Kick it forward support?

[Volourn]

"hey may be AAA developer but this isn't a AAA project. This doesn't have a AAA budget, and certainly won't have AAA distribution.

 

Even Steven Soderbergh makes small budget films that makes a profit in between his high budget blockbusters. "

 

Sorry dude, but Obsidian's reputation alone along with the games theya r epimping should guarantee them a huge customer base. I am assuming that they will do at least some advertising and gaming mags/sites will also cover this game unlike majority of independent games because it is an Obsidian game.

 

It be liking saying that if BIO did a kickstarter that there wouldn't be expectations to sell x amount of copies still.

 

Obsidian is not some rinkadink company. It's one of the major gaming studios in NA with 100+ employees. They ain't gonna be able to pay them all for the 2 years it takes to make this game with 2-3mil from KS.

 

If the game sells less than a mil, it should be classified as a disspaointment sales wise. Anything under 500k is a travesty.

[Grimlorn]

Knights of the Chalice 2 needs kickstarting.

[Sordel]

If a Kickstarter campaign succeeds, the project is already funded.

 

This is not true.

 

From Nataly Dawn's Blog:

 

Take a trip with me back in time to one year ago, when I was beginning my own Kickstarter project. I set the goal at $20,000, even though I was quite aware that I would not be able to make the album I wanted to make without reaching at least $80,000. The support from my fans, however, was overwhelming – $104,000 – more than I was even willing to hope for. But here’s the great thing about having a public budget: everyone wants a piece. The reasonable $80,000 budget that I had put together did NOT leave room for all of the extra expenses, nor for the fact that most people charged a primo rate for their services. Not that I BLAME them, mind you. I would have done the same had I been in their shoes.

 

Sadly, in many people’s minds, I will always have most of that $104,000 because I probably only needed $20,000 to make the album in the first place. I mean, how much can making an album really cost?

 

Let me tell you how much it cost: $150,000.

 

I opened FOUR credit cards, just in case my $20,000 of life savings wouldn’t be enough to cover extra costs, and boy, am I glad I did! I’ve been seriously in debt for the past five months, owing money to friends, parents and the bank. And I’m not telling you this because I want your sympathy (or your financial advice)! I knew EXACTLY how crazy I was to invest the largest sum of money I’d ever made on a project that guaranteed me zero return on my investment.

 

Now you may say 'This is a professional games studio, not some flakey indie singer' but the point is: Obsidian may have made a number of reasonable assumptions demanding additional scale. It's cheaper per unit to manufacture higher numbers of boxes, maps and manuals, for example, so it may well be that the amount they raise through the Kickstarter at the original funding target would not actually cover the pledge costs on those items.

 

Moreover, if Obsidian wanted to make a game costing $10 Million then it is better to get $2 million through Kickstarter than to get zero through Kickstarter because they asked for $10 Million and failed to hit their target.

 

The fact is: Kickstarter projects may cover the full cost, or part of the cost, or the full cost plus a handsome return. We just don't know.

[Merin]

If a Kickstarter campaign succeeds, the project is already funded.

 

This is not true.

 

From Nataly Dawn's Blog:

 

Take a trip with me back in time to one year ago, when I was beginning my own Kickstarter project. I set the goal at $20,000, even though I was quite aware that I would not be able to make the album I wanted to make without reaching at least $80,000. The support from my fans, however, was overwhelming – $104,000 – more than I was even willing to hope for. But here’s the great thing about having a public budget: everyone wants a piece. The reasonable $80,000 budget that I had put together did NOT leave room for all of the extra expenses, nor for the fact that most people charged a primo rate for their services. Not that I BLAME them, mind you. I would have done the same had I been in their shoes.

 

Now you may say 'This is a professional games studio, not some flakey indie singer' but the point is: Obsidian may have made a number of reasonable assumptions demanding additional scale.

 

No, what I'll say is -

 

1 - He set his goal at 20k even though he admits he wouldn't be able to do it without at least 80k.

2 - Turns out he was wrong how much he needed

 

There are plenty of stories of people/businesses doing Kickstarters and not having the money they thought they would... especially those who set up too many physical rewards to have to give out.

 

This is a bunch of game developers with a lot of experience, included in that experience is what their game budgets cost.

 

Unforeseen expenses and delays could happen, yes. But, all things being equal, their KS funds will cover all costs of production. And those costs = all materials paid for, all the people working on the project paid their salary.

 

If the game sells ZERO COPIES, they worked on a game that (hopefully) they are proud of and were paid for their work - as long as the donators are happy, Obsidian could do another Kickstarter, raise the money for another game, rinse and repeat. I'm not in the business, but I would bet good money that a one month KS campaign is far quicker and easier than trying to get money from publishers - ask Brian Fargo if you don't believe me.

