Is $4M enough?

[Veeno]

Kickstarter is a bubble. A temporal abnormality that will either burst or fade. Right now it is still a novelty but in a few months when the sensation of newness fades and the first mayor setbacks, like failed and disappointing projects, have occurred the readiness to trade money for glass baubles will fade.

Even today you really need big names or tons of luck to get enough money together and this will not improve with the years.

 

Kickstarter is not a bubble. A bubble is a "business" that gets loads and loads of money for not doing anything, and it bursts when people finally start realising "hey... they're not doing anything, prehaps we should stop giving them money".

 

As I've said two times already, the success of Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general currently hinges on the success of Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity. If those manage to be successful, it will prove that crowdfunding can work and thus provide a sturdy foundation for further growth of crowdfunding.

[RaccoonTOF]

Kickstarter is a bubble. A temporal abnormality that will either burst or fade. Right now it is still a novelty but in a few months when the sensation of newness fades and the first mayor setbacks, like failed and disappointing projects, have occurred the readiness to trade money for glass baubles will fade.

Even today you really need big names or tons of luck to get enough money together and this will not improve with the years.

Just to point out that the same was said about Facebook. Mind you, it was also said about MySpace, which turned out to be largely correct. Plus the sorts of things as Prodigy and Compuserve competing with AOL. Or direct publishing for eBooks, which led to things such as the Kindle and Nook. Not all of them survived, and Kickstarter itself might not either. But I'm fairly sure that the concept of crowdfunding and even crowdsourcing is one that is only going to grow, not shrink.

[RaccoonTOF]

As I've said two times already, the success of Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general currently hinges on the success of Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity. If those manage to be successful, it will prove that crowdfunding can work and thus provide a sturdy foundation for further growth of crowdfunding.

 

Just to point out that this should be qualified as "the success of Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general for the purposes of developing video games" - there are a number of other kickstarter projects (P:E isn't even the largest KS project to date, it is just the largest for a single video game, I believe third largest overall but the two leading it were both hardware projects).

[Veeno]

Just to point out that this should be qualified as "the success of Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general for the purposes of developing video games"

 

Yes, that is what we're talking about here anyway, isn't it?

[RaccoonTOF]

Yes, but some people are focusing on the Kickstarter platform as a whole, and for some things it's important to keep in mind the differences between the platform and the application

[Andwit25]

Kickstarter is a bubble. A temporal abnormality that will either burst or fade. Right now it is still a novelty but in a few months when the sensation of newness fades and the first mayor setbacks, like failed and disappointing projects, have occurred the readiness to trade money for glass baubles will fade.

Even today you really need big names or tons of luck to get enough money together and this will not improve with the years.

Just to point out that the same was said about Facebook. Mind you, it was also said about MySpace, which turned out to be largely correct. Plus the sorts of things as Prodigy and Compuserve competing with AOL. Or direct publishing for eBooks, which led to things such as the Kindle and Nook. Not all of them survived, and Kickstarter itself might not either. But I'm fairly sure that the concept of crowdfunding and even crowdsourcing is one that is only going to grow, not shrink.

Because Facebock stocks are doing so well. Facebook is the WoW of social networks. By a little skill and pure luck they have been at the right place at the right time but their success is already waning.

Crowd-funding is essentially what is called an arbitrage in economics. That is to say a way to get money with zero risk. And just like any arbitrage in the stock market is dealt with, so will be crowd-funding. Soon the first serious exploits will happen, and once the first games get released that to not live up to the backers expectations, not to mention that backers understand that they still have to buy the game regardless the amount of money they donated, the willingness to donate will sharply drop.

Kickstarter might stay as a way for Independent games but it will never last as a way to finance big titles.

[Veeno]

Crowd-funding is essentially what is called an arbitrage in economics. That is to say a way to get money with zero risk. And just like any arbitrage in the stock market is dealt with, so will be crowd-funding. Soon the first serious exploits will happen, and once the first games get released that to not live up to the backers expectations, not to mention that backers understand that they still have to buy the game regardless the amount of money they donated, the willingness to donate will sharply drop.

Kickstarter might stay as a way for Independent games but it will never last as a way to finance big titles.

 

I don't see how there is zero risk. Read this.

