PIllars Of Eternity 3 by kickstarter?

[bringingyouthefuture]

The only reason I would see a large corporation not wanting to do crowdfunding (and I am no legal expert, political expert, etc) but it seems like added liability - people love to class action sue large corporations - and they would be opening the door to angry videogamers who felt slighted, etc ... and there is a lot of that going around these days.  And I agree that crowdfunding is a hassle, and Kickstarter takes a nice chunk of cash ....

I am neither for or against crowdfunding, but am 100 percent for another POE game. 

Edited May 1, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture

[Jayd]

Any corporation would absolutely love crowdfunding because it is literally their consumers paying them to profit from them. It is free money. There are no significant downsides for them.

 

No one has answered my question about whether a major company has ever had a product crowdfunded before. I've tried to look but can't find anything. I suspect we are talking about an unprecedented level of consumer sacrifice here. If it happens I bet we'll see media articles calling it the next phase in anti-consumerism in the video game industry: now players have to pay for development too! Get ready for more hate targeted at Obsidian.

[fYNX]

I will back PoE3 as long as Obsidian remains Obsidian and PoE3 remains a PoE game (Infinity-inspired, RTwP and isometric). I don't mind supporting Obsidian as a part of Microsoft or any other corporation (except, maybe, EA).

[Boeroer]

Since when is crowdfunding no-profit? That's absolutely not what it is.

You project will get funded, you ship the project to your backers (and are even then) - and every copy you sell after that to regular customers is your profit.

It seems you romaticized crowdfunding.

The act of crowdfunding ifself doesn't change at all regardless of the developer who's using it - big or small.

Besides that they could also do hybrid: run a crowdfundng campain for only a fraction of the development costs - just to stay in touch (like the guys from Banner Sage described) and offer special rewards and treatment - and fund the rest with their own money.

Again: like Deadfire.

[Boeroer]

2 hours ago, Jayd said:

now players have to pay for development too! 

Eh? Why "now"? As a player of games you always had to pay for the development of a commercial game in one way (money) or the other (looking at ads). Who else would pay for development?

Edited May 1, 2019 by Boeroer

[Jayd]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Eh? Why "now"? As a player of games you always had to pay for the development of a commercial game in one way (money) or the other (looking at ads). Who else would pay for development?

You know the difference. The normal model is that the maker of the game creates the product with their own resources, then monetizes the product to regain the money spent on its development + profit. In this case the maker is creating the game with the consumer's money, and then monetizing it in exactly the same way. It's an arrangement that is transparently much better for them and much worse for the consumer.

[Boeroer]

As long as the game gets finished the outcome is the same for you. For spening your money earlier you get more information and you can get invested more (see Banner Saga). And as I said: with a big company in the background it's very unlikely that your pledge will be lost. 

But it's always the player who will pay.

I don't know if crowdfunding is indeed the "better" option for the developer. You take away risk and get paid in advance, but it also means you have to create a campaign which is a lot of extra work. Also keeping the backers updated means extra work (which won't get paid).

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Since when is crowdfunding no-profit? That's absolutely not what it is.

You project will get funded, you ship the project to your backers (and are even then) - and every copy you sell after that to regular customers is your profit.

It seems you romaticized crowdfunding.

The act of crowdfunding ifself doesn't change at all regardless of the developer who's using it - big or small.

Yes, I did and tried to hint at it that it’s just my personal perspective, which I know is inaccurate. As a side not, Non-profit doesn’t mean they don’t aim to make a profit - it is just that their singular goal isn’t making as much money as possible. However, I did trust that Obsidian wanted to keep making games, while I don’t see how giving away your money to publisher is supposed to incentivize them to do anything. If it’s is a niche title, and it not expected to sell well enough to be worth investing in... they already got money from this niche market, so why bother investing to much into the game? Of course, if the end product is what you backed then it is a-OK. 

As to the notion, that somehow backing a corporation is more secure. Have you seen pre-orders and how misleading the end products are? Just recent go-to example: Anthem and it’s entire advertisement has been one big lie, going all the way back to announcement trailer. Microsoft ain’t EA, sure, but you would really just give money upfront and cross your fingers for the best? I mean you would, that what you’ve been telling for the last couple posts. Always preorder games then, huh? It’s not like anything shady ever happens. 

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, Jayd said:

No one has answered my question about whether a major company has ever had a product crowdfunded before. I've tried to look but can't find anything. I suspect we are talking about an unprecedented level of consumer sacrifice here.

As far as I know, no multi billion dollar corporation as of yet went to Kickstarter requesting funds to be able to develop the project “they believe in”. 

It has been common for independent developers to use crowdfunding success as a proof of interest when seeking additional investors.

