishers and studios holding copyrights where the creators have no say in their use, but it is often necessitated by the high costs of creating a game. The publisher is controlling the copyright because they are the ones taking on all the financial risks. They are paying the developer, paying for advertisements, and paying for production. If they are making a game based on an established property, they even have to pay to licence it from the original IP holder. That is the way the business works. A smart developer can work around that system if they want to maintain control. Obsidian is doing that with Project Eternity. Independent developers do that by keeping costs down. So if you aren't happy with the system, then support those projects. But the business model doesn't excuse piracy. People pirate indie stuff all the time. Heck, Lord Socks already admitted pirating Minecraft, which was money that went directly to the creator. How do you justify that? Does it matter that he payed for it later? What if he decided he didn't like it and didn't pay for it? The morally just action is to not buy a game if you have any concerns about it. I don't see how you can justify anything else. Just a small disclaimer to start with: I don't pirate software or movies. Not because of some moralistic or ethical dilemma, pirating in my situation is simply a poor ROI. We're on a bit of a slippery slope here. First copyright was justified as protection for the creators of original work, now it's necessary to protect the investment of those who sell other people's original work. You say that the publisher holding the copyright is necessitated by the high cost of game development. I would argue that the high cost of video game development is caused by publisher copyright and interference. The argument becomes, publishers create high costs which justify them holding copyright which is justified by the high cost of game development. The publisher dominated system creates an artificial necessity for their involvement. Publishers are like a self fulfilling prophecy. I've been gaming for nearly forty years. In that time I have seen the industry change from one where publishers backed a developer who had or would create a product that was then marketed, to one where the developers create a product that ticks all the publishers required boxes. The problem with this is that I doubt many people get into game development for the money. The main driving force would probably be a love of games. Publishers, on the other hand, care about ROI and maximising the number of product sold. This means that publisher dominance creates a situation where all games must conform to a set of bullet points to maximise purchases while minimising time and money invested. The result...DA3, ME 4, Resistance 3, Gears of War 3, Zelda 18 Skyward Sword, Mortal Kombat 9, Pokemon 23 (“Black/white" version), Elder Scrolls 5, Battlefield 3, Uncharted 3, FarCry 3, Max Payne 3, Metal Gear 9, Deus Ex 3, Call of Duty 8: Modern Warfare 3, Saint's Row 3, SOCOM 4, Diablo 3, Forza 4, Final Fantasy 14 and Madden 20. The industry has changed from one of innovation and reward to one of iteration, mediocrity and a race for the lowest common denominator. This all ties into the topic of piracy. Almost every other non-perishable product sold has the ability to try before you buy, or, at the least, some consumer protections that allow for the return of goods that do not meet vendor claims. Not so with video game products. You have no recourse for a bad game purchase that had to be made on faith because publishers don't want you to see their product's faults before purchase. Faith should have no place in a commercial transaction. With the decline of demos, video game purchases have become a crap-shoot. This is, I believe, why piracy is prevalent. I'm not trying to justify pirating. I simply give my view on why I think some people pirate games. I also think this is where the industry is taking the wrong path. They seem to be only looking how many people are pirating (as if any of these industry analysts can give anything other than a guess) and attempting to stop them. I believe they should be looking at why people pirate games and trying to eliminate those causes. The people who pirate simply because they can are irrelevant. They would be unlikely to purchase a game at full retail price even if pirating were unavailable. They were never a lost customer.

I run all steam games with auto update turned off but in many cases steam will not allow the game to run until you run the update. It merely tells you that there is an update required rather than automatically installing it.

Based on my very limited understanding of the video game industry, the problem I see with your statement about "black and white" scenarios is that in many cases the copyright holder (the publisher) has created nothing. They have bought a product from the developers. The developers are the creators of the product and in many cases have already received payment for their work, yet often have very limited or even no copyright. I personally find the practice of granting copyright to something other than the creator of a product to be ethically challenging. Not being the creators of the product, what ethical right does a publisher have to the copyrights to a product?

Wow. My choice to give Beamdog my $20 was not foolish. I have the original Baldur's Gate cd's and since I upgraded my system 12 months ago I have been unable to get the game to run. I spent 6 months trying. I even bought the GoG version in the hopes that it would run on my system but no, it wouldn't. The EE version does run on my system. You may not like what Beamdog have done but to call my choice foolish is itself foolish. Beamdog have my sincere thanks for allowing me to continue to replay a game I enjoy.

Well, I still haven't read the manual yet but I did spend another couple of hours in the game. It seems that they have changed the feel of the game entirely. It no longer has the sandbox feel to it. As far as I can tell you can still do everything from the first game plus much more, but instead of the freedom of the first, everything now seems 'mission' based. You now have Admiral characters and you don't select individual ships, or even fleets, to issue orders. You now right click a system which brings up a menu of available actions you can perform in that particular system. For example, you right click an unexplored system and then click on "Survey". That brings up a screen where you choose which system to survey and which fleet to do it. The chosen fleet will then automatically travel to the selected system, perform it's mission and then automatically travel back to it's system of origin. You then need to right click the system again, select "Colonize", which again brings up a screen to select which planet and which fleet. The same for building space stations, patrolling, interdiction, assault or any other action I have tried so far. The ship design screen seems much less elegant. As with everything I've seen so far, you can do much more than in the first game but it is less intuitive and the information it presents is, in my opinion, much less accessible. Overall they have added a great deal to the game, but it seems very detached. The UI seems to unnecessarily complicate each and every action you take. I can't get into this game as I could the first. I've only scratched the surface so far, I haven't even had an opportunity to try combat yet, but I don't think I'll spend the hundreds of hours on this game that I spent on the first. Of course, there are also many people out there that think the game is far better than the first. My advice, buy it on special. It's an okay game but, for me, not the time sink that SOTS was. I'll keep playing for a while, though. I may get used to the new design.