 

But I want to talk about the part of your post that I bolded. Have you even participated in the Project Eternity Kickstarter campaign, or any Kickstarter campaign for that matter? Check it out - any pledge of 25$ or more (or 20$ but those were limited) has the game itself as a reward for the backer.

[Salmanasar]

/.../

First Witcher - ~20 million polish zloty, today it's about 6 million $ (in 2007 it was arround 8-9 million $). And it was a full 3d game, with professional 8 min. intro made by Platige Image etc.

4 million $ seems more than enough for 2d izo rpg.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Salmanasar

[syn2083]

Kickstarter is a bubble. A temporal abnormality that will either burst or fade. Right now it is still a novelty but in a few months when the sensation of newness fades and the first mayor setbacks, like failed and disappointing projects, have occurred the readiness to trade money for glass baubles will fade.

Even today you really need big names or tons of luck to get enough money together and this will not improve with the years.

Just to point out that the same was said about Facebook. Mind you, it was also said about MySpace, which turned out to be largely correct. Plus the sorts of things as Prodigy and Compuserve competing with AOL. Or direct publishing for eBooks, which led to things such as the Kindle and Nook. Not all of them survived, and Kickstarter itself might not either. But I'm fairly sure that the concept of crowdfunding and even crowdsourcing is one that is only going to grow, not shrink.

Because Facebock stocks are doing so well. Facebook is the WoW of social networks. By a little skill and pure luck they have been at the right place at the right time but their success is already waning.

Crowd-funding is essentially what is called an arbitrage in economics. That is to say a way to get money with zero risk. And just like any arbitrage in the stock market is dealt with, so will be crowd-funding. Soon the first serious exploits will happen, and once the first games get released that to not live up to the backers expectations, not to mention that backers understand that they still have to buy the game regardless the amount of money they donated, the willingness to donate will sharply drop.

Kickstarter might stay as a way for Independent games but it will never last as a way to finance big titles.

 

This is somewhat misleading.

 

You named quite a few companies in there but the comparison is bad.

 

KS as a company may die, but crowdfunding is an idea.

 

When MySpace 'tanked' did social networking die? When WoW finally dies, will MMOs be dead? No. When the first dialups were failing, did new ISPs say, eh screw it? No.

 

Crowdfunding as a phenominom is right now edge, regardless of failure or success it will start to gain momentum as something in peoples minds. When the tech bubble collapsed in the 90s, the entire tech and software industry didnt vanish, everyone packing up their stuff and going home. People still invest in technology companies, and as new 'Public' entities are taking that risk. Facebook is a perfect example. It's stock is tanking like crazy, but how many people invested in it?

 

How many of those kinds of people will even remotely care in 5 years if facebook goes under right now? The small percentage that may lose homes, if thats the case, the rest will say 'Hey look at The Bleeters, this new website/idea is awesome, theyre going public?! awesome invest!'

 

Same thing here, crowdfunding is an idea, and its one that is easy to create in the environment of virtuality we have. So again, KS may die, but the idea, and method, will not.

[Andwit25]

Crowd-funding is essentially what is called an arbitrage in economics. That is to say a way to get money with zero risk. And just like any arbitrage in the stock market is dealt with, so will be crowd-funding. Soon the first serious exploits will happen, and once the first games get released that to not live up to the backers expectations, not to mention that backers understand that they still have to buy the game regardless the amount of money they donated, the willingness to donate will sharply drop.

Kickstarter might stay as a way for Independent games but it will never last as a way to finance big titles.

 

I don't see how there is zero risk. Read this.

 

But I want to talk about the part of your post that I bolded. Have you even participated in the Project Eternity Kickstarter campaign, or any Kickstarter campaign for that matter? Check it out - any pledge of 25$ or more (or 20$ but those were limited) has the game itself as a reward for the backer.

No I have not participated and I won´t in the future either. Nice that in this campaign the backer will get the game, if it will be released which as your own link proves is not guarantied.

Also there is no monetary risk for the developers, and no rights or securities whatsoever for the backers. Kickstarter might be a nice dream but just like Onlive and SocialGames it will not be the future.

 

Same thing here, crowdfunding is an idea, and its one that is easy to create in the environment of virtuality we have. So again, KS may die, but the idea, and method, will not.