The most controversial situation I am aware of is funding of Shenmue III, which was announced on Sony e3 stage, while not disclosing Sony’s investment into the project. I am still a bit fuzzy what the exact relationship between Shenmue team and Sony is. Here is Jim Sterling somewhat mirroring my feelings on the subject, especially a prospect of corporations dipping into crowdfunding. 

https://youtu.be/nXqrYx-04Ok

EDIT: hilariously, at the end he advertises “We Happy Few”. oh boy 

Edited May 1, 2019 by Wormerine

[nouser]

Again, OBSIDIAN IS NOT THE SAME AS MICROSOFT.   Treating Obsidian as the same as microsoft makes no sense.  Obsidian may be sold or even end if microsoft want and the major microsoft Corporation will still exist with its billions.  Kickstarter is to Help the Obsidian Crpg team , not Microsoft per se. 

[nouser]

7 hours ago, glennjones130486 said:

Wow, I'm just dumbfounded by the negative responses to the OP's idea.

 

The  Responses of most fans of the Pillars series will be positive. we are seeing just a vocal minority speaking against crowdfunding. for irrelevant reasons.  but im sure most fans want pillars of eternity 3 even if through kickstarter.

Edited May 1, 2019 by nouser
adding more details

[Wormerine]

30 minutes ago, nouser said:

Again, OBSIDIAN IS NOT THE SAME AS MICROSOFT.   Treating Obsidian as the same as microsoft makes no sense.  Obsidian may be sold or even end if microsoft want and the major microsoft Corporation will still exist with its billions.  Kickstarter is to Help the Obsidian Crpg team , not Microsoft per se. 

No they are not. Microsoft is the parent company, Obsidian is the subsidiary. I have been ignoring Obsidian in this conversation, becase, they are not the ones I take the issue with here. Hopefully, Obsidian are allowed to do their thing, in which case crowdfunding is unnecessary - their payroll is from Microsoft and they will produce games that Microsoft will {hopefully] profit from. My understanding is limited, but I think Obsidian is not financially independent in any way. I don't think you can just give money to Obsidian and bypass Microsoft. You give money to Microsoft, and they include it in PoE3 budget - be it by allowing more people to work on it, allowing them to work for longer, or just they have "free" money to pay wages with and project stays unaltered. Purely speculating here.

[Wormerine]

48 minutes ago, nouser said:

The  Responses of most fans of the Pillars series will be positive. we are seeing just a vocal minority speaking against crowdfunding. for irrelevant reasons.

No one is speaking against crowdfuding. I am speaking against giving money, when being blackmailed with an IP I like, by a corporation, which as far as I can remember didn't publish a decent game in a while. There is no crowdfunding, because Obsidian is owned by Microsoft and is funded by Microsoft. No matter if you pay Microsoft for PoE3 after release, just before, or before they start production, Microsoft will fund it and, if it wishes to, influence PoE3 developement. 

If Microsoft would decide to crowdfund PoE3 I would hope there would be an uproar. Not from PoE fans, but anyone interested in crowdfunding and gaming in general, because that would be a new cAAApitalism audacity. 

[Boeroer]

But you don't "give away" money when crowdfunding. At least not if the project gets finished.

I think that's the biggest point we differ. 

Crowdfunding is not charity and it's defining trait is not non-profit.

Crowdfunding can also change forms a lot. As I said (and which nobody referred to yet) I can see how you only crowdfund parts of a game just to stay in touch with your fan better. Maybe try to find out which "special" features they would like. But I also think about Fig shares which are by no means meant to be non-profit but are still a form of a crowd funding stuff.

[bringingyouthefuture]

On 5/1/2019 at 11:02 AM, Jayd said:

Any corporation would absolutely love crowdfunding because it is literally their consumers paying them to profit from them. It is free money. There are no significant downsides for them.

And this is based on the fact that large corporations are using Kickstarter regularly because they would get free money from it??  I mean if you equate pre-sales to crowdfunding than yes sure they benefit from it.  But let's be really clear - Kickstarter is not a business model large corporations with lengthy legal contracts for every purchase you make want to submit themselves too.

I mean there is what if's out there but really for Obsidian at this moment I can see the argument that the only reason they might want to have a crowdfunding campaign is to get the buzz going for their project and get people invested in it through the different backer tiers ... but they could do the same thing with a solid marketing plan too - and trust me I have worked in Marketing Research before and their is some pretty elaborate campaigns that make the essential crowdfunding backer tier / update fan involvement seem pretty basic.  The only thing is you get the crowdfunding marketing built into the campaign while you have to pay $$$$$$ for the marketing strategists.

 

EDIT:  I did some internet research and while there is some instances of larger companies using Kickstarter as a marketing tool, it seems pretty narrow - it seems like tech startups use it in this way the most, with the larger goal to raise investor awareness that they have a product people are interested in - funny though I would never invest in a tech product on Kickstarter, seems the riskiest of all the investments.

Edited May 2, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture