They talk about already having an engine, so if they aren't using Onyx I have no idea what they are using.
Well... considering their stated goal, why shouldn't they use the Infinity Engine?
Because the Infinity Engine is literary a more than a decade old engine prepared for the specific games and systems that were on it.
It wouldn't make sense, except to cash in on nostalgia.
0
AchireIsn't life disappointing? Yes, it is.Registered Userregular
Unity maybe? Would certainly explain stretch goals for Linux support, and the earlier stuff Avellone said about Fargo helping them with the Kickstarter.
Unity maybe? Would certainly explain stretch goals for Linux support, and the earlier stuff Avellone said about Fargo helping them with the Kickstarter.
Possibly.
It was also brought up that Tim may have supplied something.
You see those Faiths & Avatars and Forgotten Realms Adventure books? I wonder if the wear is from getting them second hand, or actual use. Considering that he worked on IWD/2, BG:DA2, and NWN2 over 8 years or whatever, that could actually be from research for those games.
You see those Faiths & Avatars and Forgotten Realms Adventure books? I wonder if the wear is from getting them second hand, or actual use. Considering that he worked on IWD/2, BG:DA2, and NWN2 over 8 years or whatever, that could actually be from research for those games.
He often tweets pictures of D&D games that he's playing with miniatures on grids and stories about kobolds and stuff. Between that and all the games he's worked on, I'm guessing the wear is from actual use.
"I like turn-based combat too," Cain remarked, when I told him I'd rather have that. "I like the tactics involved in the precise movement, orientation and use of abilities. But it can tend to be slow with a large party of character. Real-time-with-pause is faster and can feel more engaging, but I have found the abilities to be harder to use well. One reason for that is because many RTWP RPGs were made based on paper-and-pencil games that used turns, and their abilities were made for opponents that were not moving. I feel that RTWP can be an excellent combat model if the abilities are designed with respect to that model, and not converted from another system."
Tim Cain just needs to be part of every rpg ever.
Retroactive
This is the most exciting thing I've seen in this thread so far. This man fucking gets me.
You see those Faiths & Avatars and Forgotten Realms Adventure books? I wonder if the wear is from getting them second hand, or actual use. Considering that he worked on IWD/2, BG:DA2, and NWN2 over 8 years or whatever, that could actually be from research for those games.
He often tweets pictures of D&D games that he's playing with miniatures on grids and stories about kobolds and stuff. Between that and all the games he's worked on, I'm guessing the wear is from actual use.
Obsidian was the one that liked to do PnP playtests of areas, right?
"I like turn-based combat too," Cain remarked, when I told him I'd rather have that. "I like the tactics involved in the precise movement, orientation and use of abilities. But it can tend to be slow with a large party of character. Real-time-with-pause is faster and can feel more engaging, but I have found the abilities to be harder to use well. One reason for that is because many RTWP RPGs were made based on paper-and-pencil games that used turns, and their abilities were made for opponents that were not moving. I feel that RTWP can be an excellent combat model if the abilities are designed with respect to that model, and not converted from another system."
Tim Cain just needs to be part of every rpg ever.
Retroactive
This is the most exciting thing I've seen in this thread so far. This man fucking gets me.
Tim Cain getting bored at work and deciding to do an engine is the best thing that ever happend to CRPG's.
Part of me is over the moon for this. That part of me has already contributed.
Part of me, the nostalgic part, feels twinges of regret that this is a new IP. Because younger Scarab, who filled his heart with hope for a Baldur's Gate 3, or when he was feeling particularly low, a Planescape 2, well that Scarab is long gone and somehow I get the feeling that he can never rest with such wishes unfulfilled.
Like when your fifteen year old self dreamed of banging whatsherface from that sitcom*. If you ever met her now, you'd owe it to that kid to make a move, regardless of your chances.
It's some kind of transgenerational pact of honor, or something.
What I'm saying is, there's something stirring out there. Baldur's Gate is getting an enhanced edition. Black Mesa actually fucking came out. Torchlight 2 is a better Diablo game than Diablo 2. Double Fine are making a new adventure title. Something's happening. I fear the worst. All of our dreams are somehow coming true. As though God is giving us one last meal before the end of the world comes.
*Elaine from Seinfeld. Don't judge me.
+1
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Part of me is over the moon for this. That part of me has already contributed.
Part of me, the nostalgic part, feels twinges of regret that this is a new IP. Because younger Scarab, who filled his heart with hope for a Baldur's Gate 3, or when he was feeling particularly low, a Planescape 2, well that Scarab is long gone and somehow I get the feeling that he can never rest with such wishes unfulfilled.
Like when your fifteen year old self dreamed of banging whatsherface from that sitcom*. If you ever met her now, you'd owe it to that kid to make a move, regardless of your chances.
It's some kind of transgenerational pact of honor, or something.
What I'm saying is, there's something stirring out there. Baldur's Gate is getting an enhanced edition. Black Mesa actually fucking came out. Torchlight 2 is a better Diablo game than Diablo 2. Double Fine are making a new adventure title. Something's happening. I fear the worst. All of our dreams are somehow coming true. As though God is giving us one last meal before the end of the world comes.
*Elaine from Seinfeld. Don't judge me.
You know, I've kind of had similar thoughts (well, not about Elaine), but I feel like somehow I'm being vindicated for something. I'm not sure what, still being a fan of those games after all these years maybe, but it's a good feeling.
Part of me is over the moon for this. That part of me has already contributed.
Part of me, the nostalgic part, feels twinges of regret that this is a new IP. Because younger Scarab, who filled his heart with hope for a Baldur's Gate 3, or when he was feeling particularly low, a Planescape 2, well that Scarab is long gone and somehow I get the feeling that he can never rest with such wishes unfulfilled.