Crowdfunding might (and most likely will) remain but only as tool for smaller and/or charitable efforts. But as a source for big games it will not work. Heck even the guys at Obsidian seem to think that way considering that they are planning to found the next game with P.E.`s profit and not to return to Kickstarter.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Andwit25

[Veeno]

Nice that in this campaign the backer will get the game

 

I don't know of a single video game Kickstarter campaign where a copy of the game wasn't included in the tiers.

[meomao]

No I have not participated and I won´t in the future either. Nice that in this campaign the backer will get the game, if it will be released which as your own link proves is not guarantied.

Also there is no monetary risk for the developers, and no rights or securities whatsoever for the backers. Kickstarter might be a nice dream but just like Onlive and SocialGames it will not be the future.

 

So, just one question: why are you even posting in those forums? I mean, in a best case scenario you are a troll. In a worst case scenario you are paid for these .

Edited October 20, 2012 by meomao

[AwesomeOcelot]

Looking forward a platform like Kickstarter will only get larger too. I personally absolutely hate social networking such as Facebook, but something like Kickstarter could easily get that huge. A Facebook where people get to fund things that they want and not just accept the closest reasonable compromise provided.

Kickstarter is a bubble. A temporal abnormality that will either burst or fade. Right now it is still a novelty but in a few months when the sensation of newness fades and the first mayor setbacks, like failed and disappointing projects, have occurred the readiness to trade money for glass baubles will fade.

Even today you really need big names or tons of luck to get enough money together and this will not improve with the years.

 

It's not a bubble, and it's only going to fade through saturation and competition for resources, you're not going be able to fund 3 multi-million dollar PC RPGs every 6 months, but then neither does the industry. Of course only names can get large amounts of money without showing anything. There's no luck in this, pitches are trading on ideas (infinity engine games, an open console, a spiritual successor to Rainbow 6 and SWAT 4), franchises (Shadowrun, Wasteland), work already done (Project Giana, FTL), and names (Project Eternity, Star Citizen), some of these obviously contain more than one of these. Are names, ideas, franchises, and prototypes going to run out? No.

 

If you actually look at how KickStarter is functioning, it's functioning as expected and pretty well. You can't compare KickStarter to a utopian vision of what game funding should be like, compare it how publishers fund games. There's going to be more failures, and some websites are going to make a much bigger deal out of them than they are because they've been setting up the "I told you so", but KickStarter is not going to stop.

 

 

Nice that in this campaign the backer will get the game

 

I don't know of a single video game Kickstarter campaign where a copy of the game wasn't included in the tiers.

Yeah, this person seems to have neglected to even look at a KickStarter campaign page.

Edited October 20, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot

[syn2083]

Crowd-funding is essentially what is called an arbitrage in economics. That is to say a way to get money with zero risk. And just like any arbitrage in the stock market is dealt with, so will be crowd-funding. Soon the first serious exploits will happen, and once the first games get released that to not live up to the backers expectations, not to mention that backers understand that they still have to buy the game regardless the amount of money they donated, the willingness to donate will sharply drop.

Kickstarter might stay as a way for Independent games but it will never last as a way to finance big titles.

 

I don't see how there is zero risk. Read this.

 

But I want to talk about the part of your post that I bolded. Have you even participated in the Project Eternity Kickstarter campaign, or any Kickstarter campaign for that matter? Check it out - any pledge of 25$ or more (or 20$ but those were limited) has the game itself as a reward for the backer.

No I have not participated and I won´t in the future either. Nice that in this campaign the backer will get the game, if it will be released which as your own link proves is not guarantied.

Also there is no monetary risk for the developers, and no rights or securities whatsoever for the backers. Kickstarter might be a nice dream but just like Onlive and SocialGames it will not be the future.

1. 
   Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?
    
    
   Yes. Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they don't. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.
    
    
   Can this be difficult to sue/collect on for a company no longer existing, yes. The assertion there is 0 rights or securities is simply false.
   

[HungryHungryOuroboros]

I never mention upper limits anywhere in there.

Yes, you do.

 

That's what the entire conversation is about.

 

When one person thinks crowdfunding CAN reach AAA budgets, and another person thinks that it CAN'T, what is being talked about is "What is the upper limit of a crowdfunded budget?"

 

I am certain that we're a lot closer to that limit than you think we are. I think that once you get an idea that appeals to a wide enough set of people, it's suddenly not going to work on Kickstarter.