 

The reality is that the game WILL sell copies beyond the roughly 40,000 backer's "already paid for" ones. The game is targetting a very niche market, so I'd probably say it would sell (absolutely pulling a number out of almost thin air here) 70-100,000 copies, with MAYBE a ceiling of 250,000 copies. But I'd say the safe bet is like 100,000 copies sold post KS.

 

If all those sales are digital (yes, they almost certainly will be), most of that money goes right back to Obsidian. Even at 70,000 copies that all but pure profit.

 

---

 

Your example is merely a cautionary tale for those looking to do a KS campaign with little to no business experience. It's important to note, but not really relevant.

[Sordel]

There are plenty of stories of people/businesses doing Kickstarters and not having the money they thought they would... especially those who set up too many physical rewards to have to give out.

 

This is a bunch of game developers with a lot of experience, included in that experience is what their game budgets cost.

 

[...]

 

Your example is merely a cautionary tale for those looking to do a KS campaign with little to no business experience. It's important to note, but not really relevant.

 

I think you maybe missed my point. My point was that Nataly asked for less than she thought she needed: people do that, it's part of the system. Your original claim was that if a Kickstarter project was funded that the project that it funds was completely paid for. I gave you a counterexample (and there are loads of them). Kickstarter can pay for everything, but with an expensive project and an unproven level of support most Kickstarter projects are going to use the money as part funding to kick-start the project. It says it right there in the name!

 

Another example: the Cerebus audio-visual project just posted actual expenditure of $32K on a project that only originally asked for $6K. That may sound like a crazy overspend to you, but they never expected to cover the cost of the project with $6K.

 

These projects are not funded on the basis of what they make from Kickstarter but on the basis that you yourself have already mentioned: there are future sales, and the future sales make up the shortfall. The basis of most business is not to use only the capital available (which is nearly always very small) but to leverage that capital.

 

We might be buying Obsidian house, but we might alternatively be giving them a deposit to secure a mortgage. We don't know, because they haven't told us.

[AwesomeOcelot]

They're not allowed to ask for partial funding on Kickstarter without stating that up front, there is no shortfall here, the game is completely funded. Other projects have asked for partial funding, this is not one of them, some projects may have been overly optimistic about the costs involved, they are not Obsidian. It's quite clear to me on the Kickstarter page for Project Eternity, $1.1m gets a team funded to make a game with three races, five classes, and five companions, undetermined length, estimated delivery April 2014.

 

A lot of the costs associated with those other games aren't applicable here. Retail? There is no retail, the project is already funded without any retail whatsoever. Licenses? It's their own IP. Engine? Unity is considerably less expensive than Unreal Engine 3 would be. Voice acting? These games blow so much money getting "names" to voice act, *cough* Bethesda, then completely waste their talent anyway, there's no sign of Obsidian doing this. Console fee, development kits? It's a PC game. Marketing? There has been no marketing. Distribution? Most backers are digital only.

 

Future sales are for profit making, but instead of that going to a publisher, it goes to Obsidian.

Edited September 24, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot

[JadedWolf]

I think Obsidian should spend the money any way they please - and personally, I would rather see them use any "extra" profits as a reserve for leaner times, when a project falls through or such.

[samm]

It is a percentage of the *profits* that would go into other projects. They would still get to keep far, far more - percentage wise - than they would with a publisher, and they would support other games to be released without the backing of money-mongering hypocrites of publishers. So definitely yes: Kicking it forward is a great initiative and deserves all the support it can get. It also strengthens bonds between game developers - they get in touch with each other and exchange ideas as well as solid financial support. See Notch's activities for example. Perfect recipe for a better tomorrow of serious gamers free of industrial oversight by artless locusts.

Edited September 24, 2012 by samm

[Merin]

I think you maybe missed my point.

 

Nope - I said if a Kickstarter project's funding goals is met, it's a success. You listed someone who didn't ask for their full goal, exceeded what they thought they needed, and still failed to have what they ended up really needing, as some kind of counter-example. Your counter-example was someone who 1 - asked for less, as I stated, and 2 - misjudged what they needed.

 

I got your point - and I countered your point by saying that Obsidian DID ask for full funding and should know what they need, if anyone CAN, barring unforeseen circumstances.

 

Again, got the point - and you're point (not all Kickstarters ask for full funding, and sometimes even going over isn't enough) is irrelevant. Obsidian asked for what they needed. So did Double Fine, DoubleBear, inXile, Harebrained Schemes...

 

Other people don't. Some campaigns already have a product and just look to raise money for marketing, advertising.

A few try to use Kickstarter as a scam.

These are all irrelevant to Obsidian's campaign.

 

We might be buying Obsidian house, but we might alternatively be giving them a deposit to secure a mortgage. We don't know, because they haven't told us.

 

And this is where you are just flat wrong - like those other game companies I listed, they explicitly state that they are asking for the amount they need to do their game from scratch -

 

We need to raise $1.1 million to fund an experienced team to do this right. We are asking for more than a lot of the other Kickstarter projects and that’s because we are not only making a game, we are creating a whole new world. That means a new RPG system, entirely new art, new characters and animation and whole lot of lore and dialogue. We’ve also designed the game to have a flexible budget and scope, so if we reach our target budget goal, we have a list great stuff we can add into the mix through stretch goals. And, additional money we raise will go straight into the game to add new levels, companions, NPCs, features, and even entirely new parts of the world which will add hours and hours to the adventure.

 

If you need more evidence, their stretch goals are ADDING CONTENT... they aren't saying stuff like "well, we asked for a million, but really need twelve, and each later tier of the stretch goals is that much less we have to raise elsewhere.

 

They don't have an elsewhere -

 

We have wanted to go back to our roots and create an epic PC role-playing game adventure for years. But, it's been almost impossible to get funding through traditional methods for a game like this. The great thing about Kickstarter is that we can go directly to the people who love to play RPGs as much as we love to make them. Plus, we don’t have to make compromises with a publisher. We make the development decisions, we market the game, and we don't have to answer to anyone but you – our fans.

 

You're examples are of other projects, projects where they state they didn't ask for the full amount.

[Volourn]

It's game development. There is no way for Obsidian to be 100% sure how much it will cost in the end. Not to mention the costs just to fill all the kicksratrt pledge extra like collector editions, paries, and other goodies. The way they desrcibe this game no way does it cost a mere 1.1 mil to make over the course of 2 years.

 

Let's say 25 people are working on it and they have a low end average salary of 25k that is 1.25mil for 2 years in basic staff salaries. Does not compute.

[Merin]

It's game development. There is no way for Obsidian to be 100% sure how much it will cost in the end. Not to mention the costs just to fill all the kicksratrt pledge extra like collector editions, paries, and other goodies. The way they desrcibe this game no way does it cost a mere 1.1 mil to make over the course of 2 years.

 

Let's say 25 people are working on it and they have a low end average salary of 25k that is 1.25mil for 2 years in basic staff salaries. Does not compute.

 

Because they also work on other projects, and each person isn't working for the full 2 years on that development cycle, and other things I'm sure I can't even imagine.

 

It's not that simple an equation.

 

And I did say "barring unforseen circumstances." Things happen. Good business plans try to accommodate for the unknown.

[Enclave]

I voted Maybe No.

 

The Kick It Forward is a great idea if a project is completely funded by Kickstarter, with a significant surplus after all costs. While it's great that P: E is doing well, the Kickstarter will not fund the game complete ... Obsidian will have to find significant further investment, so there is no way that they are rolling in cash from this.

 

Kick It Forward is best for windfall projects where a project receives very much more than it needs.

 

Moreover, I think that in the games world there are enough people starting highly speculative Kickstarter projects without giving them yet more incentive to do so by being able to draw on the success of preceding, viable projects.

 

Just an FYI, the Kickstarter fund is in fact going to fully fund Project Eternity.

 

Also no Kickstarter funds are used towards Kick it Forward.

[AwesomeOcelot]

It's game development. There is no way for Obsidian to be 100% sure how much it will cost in the end. Not to mention the costs just to fill all the kicksratrt pledge extra like collector editions, paries, and other goodies. The way they desrcibe this game no way does it cost a mere 1.1 mil to make over the course of 2 years.

 

Let's say 25 people are working on it and they have a low end average salary of 25k that is 1.25mil for 2 years in basic staff salaries. Does not compute.

 

Well people need to stop making up figures. In another thread someone came up with 120 for $50k out of no where. 25 people aren't working on it, and they're not being paid $25k annually for it. The people who are working on it for the full cycle could be salaried, and hours are shared between projects. Perhaps some of the creators have royalty deals on future sales when the game goes to retail.

[ET3D]

It's important to remember that the 5% is from profits. It's not from Kickstarter funds, it's not from revenue. If the Kickstarter money wasn't enough and the project went over budget, Obsidian won't have to pay a thing until it made enough to offset that.

 

As for taking away money from future projects, that's true, but it's not what's going to make or break these projects. Besides, the point is doing something that's not selfish. It's easy to keep the money to yourself, but giving away to charity or supporting someone is what makes the world a better place. The cases where giving away a little part of what you have will have catastrophic results are rare.

[vattghern]

KIF is just a marketing trick that Fargo came up with

 

whos gonna control how much profit a KS project made over what time period and how much of it was donated to other projects?

 

pointless

[ET3D]

Who's going to control it? The developers. You might be a cynic and not trust them (in which case, why are you paying them?) but that doesn't make the idea pointless.