Like when your fifteen year old self dreamed of banging whatsherface from that sitcom*. If you ever met her now, you'd owe it to that kid to make a move, regardless of your chances.
It's some kind of transgenerational pact of honor, or something.
What I'm saying is, there's something stirring out there. Baldur's Gate is getting an enhanced edition. Black Mesa actually fucking came out. Torchlight 2 is a better Diablo game than Diablo 2. Double Fine are making a new adventure title. Something's happening. I fear the worst. All of our dreams are somehow coming true. As though God is giving us one last meal before the end of the world comes.
*Elaine from Seinfeld. Don't judge me.
Perhaps Avellone will read this and add Nameless One/Julia Louis-Dryfus slashfic as a stretch goal.
It's weird. I look at my holiday shopping list of games and they're all in a way throwbacks to about 10-12 years ago. XCOM is a big one. Dishonored is another major axiom. Even somethin like Torchlight2, it's looking to the past while also pushing new boundaries.
Maybe it is a perfect confluence of economic systems and the current games market. Noone is investing millions and millions into huge triple A titles this close to a new console generation. But they still need something to shore up the quarterly earnings. So we get a glut of unusual, experimental titles.
I'm still doubting this is a permanent change in the market. I still think that Kickstarter is a bubble waiting to burst, tragically and in a violent way. But maybe it's also just a cycle.
Maybe ten years from now someone will be making a new game that is eerily similar to today's niche titles. And we'll all be talking about how it's great that such a game can even be made in this innovation-averse video gaming market. I dunno.
Part of me is over the moon for this. That part of me has already contributed.
Part of me, the nostalgic part, feels twinges of regret that this is a new IP. Because younger Scarab, who filled his heart with hope for a Baldur's Gate 3, or when he was feeling particularly low, a Planescape 2, well that Scarab is long gone and somehow I get the feeling that he can never rest with such wishes unfulfilled.
Like when your fifteen year old self dreamed of banging whatsherface from that sitcom*. If you ever met her now, you'd owe it to that kid to make a move, regardless of your chances.
It's some kind of transgenerational pact of honor, or something.
What I'm saying is, there's something stirring out there. Baldur's Gate is getting an enhanced edition. Black Mesa actually fucking came out. Torchlight 2 is a better Diablo game than Diablo 2. Double Fine are making a new adventure title. Something's happening. I fear the worst. All of our dreams are somehow coming true. As though God is giving us one last meal before the end of the world comes.
*Elaine from Seinfeld. Don't judge me.
Well it all depends on how the end results play out, but to be honest I think this is an indicator that the industry is finally heading in the right directions.
For years now people were decrying the death of small scale game development, the death of the PC as a games platform (in large part due to item 1), the hyper commercialisation of gaming turning everything into blind, bland mashups of whatever happens to be the most successful title at the moment.
That's changing. Partly the realisation has set in, partly because the mechanics and means are in place now. Games don't need to be mega-budget huge scale blockbusters that sell $CallOfDuty. The hardcore fanbase ostensibely (we'll see how well it pans out, but I'm hopeful given other successful examples like Minecraft or recently, FTL) doesn't mind lower quality visuals and lower production values as long as the core game is the kind of awesome they're looking for. And unlike the "we must make this game for EVERYONE to sell it to EVERYONE" school of game development that seems to just homogenise everything, that base is smaller, but it's also typically more loyal.
Games can be funded small scale, with smaller teams for lower production values and with smaller audiences, and unlike the prevailing attitude of previous years, that's OK. Devs can now sell more directly to their customers via DD and don't have to make blockbusters in order to justify what would have to be a brick-and-mortar store release. And over the past year we've seen, they can even get their funding straight from those fans.
The next few years will tell how this really pans out. A few high profile flops could kill the whole thing. But if that doesn't happen, it signifies a complete shift in the way games are made today compared to at the end of the previous console generation / start of this console generation.
Project Eternity no matter how good it is, it's never going to make bajillions like Call of Duty. It's never going to be gushed about at the E3 Microsoft and Sony MEGA BLOWOUT PARTY press conferences. Never going to see the inside of a Walmart or Tesco.
And that's perfectly fine. I don't care, and really, neither should anyone else that’s interested in the idea of this game. The devs get to make the game they want, they get to make money doing it, and the fans get to play it. I’ll happily take this model over 100 other massive budget, grey-scale GRRR gritty shooters.
subedii on
+6
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
I think the PC as a gaming platform is pretty much dead in the brick and mortar setting, and I'm okay with that. I think digital distribution has a large enough audience at this point to be viable for a sole outlet.
Really, what excites me the most about Kickstarter games and Project Eternity in particular is the total lack of a publisher. I definitely agree that the megapublishers like EA signaled the end of a great era of gaming and caused innovation to take a back seat, and I'm glad there's an outlet now that goes around them. I feel the same way about record companies, though that area still has a ways to go.
Ever since Origin was closed, I've sat and pouted and wondered what might've been, and now I think we're starting to see.
That said, there have still been some amazing games released over the years. I'm not saying everything new is crap, but I'm definitely happy to see developers control their own products again.
In some ways I want Kickstarter to crumble. Because right now it's looking eerily similar to the dotcom boom of the late 90s.
I don't think crowdsourcing is a sustainable future. I think it's a stopgap until digital distribution achieves the penetration it needs to make these games viable for publishers. We're at a transition period right now, I think. And until we push through, we need something like Kickstarter to get the ball rolling.
I think companies like Obsidian and Double Fine also will need to restructure if they want to fill this niche. Not necessarily downsizing, but a lot of developers have ordered themselves around the Triple A development budget. If they want to start making Triple B titles, you can't just have a dozen guys working on it as a side project, and you can't just splinter a large company toward six separate titles like Double Fine have done (which is insane, in a way).
Kickstarter still feels like gambling to me. It always will be, by its nature, and I'm not comfortable with that being the future of the niche, indie market. It shouldn't be. There should be a viable, robust system in place for these games to achieve commercial success without having to beg for donations.
The first big, noteworthy Kickstarted project that bombs is going to bring the whole house of cards down. I hope by then we have something in place (probably made by Valve, I guess) so that Obsidian can make Planescape 2. Because no publisher right now would ever drop the cash needed to make it. But it shouldn't be the case that we, the consumer, pay for it up front either.
I'd rather Planescape 2 never got made because no publisher bought into it than it somehow got Kickstarted. Because that's a huge fucking gamble and a huge burden of responsibility on everyone. It would tarnish the product and hyperinflate the hype to unreachable levels. It would never be as good as we want it to be and our wrath, as a community, would be savage.
Until something better comes along, Kickstarting Project Eternity will have to do. But I want to make it very clear, to gamers and developers, this should not be the future. It can't be and it shouldn't be.
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kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
I think the PC as a gaming platform is pretty much dead in the brick and mortar setting, and I'm okay with that. I think digital distribution has a large enough audience at this point to be viable for a sole outlet.
Really, what excites me the most about Kickstarter games and Project Eternity in particular is the total lack of a publisher. I definitely agree that the megapublishers like EA signaled the end of a great era of gaming and caused innovation to take a back seat, and I'm glad there's an outlet now that goes around them. I feel the same way about record companies, though that area still has a ways to go.
Ever since Origin was closed, I've sat and pouted and wondered what might've been, and now I think we're starting to see.
That said, there have still been some amazing games released over the years. I'm not saying everything new is crap, but I'm definitely happy to see developers control their own products again.
To ad to what you and subedii are saying: It's the long tail showing itself in game development. Retail pushed consolidation of publishers. There is limited self space, and PC games increasingly competed with console games over the last two decades. That means less and less space for PC games, and a changing demographic of who was going to buy from a software or game store. Competing for that shelf space meant producing "AAA" titles that would sell the most copies. "AAA" titles became exponentially expensive as graphics technology increased. That pushed publishers to consolidate and to emphasize the wrong things. EA wasn't trying consciously to stifle innovation, it was competing for retail space.
This trend parallels movies too, where the dynamic pushed fewer, more expensive blockbuster movies - limited theater space and space on video rental shelves drove the same phenomenon. There is enough physical plant (as multiplaxes/IMAXes upgrade, old single to three-screen theaters in urban cores can dedicate themselves to showing art/foreign/indie films), and alternative means of distribution remove the bandwidth constraints that made producing blockbusters the only viable model for major studios. (netflix, cable (see HBO putting out very high quality content and SciFi churning out b-movies, both with success))
Something's happening. I fear the worst. All of our dreams are somehow coming true. As though God is giving us one last meal before the end of the world comes.
Well... look at it this way. No matter how happy and excited you are, no matter how much you want to play this game, you're gonna have to wait for about two years. Two years of unending, nerve-wrecking anticipation. Two years of building up your expectations, your hope that it will be perfect mingling with the fear that it'll disappoint.
So what I'm saying is, the end of the world is now and you're just gonna have to put up with it until the arrival of the Thousand-Year Kingdom.
Why yes, I did just compare Project Eternity to the Second Coming of Christ. But only to illustrate my point, I assure you.
In some ways I want Kickstarter to crumble. Because right now it's looking eerily similar to the dotcom boom of the late 90s.
I disagree pretty strongly with this, because the dotcom bubble centered around the stock market and unknown quantities with no proof of concept and no predetermined revenue stream. A company like Obsidian - an established company with ties to their industry dating back fifteen years - coming in and saying "Give us money so that we can make X, it will be done by approximately Y", that is way different than "Uh, hi - we're InternetStartup.com, and we'd like you to invest in us so that we can make websites for, uh, internet death certificates".
There's certain some speculation by unknown quantities, but Kickstarter is also an intermediary between investor and producer. They've stated that they'd be willing to get involved in the case of predatory borrowing.
In some ways I want Kickstarter to crumble. Because right now it's looking eerily similar to the dotcom boom of the late 90s.
I don't think crowdsourcing is a sustainable future. I think it's a stopgap until digital distribution achieves the penetration it needs to make these games viable for publishers. We're at a transition period right now, I think. And until we push through, we need something like Kickstarter to get the ball rolling.
I think companies like Obsidian and Double Fine also will need to restructure if they want to fill this niche. Not necessarily downsizing, but a lot of developers have ordered themselves around the Triple A development budget. If they want to start making Triple B titles, you can't just have a dozen guys working on it as a side project, and you can't just splinter a large company toward six separate titles like Double Fine have done (which is insane, in a way).
Kickstarter still feels like gambling to me. It always will be, by its nature, and I'm not comfortable with that being the future of the niche, indie market. It shouldn't be. There should be a viable, robust system in place for these games to achieve commercial success without having to beg for donations.
The first big, noteworthy Kickstarted project that bombs is going to bring the whole house of cards down. I hope by then we have something in place (probably made by Valve, I guess) so that Obsidian can make Planescape 2. Because no publisher right now would ever drop the cash needed to make it. But it shouldn't be the case that we, the consumer, pay for it up front either.
I'd rather Planescape 2 never got made because no publisher bought into it than it somehow got Kickstarted. Because that's a huge fucking gamble and a huge burden of responsibility on everyone. It would tarnish the product and hyperinflate the hype to unreachable levels. It would never be as good as we want it to be and our wrath, as a community, would be savage.
Until something better comes along, Kickstarting Project Eternity will have to do. But I want to make it very clear, to gamers and developers, this should not be the future. It can't be and it shouldn't be.
I am a little surprised that people are so willing to put money in at the high levels, but why wouldn't companies use this model whenever possible even if they could get publisher money? It is an investment where the investor bears all the risk without the protections an investor usually receives and in exchange gets ZERO return on investment. It's a free bank loan where the principal is repaid with finished product, and only if there is a finished product. The PBS model makes more sense to me - if you like the programming you pay afterwards based on your ability to pay and the quality of product. The PBS model relies on an honor system and only works because up some front costs are paid by gov't and private donors - essentially kickstarting.
I don't know why one failure will cause the entire model to crumble any more than one buggy game made people stop buying games on release date or the great depression spelled the end of the stock market. Certainly if a kickstarter defrauds people or fails, these will start getting litigated and legislated. When that happens there will probably be reduced supply from investors and additional duties on recipients which may lower demand for kickstarter $. Maybe the kickstarter market is too liquid right now, but the likely outcome of failure is to take liquidity out of the market, not end it.
I keep seeing this line of thought. People keep talking about how this will all end in blood stained tears because "the fans" will never accept anything less than perfection of their unique vision. That they'll seek to define every aspect of the project, almost always in the most stupid ways, and constantly rage and rage and rage at the poor developers.
It's a possibility, but by no means a foregone conclusion. Nothing's been seen yet, except for maybe FTL, and that's too small and too fast to develop to really make any judgements on. Bar that, as long as the devs are upfront about what they're making, no sugarcoating on the fact that it'll be a budget title, or pretending that they'll be ceding full creative control to other people, there's plenty of prospect of the fans still lapping it up with open arms.
Some kickstarter projects are inevitably going to fail. But to be frank, I don't see it as any different than any other high budget, mass market title that's released today. All I've got to go on before release is pure marketing and hype. At least with the KS projects, I know they're going to be making something more along the lines I'm interested in, and I'm even choosing which development teams I think can pull it off.
Kickstarter isn't a means for the kinds of games you see come out of publishers. It's a means for the more art-house and indie. And like it or not, concepts like Project Eternity are very much niche and small scale. So without the means to get a publisher behind it (understandable), the investment has to come from somewhere. And I can think of worse places than the guys who most want to see the games made. But again, that all depends on how it pans out in the end.
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kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
It's weird. I look at my holiday shopping list of games and they're all in a way throwbacks to about 10-12 years ago. XCOM is a big one. Dishonored is another major axiom. Even somethin like Torchlight2, it's looking to the past while also pushing new boundaries.
Maybe it is a perfect confluence of economic systems and the current games market. Noone is investing millions and millions into huge triple A titles this close to a new console generation. But they still need something to shore up the quarterly earnings. So we get a glut of unusual, experimental titles.
I'm still doubting this is a permanent change in the market. I still think that Kickstarter is a bubble waiting to burst, tragically and in a violent way. But maybe it's also just a cycle.
Maybe ten years from now someone will be making a new game that is eerily similar to today's niche titles. And we'll all be talking about how it's great that such a game can even be made in this innovation-averse video gaming market. I dunno.
I'll take whatever I can get.
Too soon to tell, but I think a lot of it is that as 80s and 90s gamers hit middle age and greater amounts of earning potential, you have gamers willing to buy more games that hearken back to quality games of the past and are willing to pay more for those games - kickstarter allows almost perfect price discrimination. So the 20 year old D&D nerd in college can plunk down $25 for project eternity, and the 40 year old who loved PS:T at its release and who is now in a c-level position somewhere or a senior line position can splurge and put down $5,000 to bring back something he loved from his youth.
We see this in media with the boomer generation too - their favorite acts remain the highest grossing for the same reason. From a volume perspective, the eagles and michael jackson continue to move millions of CDs because people keep buying them because the people who like them have money, even as other acts get oodles more media attention. From a price hike perspective, concerts, like kickstarter, allows really effective price discrimination and you see people spending $100s to $1000s for barbara streisand, bette midler, bob dylan or mark knopfler tickets. Project Eternity is a lot like barbara streisand.
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kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
I keep seeing this line of thought. People keep talking about how this will all end in blood stained tears because "the fans" will never accept anything less than perfection of their unique vision. That they'll seek to define every aspect of the project, almost always in the most stupid ways, and constantly rage and rage and rage at the poor developers.
It's a possibility, but by no means a foregone conclusion. Nothing's been seen yet, except for maybe FTL, and that's too small and too fast to develop to really make any judgements on. Bar that, as long as the devs are upfront about what they're making, no sugarcoating on the fact that it'll be a budget title, or pretending that they'll be ceding full creative control to other people, there's plenty of prospect of the fans still lapping it up with open arms.
Some kickstarter projects are inevitably going to fail. But to be frank, I don't see it as any different than any other high budget, mass market title that's released today. All I've got to go on before release is pure marketing and hype. At least with the KS projects, I know they're going to be making something more along the lines I'm interested in, and I'm even choosing which development teams I think can pull it off.
Kickstarter isn't a means for the kinds of games you see come out of publishers. It's a means for the more art-house and indie. And like it or not, concepts like Project Eternity are very much niche and small scale. So without the means to get a publisher behind it (understandable), the investment has to come from somewhere. And I can think of worse places than the guys who most want to see the games made. But again, that all depends on how it pans out in the end.
Most importantly, it won't matter if the end product turns out buggy or unsatisfactory because the developers already took your money. There's less incentive for quality or speed when you already got paid. That's why known quantities - wasteland or eternity or shadowrun - have an easier time raising money, I think. Whether that trust is well founded remains to be seen.
kaliyama on
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
I do think there is some worry in tons of people kicking into a game and getting a crappy product or a game full of bugs and "sorry, no patch budget!" that will cause them to hesitate to donate in the future, but I think for at least these loved developers of yore, people will still go on faith. A huge flop could have repercussions on indie funding through Kickstarter, though. Either way, I think it's an exciting time right now.
The emotional downturn at a game not delivering on its promises will be much more severe when it is your money that has been wasted, not the publisher.
I mean look at it like this. I've put in $100 to the Double Fine Adventure game. So I've already bought the game. What if it comes out and is just a bad game. Just bad. It could happen. It's not a dead cert that any of these 'legendary game designers' will deliver each and every time, even though I choose to put my faith in them.
So not only do I feel the unhappiness of my investment being wasted on a bad product, financially and emotionally, but I have immediate buyer's remorse and a sense of betrayal. These are hugely powerful emotions.
In some ways I want Kickstarter to crumble. Because right now it's looking eerily similar to the dotcom boom of the late 90s.
I disagree pretty strongly with this, because the dotcom bubble centered around the stock market and unknown quantities with no proof of concept and no predetermined revenue stream. A company like Obsidian - an established company with ties to their industry dating back fifteen years - coming in and saying "Give us money so that we can make X, it will be done by approximately Y", that is way different than "Uh, hi - we're InternetStartup.com, and we'd like you to invest in us so that we can make websites for, uh, internet death certificates".
There's certain some speculation by unknown quantities, but Kickstarter is also an intermediary between investor and producer. They've stated that they'd be willing to get involved in the case of predatory borrowing.
A fair comment. Though I will say that too few people understand that Kickstarter is, and always will be, gambling. There are no guarantees and never will be.
With a market that has the penetration and distribution infrastructure to accommodate 'indie games', these niche titles would still get made and people would still be willing to buy them. But the risk for the consumer would be lessened and the impetus to deliver would be more heavily placed on the developer.
I don't expect Obsidian to fail any more than I expect Double Fine to fail. That's why I put in not just enough money to cover the game but also extra to make a statement of intent. These are games I like to play and have always bought. But there's a reason I don't invest in the stock market. There's a reason I don't play poker and a reason I don't invest in films.
I'm a consumer. Not an investor. Not a gambler. I'll tolerate Kickstarter for now, until something better comes along that facilitates a more traditional and safe approach to consumption. But I absolutely do not want it to last.
Just because a genre is unpopular or long forgotten, or averse to publisher interest, does not mean the next logical step in the development process is crowdsourcing. There are steps that have been skipped here because they do not currently exist. Steps such as a more pervasive digital distro sector, steps such as more indie friendly publisher startups.
It is very much like the dotcom bubble and like all emergent technology rushes. Plastics. The future is plastics! Well it isn't and shouldn't be either. Kickstarter is new and convenient, but it is artifice. It's a necessary measure of convenience while the rest of the industry catches up.
The emotional downturn at a game not delivering on its promises will be much more severe when it is your money that has been wasted, not the publisher.
I mean look at it like this. I've put in $100 to the Double Fine Adventure game. So I've already bought the game. What if it comes out and is just a bad game. Just bad. It could happen. It's not a dead cert that any of these 'legendary game designers' will deliver each and every time, even though I choose to put my faith in them.
So not only do I feel the unhappiness of my investment being wasted on a bad product, financially and emotionally, but I have immediate buyer's remorse and a sense of betrayal. These are hugely powerful emotions.
All I can say is that we seem to be coming from different places then.
You see, I'm under no illusions that any one of these projects could fall flat on its face, get up, trip down the stairs, slam through the front door, over the bridge and end up causing a 3 mile pile up on the M6. I accepted that the moment I pressed the button to submit. Before that even.
It doesn't matter to me, this is likely the only chance I'll get to see a new spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, or in this case, see the old Black Isle crew make an RPG in the vein of the days of old, except without having to adhere to other people's universes and game systems, and without publishers trying to make the title more mass-market friendly at the expense of interesting gameplay and story ideas.
I don't toss my money at any project, just the ones that I really want to see, and by people that I believe can deliver. If it fails, it fails. I'm happy just for the possibility that this could work out, which is why I was willing to kick some money to these projects. I'm not going to regret that, even if the game's terrible. Because that chance isn't going to happen any other way as things stand, so I'll gladly see where it leads right now.
This sounds like chat for the industry thread or something!
A programmer for this game is over on reddit answering questions. If anyone wants to wade into the festering cesspool and submit queries, go ahead! I'm just going to wait until the braindead hivemind votes up the stuff I want to read and then skim the cream from the top.
In some ways I want Kickstarter to crumble. Because right now it's looking eerily similar to the dotcom boom of the late 90s.
I don't think crowdsourcing is a sustainable future. I think it's a stopgap until digital distribution achieves the penetration it needs to make these games viable for publishers. We're at a transition period right now, I think. And until we push through, we need something like Kickstarter to get the ball rolling.
Kickstarter or crowdsourcing has huge advantages for any product with high development costs and low manufacturing costs.
1) It allows them to price discriminate. That is it allows people that want to pay more do so but still allows them to sell at a low price to get high volume. I this case it gets fans to change their thinking from "How little can I pay for X" to "How badly do I want X?" Furthermore it greatly expands the concept of a "special edition".
2) It removes a lot of risk because if the demand isn't there then the kickstarter falls through and you don't spend money making a product won't sell.
3) If the crowdsourcing money covers the development budget then all sales after the Kickstarter are pure profit for the devs. This could make them independent of publishers or even crowdfunding.
4) It removes middle men and is thus more efficient.
5) The risks of Kickstarting games (game doesn't get finished, game isn't good, game goes over budget) already exist and everyone involved (developers,publishers and gamers) already pays for them. The question is whether publishers are going to be better at managing those risks than a combination of the developers themselves and the crowd.
6) It can communicate some of the costs to the fans. Thus we get "stretch goals" which state "with X money we can add feature Y".
If you want to see how powerful an idea it is but in more tangible form, check out this (already completed but I guess I shouldn't link to it) Reaper Bones Kickstarter. They used Kickstarter to pay the huge upfront costs of moving some of miniature production to plastic. Now plastic minis are cheap to make but take very expensive molds, while the opposite is true for metal miniatures. They were able to go from having 12 (which still made up 1/3 of their sales) plastic molds to having over 200. At the same time their Kickstarter supporters will get a great deal because giving each them a plastic copy of each of the miniatures isn't all that expensive. You can bet that both Reaper and their customers are looking to repeat the experience.
Anyway, I doubt Kickstarter or crowdfunding is going away. If anything it might get more mainstream. I will grant you that it is a more natural fit for things that aren't as risky as software development.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I don't see how this is comparable to the dotcom bubble at all. People who invested in those companies expected to earn money. A lot of them were putting their financial security and livelihoods on the line.
People who invest in Kickstarter know that this is a luxury item. They don't expect a return in their investment in Kickstarter projects to allows them to support their families or build a retirement fund.
Posts
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
........
*Hunts Sir Carcass down*
Well... considering their stated goal, why shouldn't they use the Infinity Engine?
Well, it doesn't do 3D for one
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Because the Infinity Engine is literary a more than a decade old engine prepared for the specific games and systems that were on it.
It wouldn't make sense, except to cash in on nostalgia.
Possibly.
It was also brought up that Tim may have supplied something.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
My Unearthed Arcana looked worse than that after the first read through.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
This is the most exciting thing I've seen in this thread so far. This man fucking gets me.
Obsidian was the one that liked to do PnP playtests of areas, right?
Fuck yeah, Ars Magica.
Tim Cain getting bored at work and deciding to do an engine is the best thing that ever happend to CRPG's.
Fact
Part of me, the nostalgic part, feels twinges of regret that this is a new IP. Because younger Scarab, who filled his heart with hope for a Baldur's Gate 3, or when he was feeling particularly low, a Planescape 2, well that Scarab is long gone and somehow I get the feeling that he can never rest with such wishes unfulfilled.
Like when your fifteen year old self dreamed of banging whatsherface from that sitcom*. If you ever met her now, you'd owe it to that kid to make a move, regardless of your chances.
It's some kind of transgenerational pact of honor, or something.
What I'm saying is, there's something stirring out there. Baldur's Gate is getting an enhanced edition. Black Mesa actually fucking came out. Torchlight 2 is a better Diablo game than Diablo 2. Double Fine are making a new adventure title. Something's happening. I fear the worst. All of our dreams are somehow coming true. As though God is giving us one last meal before the end of the world comes.
*Elaine from Seinfeld. Don't judge me.
You know, I've kind of had similar thoughts (well, not about Elaine), but I feel like somehow I'm being vindicated for something. I'm not sure what, still being a fan of those games after all these years maybe, but it's a good feeling.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Shit's gettin' real and we're hosed
Perhaps Avellone will read this and add Nameless One/Julia Louis-Dryfus slashfic as a stretch goal.
Maybe it is a perfect confluence of economic systems and the current games market. Noone is investing millions and millions into huge triple A titles this close to a new console generation. But they still need something to shore up the quarterly earnings. So we get a glut of unusual, experimental titles.
I'm still doubting this is a permanent change in the market. I still think that Kickstarter is a bubble waiting to burst, tragically and in a violent way. But maybe it's also just a cycle.
Maybe ten years from now someone will be making a new game that is eerily similar to today's niche titles. And we'll all be talking about how it's great that such a game can even be made in this innovation-averse video gaming market. I dunno.
I'll take whatever I can get.
Well it all depends on how the end results play out, but to be honest I think this is an indicator that the industry is finally heading in the right directions.
For years now people were decrying the death of small scale game development, the death of the PC as a games platform (in large part due to item 1), the hyper commercialisation of gaming turning everything into blind, bland mashups of whatever happens to be the most successful title at the moment.
That's changing. Partly the realisation has set in, partly because the mechanics and means are in place now. Games don't need to be mega-budget huge scale blockbusters that sell $CallOfDuty. The hardcore fanbase ostensibely (we'll see how well it pans out, but I'm hopeful given other successful examples like Minecraft or recently, FTL) doesn't mind lower quality visuals and lower production values as long as the core game is the kind of awesome they're looking for. And unlike the "we must make this game for EVERYONE to sell it to EVERYONE" school of game development that seems to just homogenise everything, that base is smaller, but it's also typically more loyal.
Games can be funded small scale, with smaller teams for lower production values and with smaller audiences, and unlike the prevailing attitude of previous years, that's OK. Devs can now sell more directly to their customers via DD and don't have to make blockbusters in order to justify what would have to be a brick-and-mortar store release. And over the past year we've seen, they can even get their funding straight from those fans.
The next few years will tell how this really pans out. A few high profile flops could kill the whole thing. But if that doesn't happen, it signifies a complete shift in the way games are made today compared to at the end of the previous console generation / start of this console generation.
Project Eternity no matter how good it is, it's never going to make bajillions like Call of Duty. It's never going to be gushed about at the E3 Microsoft and Sony MEGA BLOWOUT PARTY press conferences. Never going to see the inside of a Walmart or Tesco.
And that's perfectly fine. I don't care, and really, neither should anyone else that’s interested in the idea of this game. The devs get to make the game they want, they get to make money doing it, and the fans get to play it. I’ll happily take this model over 100 other massive budget, grey-scale GRRR gritty shooters.
Really, what excites me the most about Kickstarter games and Project Eternity in particular is the total lack of a publisher. I definitely agree that the megapublishers like EA signaled the end of a great era of gaming and caused innovation to take a back seat, and I'm glad there's an outlet now that goes around them. I feel the same way about record companies, though that area still has a ways to go.
Ever since Origin was closed, I've sat and pouted and wondered what might've been, and now I think we're starting to see.
That said, there have still been some amazing games released over the years. I'm not saying everything new is crap, but I'm definitely happy to see developers control their own products again.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
I don't think crowdsourcing is a sustainable future. I think it's a stopgap until digital distribution achieves the penetration it needs to make these games viable for publishers. We're at a transition period right now, I think. And until we push through, we need something like Kickstarter to get the ball rolling.
I think companies like Obsidian and Double Fine also will need to restructure if they want to fill this niche. Not necessarily downsizing, but a lot of developers have ordered themselves around the Triple A development budget. If they want to start making Triple B titles, you can't just have a dozen guys working on it as a side project, and you can't just splinter a large company toward six separate titles like Double Fine have done (which is insane, in a way).
Kickstarter still feels like gambling to me. It always will be, by its nature, and I'm not comfortable with that being the future of the niche, indie market. It shouldn't be. There should be a viable, robust system in place for these games to achieve commercial success without having to beg for donations.
The first big, noteworthy Kickstarted project that bombs is going to bring the whole house of cards down. I hope by then we have something in place (probably made by Valve, I guess) so that Obsidian can make Planescape 2. Because no publisher right now would ever drop the cash needed to make it. But it shouldn't be the case that we, the consumer, pay for it up front either.
I'd rather Planescape 2 never got made because no publisher bought into it than it somehow got Kickstarted. Because that's a huge fucking gamble and a huge burden of responsibility on everyone. It would tarnish the product and hyperinflate the hype to unreachable levels. It would never be as good as we want it to be and our wrath, as a community, would be savage.
Until something better comes along, Kickstarting Project Eternity will have to do. But I want to make it very clear, to gamers and developers, this should not be the future. It can't be and it shouldn't be.
To ad to what you and subedii are saying: It's the long tail showing itself in game development. Retail pushed consolidation of publishers. There is limited self space, and PC games increasingly competed with console games over the last two decades. That means less and less space for PC games, and a changing demographic of who was going to buy from a software or game store. Competing for that shelf space meant producing "AAA" titles that would sell the most copies. "AAA" titles became exponentially expensive as graphics technology increased. That pushed publishers to consolidate and to emphasize the wrong things. EA wasn't trying consciously to stifle innovation, it was competing for retail space.
This trend parallels movies too, where the dynamic pushed fewer, more expensive blockbuster movies - limited theater space and space on video rental shelves drove the same phenomenon. There is enough physical plant (as multiplaxes/IMAXes upgrade, old single to three-screen theaters in urban cores can dedicate themselves to showing art/foreign/indie films), and alternative means of distribution remove the bandwidth constraints that made producing blockbusters the only viable model for major studios. (netflix, cable (see HBO putting out very high quality content and SciFi churning out b-movies, both with success))
Well... look at it this way. No matter how happy and excited you are, no matter how much you want to play this game, you're gonna have to wait for about two years. Two years of unending, nerve-wrecking anticipation. Two years of building up your expectations, your hope that it will be perfect mingling with the fear that it'll disappoint.
So what I'm saying is, the end of the world is now and you're just gonna have to put up with it until the arrival of the Thousand-Year Kingdom.
Why yes, I did just compare Project Eternity to the Second Coming of Christ. But only to illustrate my point, I assure you.
There's certain some speculation by unknown quantities, but Kickstarter is also an intermediary between investor and producer. They've stated that they'd be willing to get involved in the case of predatory borrowing.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
I am a little surprised that people are so willing to put money in at the high levels, but why wouldn't companies use this model whenever possible even if they could get publisher money? It is an investment where the investor bears all the risk without the protections an investor usually receives and in exchange gets ZERO return on investment. It's a free bank loan where the principal is repaid with finished product, and only if there is a finished product. The PBS model makes more sense to me - if you like the programming you pay afterwards based on your ability to pay and the quality of product. The PBS model relies on an honor system and only works because up some front costs are paid by gov't and private donors - essentially kickstarting.
I don't know why one failure will cause the entire model to crumble any more than one buggy game made people stop buying games on release date or the great depression spelled the end of the stock market. Certainly if a kickstarter defrauds people or fails, these will start getting litigated and legislated. When that happens there will probably be reduced supply from investors and additional duties on recipients which may lower demand for kickstarter $. Maybe the kickstarter market is too liquid right now, but the likely outcome of failure is to take liquidity out of the market, not end it.
It's a possibility, but by no means a foregone conclusion. Nothing's been seen yet, except for maybe FTL, and that's too small and too fast to develop to really make any judgements on. Bar that, as long as the devs are upfront about what they're making, no sugarcoating on the fact that it'll be a budget title, or pretending that they'll be ceding full creative control to other people, there's plenty of prospect of the fans still lapping it up with open arms.
Some kickstarter projects are inevitably going to fail. But to be frank, I don't see it as any different than any other high budget, mass market title that's released today. All I've got to go on before release is pure marketing and hype. At least with the KS projects, I know they're going to be making something more along the lines I'm interested in, and I'm even choosing which development teams I think can pull it off.
Kickstarter isn't a means for the kinds of games you see come out of publishers. It's a means for the more art-house and indie. And like it or not, concepts like Project Eternity are very much niche and small scale. So without the means to get a publisher behind it (understandable), the investment has to come from somewhere. And I can think of worse places than the guys who most want to see the games made. But again, that all depends on how it pans out in the end.
Too soon to tell, but I think a lot of it is that as 80s and 90s gamers hit middle age and greater amounts of earning potential, you have gamers willing to buy more games that hearken back to quality games of the past and are willing to pay more for those games - kickstarter allows almost perfect price discrimination. So the 20 year old D&D nerd in college can plunk down $25 for project eternity, and the 40 year old who loved PS:T at its release and who is now in a c-level position somewhere or a senior line position can splurge and put down $5,000 to bring back something he loved from his youth.