 

Let's look at other Kickstarters. The only other one to o as well is Double Fine Adventure. Double Fine Adventure has very similar aspects to Project Eternity:

 

-High concept based on a reviving a "dead" genre

-New IP rather than revival of a 90s property(which came up in almost all big money post-DFA Kickstarters, Banner Saga excluded)

-Big time name recognition

-Strong cult following

 

Simply put, we're running low on dead genres that haven't really had a proper installment in the past decade. We're running low on potential starpower. We're looking at a point where making the pitch appeal to a wider audience would cut the legs out from under it. They've talked about Kickstarting a sequel, but will that stir up the kind of support as this high-concept pitch would? Will as many people be stirred up and get truly excited? Or after Eternity is a PRODUCT, that EXISTS, that you can PLAY, how much narrower will peoples' conceptualization of what they're backing be?

 

The scale doesn't work. The games capable of stirring up big budget levels of interest are also the ones that are already being made in 10-packs every year. There is a misconception among people that things that are good sell well, things that are bad don't. There's a sense of economic justice where people think that the things that make money deserve to make money, when really the things with the biggest marketing budgets that stick to tried and true formulas are always the most successful, and small plucky underdogs who make something truly intellectual and great will always falter in sales and reviews. As RPG fans, as people who have watched the fall of Troika, the stumbling of Obsidian, and the end of Black Isle, I thought this simple truth would be pretty much evident. Money is not a reward for quality, for greatness, for intellect. Money is a reward for appropriately playing the system, and crowdfunding simply is not a system that can ever fit the monetary needs of a big budget production.

 

 

Actually - considering that those people in the "video game industry" include reviewers

....since when? Are journalists suddenly part of the pharmaceutical industry when they report on drugs? Are journalists part of damn near every industry if they happen to report on a wider range of topics?

 

The whole origination of the term "AAA" was based on ratings - like letter grades in school

It's actually closer to the film industry "A/B movie", which derived from the higher-billed and more expensive of two films in a double feature, and later expanded to refer to all cheap second-tier studio films.

[Andwit25]

No I have not participated and I won´t in the future either. Nice that in this campaign the backer will get the game, if it will be released which as your own link proves is not guarantied.

Also there is no monetary risk for the developers, and no rights or securities whatsoever for the backers. Kickstarter might be a nice dream but just like Onlive and SocialGames it will not be the future.

 

So, just one question: why are you even posting in those forums? I mean, in a best case scenario you are a troll. In a worst case scenario you are paid for these .

Well let´s see I could like Obsidian´s games. Some of them might even be amongst my favorite games of all times. I might actually even be looking forward to P.E. and be therefore reading and posting here. Seem pretty good reasons to spend time on the forums. If you check my first post in this thread was about how I am hoping that Obsidian will spend the money well. After that I just kept answering to people who responded to my doubts about Kickstarter being the future of game funding, not that I understand what one has to do with the other especially now that the campaign has ended.

 

Also if you know anyone who does pay for forum post such as mine please give me their email-address I really could use the extra money.

[Veeno]

I think that once you get an idea that appeals to a wide enough set of people, it's suddenly not going to work on Kickstarter.

 

How the hell is that supposed to make sense...?

 

Also, I explained my point a bit better here:

 

My point also relies on budget vs. money people pay for a game.

 

How much of the money people pay for the game gets to the publisher? The price of a brand new "AAA" game is 50 $/€. How much of the 50 $/€ I pay gets to the publisher? Some of it goes to the retailer/distributor, some of it goes to the developers, and some of it goes back to the publisher. How much is that - about 60% or so? (Yes, the developers get only crumbs.)

 

So they invest let's say 20 million dollars. From retail sales, they get back let's say 30 million dollars - a profit of 10 million dollars. Estimating that those 30 million dollars is only 60% of what the gamers all together actually spent on buying the game, the actual total amount the gamers have all together spent on buying the game is 50 million dollars. And I'm not suggesting that Kickstarter could achieve that amount of budget (although I'm not saying that it couldn't, but that is completely beside the point now), but those initial 20 million dollars the publisher invested.

 

The average pledged amount per backer for Project Eternity is 54$ - already over your usual full price of a brand new AAA game. That means that Obsidian got more money from each backer on average than publishers get from each retail sale (even when you take into account some of it going to Kickstarter and Amazon). Much more. From that, the number of backers obviously doesn't need to get as big as the number of people who buy retail games in order to achieve the same amount of budget.