We see this in media with the boomer generation too - their favorite acts remain the highest grossing for the same reason. From a volume perspective, the eagles and michael jackson continue to move millions of CDs because people keep buying them because the people who like them have money, even as other acts get oodles more media attention. From a price hike perspective, concerts, like kickstarter, allows really effective price discrimination and you see people spending $100s to $1000s for barbara streisand, bette midler, bob dylan or mark knopfler tickets. Project Eternity is a lot like barbara streisand.
Most importantly, it won't matter if the end product turns out buggy or unsatisfactory because the developers already took your money. There's less incentive for quality or speed when you already got paid. That's why known quantities - wasteland or eternity or shadowrun - have an easier time raising money, I think. Whether that trust is well founded remains to be seen.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
I mean look at it like this. I've put in $100 to the Double Fine Adventure game. So I've already bought the game. What if it comes out and is just a bad game. Just bad. It could happen. It's not a dead cert that any of these 'legendary game designers' will deliver each and every time, even though I choose to put my faith in them.
So not only do I feel the unhappiness of my investment being wasted on a bad product, financially and emotionally, but I have immediate buyer's remorse and a sense of betrayal. These are hugely powerful emotions.
A fair comment. Though I will say that too few people understand that Kickstarter is, and always will be, gambling. There are no guarantees and never will be.
With a market that has the penetration and distribution infrastructure to accommodate 'indie games', these niche titles would still get made and people would still be willing to buy them. But the risk for the consumer would be lessened and the impetus to deliver would be more heavily placed on the developer.
I don't expect Obsidian to fail any more than I expect Double Fine to fail. That's why I put in not just enough money to cover the game but also extra to make a statement of intent. These are games I like to play and have always bought. But there's a reason I don't invest in the stock market. There's a reason I don't play poker and a reason I don't invest in films.
I'm a consumer. Not an investor. Not a gambler. I'll tolerate Kickstarter for now, until something better comes along that facilitates a more traditional and safe approach to consumption. But I absolutely do not want it to last.
Just because a genre is unpopular or long forgotten, or averse to publisher interest, does not mean the next logical step in the development process is crowdsourcing. There are steps that have been skipped here because they do not currently exist. Steps such as a more pervasive digital distro sector, steps such as more indie friendly publisher startups.
It is very much like the dotcom bubble and like all emergent technology rushes. Plastics. The future is plastics! Well it isn't and shouldn't be either. Kickstarter is new and convenient, but it is artifice. It's a necessary measure of convenience while the rest of the industry catches up.
All I can say is that we seem to be coming from different places then.
You see, I'm under no illusions that any one of these projects could fall flat on its face, get up, trip down the stairs, slam through the front door, over the bridge and end up causing a 3 mile pile up on the M6. I accepted that the moment I pressed the button to submit. Before that even.
It doesn't matter to me, this is likely the only chance I'll get to see a new spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, or in this case, see the old Black Isle crew make an RPG in the vein of the days of old, except without having to adhere to other people's universes and game systems, and without publishers trying to make the title more mass-market friendly at the expense of interesting gameplay and story ideas.
I don't toss my money at any project, just the ones that I really want to see, and by people that I believe can deliver. If it fails, it fails. I'm happy just for the possibility that this could work out, which is why I was willing to kick some money to these projects. I'm not going to regret that, even if the game's terrible. Because that chance isn't going to happen any other way as things stand, so I'll gladly see where it leads right now.
A programmer for this game is over on reddit answering questions. If anyone wants to wade into the festering cesspool and submit queries, go ahead! I'm just going to wait until the braindead hivemind votes up the stuff I want to read and then skim the cream from the top.
Kickstarter or crowdsourcing has huge advantages for any product with high development costs and low manufacturing costs.
1) It allows them to price discriminate. That is it allows people that want to pay more do so but still allows them to sell at a low price to get high volume. I this case it gets fans to change their thinking from "How little can I pay for X" to "How badly do I want X?" Furthermore it greatly expands the concept of a "special edition".
2) It removes a lot of risk because if the demand isn't there then the kickstarter falls through and you don't spend money making a product won't sell.
3) If the crowdsourcing money covers the development budget then all sales after the Kickstarter are pure profit for the devs. This could make them independent of publishers or even crowdfunding.
4) It removes middle men and is thus more efficient.
5) The risks of Kickstarting games (game doesn't get finished, game isn't good, game goes over budget) already exist and everyone involved (developers,publishers and gamers) already pays for them. The question is whether publishers are going to be better at managing those risks than a combination of the developers themselves and the crowd.
6) It can communicate some of the costs to the fans. Thus we get "stretch goals" which state "with X money we can add feature Y".
If you want to see how powerful an idea it is but in more tangible form, check out this (already completed but I guess I shouldn't link to it) Reaper Bones Kickstarter. They used Kickstarter to pay the huge upfront costs of moving some of miniature production to plastic. Now plastic minis are cheap to make but take very expensive molds, while the opposite is true for metal miniatures. They were able to go from having 12 (which still made up 1/3 of their sales) plastic molds to having over 200. At the same time their Kickstarter supporters will get a great deal because giving each them a plastic copy of each of the miniatures isn't all that expensive. You can bet that both Reaper and their customers are looking to repeat the experience.
Anyway, I doubt Kickstarter or crowdfunding is going away. If anything it might get more mainstream. I will grant you that it is a more natural fit for things that aren't as risky as software development.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
People who invest in Kickstarter know that this is a luxury item. They don't expect a return in their investment in Kickstarter projects to allows them to support their families or build a retirement fund.