[HungryHungryOuroboros]

How the hell is that supposed to make sense...?

See, once again, this is the perspective of someone who sees Kickstarter like regular shops, and pretends the two are nearly interchangeable "except some people may not want to pay that early".

 

That's not how it works. People are ONLY willing to pay that early because the idea is niche and would not be made any other way. If their pitch was something that appealed to more people, it wouldn't be niche, it'd be closer to stuff that is already out, and people would have no reason to back it. There's an upper limit where an end product that would attract more people attracts less Kickstarter attention. This isn't speculation, I've seen it happen. Not many people here have been giving to projects and watching the trends for more than a year and a half now, not many people really know what makes Kickstarter work in the niche where it does.

[Althernai]

Crowd-funding is essentially what is called an arbitrage in economics. That is to say a way to get money with zero risk. And just like any arbitrage in the stock market is dealt with, so will be crowd-funding. Soon the first serious exploits will happen, and once the first games get released that to not live up to the backers expectations, not to mention that backers understand that they still have to buy the game regardless the amount of money they donated, the willingness to donate will sharply drop.

Kickstarter might stay as a way for Independent games but it will never last as a way to finance big titles.

You are using the wrong model. Crowd-funding is not investment, it is patronage. The concept is similar to what the aristocracy did for the arts in most pre-industrial societies, but instead of a single aristocratic patron paying for an entire work of art, there are tens of thousands contributing a fraction of the cost. And yes, there will be charlatans and broken promises and works that do not live up to expectations -- but that is simply the nature of art. The same exact thing happens to modern publishers and it happened to the old aristocracies... but somebody always paid for the art anyway (they just got smarter about whom they patronized).

 

In fact, if you look at the games that got large amounts of money out of Kickstarter, you'll see that "the crowd" is already pretty wary about whom it funds. Tim Schafer, Brian Fargo and the Obsidian three (Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, Josh Sawyer) all have strong track records of producing the kind of game their Kickstarters promised. It is certainly possible that one or more of the big ones will disappoint, but as long as most succeed, there is no reason why they can't continue to get funding.

[Andwit25]

In fact, if you look at the games that got large amounts of money out of Kickstarter, you'll see that "the crowd" is already pretty wary about whom it funds. Tim Schafer, Brian Fargo and the Obsidian three (Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, Josh Sawyer) all have strong track records of producing the kind of game their Kickstarters promised. It is certainly possible that one or more of the big ones will disappoint, but as long as most succeed, there is no reason why they can't continue to get funding.

And that is exactly the reason why crowdfunding will not work as future model for game funding. The only developers who get enough money to compete with the publisher-funded projects can be counted with the fingers of one hand. Everybody else does not have any realistic chance to even get close to such an amount of money.

And even those few, who right now have enough credit with the players to raise the money for a big project will be dropped like a hot potato once they either screw up or are perceived as going to mainstream.

It might remain around as a way to fund smaller niche games but as model for financing big games there is simply no future in it.

[RaccoonTOF]

Bah...wrote up a lengthy response and lost it . The key thing being missed from the discussion about Kickstarter not hitting the same budget of current "AAA" titles (assuming that we go based purely on the budget to determine what is an AAA title, unlike was done in the past) is that the Kickstarter funding also allows a developer to reduce the overall budget required to produce the IDENTICAL game, due to removing middlemen costs (not entirely, and they still have to have a distribution method, but sites such as Steam and GoG have already shown themselves to be viable alternatives for that).

 

As far as reviewers being part of the "game industry" - most definitely. I'm not talking about a fellow from Forbes or the NY Times reporting on the success of a Kickstarter project, I'm talking about publications/websites such as CGW, PCG, IGN, GameSpot, etc. Those are most definitely a part of the "game industry" just like Vogue is part of the fashion industry and health journals are part of the pharmaceutical industry. Generic "journalists" I would not say are part of the "games industry" but for sure dedicated publications like those above certainly are.

[RaccoonTOF]

The only developers who get enough money to compete with the publisher-funded projects can be counted with the fingers of one hand.

As opposed to the number of "major publishers" of AAA titles? Not counting platform-specific publishers (since by previous argument that makes them automatically not AAA titles) that leaves us with what? EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard/Activision, Take-Two, Square? There are a few others in there that are "up there" but I'd say those are likely the publishers of the vast majority of AAA titles released...

[HungryHungryOuroboros]

Bah...wrote up a lengthy response and lost it . The key thing being missed from the discussion about Kickstarter not hitting the same budget of current "AAA" titles (assuming that we go based purely on the budget to determine what is an AAA title, unlike was done in the past) is that the Kickstarter funding also allows a developer to reduce the overall budget required to produce the IDENTICAL game, due to removing middlemen costs (not entirely, and they still have to have a distribution method, but sites such as Steam and GoG have already shown themselves to be viable alternatives for that).

 

As far as reviewers being part of the "game industry" - most definitely. I'm not talking about a fellow from Forbes or the NY Times reporting on the success of a Kickstarter project, I'm talking about publications/websites such as CGW, PCG, IGN, GameSpot, etc. Those are most definitely a part of the "game industry" just like Vogue is part of the fashion industry and health journals are part of the pharmaceutical industry. Generic "journalists" I would not say are part of the "games industry" but for sure dedicated publications like those above certainly are.

Then a big section of the "game industry" is made up of arrogant, ignorant twats who don't know about video games and have one of the worst cases of conflict of interest in the entire world of entertainment journalism.

 

The only developers who get enough money to compete with the publisher-funded projects can be counted with the fingers of one hand.

As opposed to the number of "major publishers" of AAA titles? Not counting platform-specific publishers (since by previous argument that makes them automatically not AAA titles) that leaves us with what? EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard/Activision, Take-Two, Square? There are a few others in there that are "up there" but I'd say those are likely the publishers of the vast majority of AAA titles released...

1. EA

2. Ubisoft

3. Take Two

4. Activision Blizzard

5. ZeniMax Media(five fingers, hand #1)

6. THQ

7. Square Enix

8. Konami

9. Sega

10. Capcaom (10 fingers, hand #2)

11. Namco Bandai

12. Warner Bros. Interactive

13. Namco

14. Valve

15. Atlas(three hands)

Edited October 20, 2012 by HungryHungryOuroboros

[Althernai]

And that is exactly the reason why crowdfunding will not work as future model for game funding. The only developers who get enough money to compete with the publisher-funded projects can be counted with the fingers of one hand. Everybody else does not have any realistic chance to even get close to such an amount of money.

And even those few, who right now have enough credit with the players to raise the money for a big project will be dropped like a hot potato once they either screw up or are perceived as going to mainstream.

It might remain around as a way to fund smaller niche games but as model for financing big games there is simply no future in it.

No. It is true that some of those who now have credit will lose it, but you are missing the fact that a few of those without credit will gain it. Suppose a small developer makes an indie game and it is truly awesome -- many more people than expected play it and enjoy it. This developer then asks for a medium amount of money for a somewhat larger game and hits that one out of the ballpark too. At that point, it becomes possible to ask for money on a large scale because there are a lot of fans who love the previous two games and want more. This will not be a frequent phenomenon, but as long as you have a substantial number of smaller projects, there will always be upward as well as downward mobility.

[Andwit25]

The only developers who get enough money to compete with the publisher-funded projects can be counted with the fingers of one hand.

As opposed to the number of "major publishers" of AAA titles? Not counting platform-specific publishers (since by previous argument that makes them automatically not AAA titles) that leaves us with what? EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard/Activision, Take-Two, Square? There are a few others in there that are "up there" but I'd say those are likely the publishers of the vast majority of AAA titles released...

I am pretty sure that e.g. Ubisoft can pay for the development of several big titles simultaneously. On the other hand no matter how talented Mr. Avellone is, I still have a hard time imagine him working on more then one game at a time. Also the big publishers have options to cover for loses something that Kickstarter simply can´t do.

Not to mention that as soon as the fund-raising for P.E.2 starts people would wonder what happened to all the revenue P.E brought to the developer, so Kickstarter is only a one time option for a company. If a project truly succeeds and makes profit, few would be willing to back the successor because the first game proved that it could stay on it´s own two legs. If a project fails there is even less reason to pay for a second attempt. So either way developers just get one chance.

 

I am no fan of the big publishers at all, and really think there should be better ways (not that I can think of any) but crowd-funding is simply no alternative for the top price segment. It works for the niche market and might actually even give impulses that affect the triple A segment but believing that it will ever being anything more than that is delusional.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Andwit25