If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT games.

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Paul1290
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by Paul1290 »

Mr_Cyberpunk wrote:
I'd argue he'd be fine without community funded injections. As I said, Community funding should be a last resort, he should only be asking for help if he's in trouble.. which he presently isn't. I'd argue he doesn't need the capital that badly else he'd have put more effort into the presentation (whereas Tim Schafer was pretty much pleading and I'd argue he didn't have any other choice given the genre, adventure games are tainted, no one will invest in them except the fans).
I really wish it were that easy to get funding for a tactical shooter, but it isn't.

The thing is tactical shooters as a genre are not very well off at all right now. There hasn't been a decent CQB Tactical Shooter release since SWAT 4 and nearly all the series are either dead or have turned into more conventional FPS games.

The closest thing to a tactical shooter series that is still going strong is the ARMA series, which is more of a military-sim than a tactical shooter. ARMA is, oddly enough, actually even more niche and less mainstream-friendly than the tactical shooters that have died off.
On the other hand, ARMA is not a very good example to go by because in a lot of ways it's an exception to the usual rules regarding what games get funded and made.
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gamer0004
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by gamer0004 »

Now this is a project I wouldn't back (it's an MMO simulating an ant colony or something. Sounds pretty cool). They want 300K, are an indie developer with no previous MMO experience (as far as I can tell), no reputation and no concept.
But then again, it probably won't be funded.
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by Mr_Cyberpunk »

But then again, it probably won't be funded.
I'd say you're probably right about that, again the pitch comes across as mostly promises.

The fact that its an mmo is even worse, MMOs are expensive and the staff required just to maintain the servers is too much. The idea is cool but why an MMO?! the developer doesn't appear in my eyes to be real authorities on those types of games, MMOs are a volatile market. Its a really hard market to crack, Xsyon was the only game I know of that community funded its way into MMOs and even then it wasn't as successful as it should have been.
That's why we describe this game as Minecraft meets Warcraft.
Never wise to compare your game to other successful games before you've even started on it. Will Wright learned that the hard way.
Our goal will be to launch the game by December of 2012.
Commitment to a set deadline.. oh geez.. that won't end well.

That said, really cool idea.. but its just not feasible. Especially with the timeframe and budget they've set.
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by Jonas »

Mr_Cyberpunk wrote:Never wise to compare your game to other successful games before you've even started on it. Will Wright learned that the hard way.
And yet in pitches, you're pretty much expected to do so. Go figure.
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by DaveW »

Mr_Cyberpunk wrote:
That's why we describe this game as Minecraft meets Warcraft.
Never wise to compare your game to other successful games before you've even started on it. Will Wright learned that the hard way.
It's not necessarily a bad idea, it's common for film scripts to be sold on comparisons to previous films - like the string of action films after Die Hard being described as "Die Hard..in space, on a plane" etc. to sell them. It's a cheap and easy way to set someone's expectations quickly.

Of course when it's a nobody pitching to you it tends to have the opposite effect.
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by Mr_Cyberpunk »

DaveW wrote:
Mr_Cyberpunk wrote:
That's why we describe this game as Minecraft meets Warcraft.
Never wise to compare your game to other successful games before you've even started on it. Will Wright learned that the hard way.
It's not necessarily a bad idea, it's common for film scripts to be sold on comparisons to previous films - like the string of action films after Die Hard being described as "Die Hard..in space, on a plane" etc. to sell them. It's a cheap and easy way to set someone's expectations quickly.

Of course when it's a nobody pitching to you it tends to have the opposite effect.
Yes I noticed this when I watched a few things on James Cameron in our creative thinking class, (our lecturer is CGI so hence film industry thinking), and all of his pitches were either "Romeo and Juliet on a Boat" or "Dances with Wolves in Space".

But as you've said, a relatively no body doing this has the negative effect. Obviously no work is a truly original work, but our initial pitch should never be based on comparisons as you're setting yourself up for an absolute failure. Will Wright screwing this up was just a massive what the fuck moment, he really over did it.

I think comparing your game to Minecraft and Warcraft before you even have anything started on the game is suicide. Only once a complete product exists can you look back on it and compare it to the competition. If you jump the gun, I doubt the work will be very good (or rather as good as they're making it out to be).
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by DDL »

You seem to be in a very...extremist mood, Mr_CP. None of this "that's a bad idea", it's straight to "THAT IS FUCKINN SUICIDE LOL TEHY GONNA FAIL SO HARD".

I really don't think there's anything about this situation that quite merits such determined pessimism, especially at such early stages.

"I have this kickstarter ide-"

"YOU WILL BE RAPED TO DEATH BY WILD DOGS, FOO. LIKE WILL WRIGHT"

"..."


It's especially odd given how new and untested crowdsourcing is. It might work, and this might turn out to be either the best way to do it, or perhaps the exact right time to do it, or even both. If ever there was a time to try a novel approach, it'd be while that approach was still novel.

After all, they're not really pitching this directly at industry venture capitalists, they're pitching it at the crowds. Crowds of "non-industry professionals". All you need to say to them is "here's a cool idea, how much would you miss a couple of quid, just on speculation?". For many of us, it's worth throwing disposable income at because it's such a trifling anount of money, and at the very least we'll be keeping imaginative people in food and beer for a year or so, during which time even if this particular idea doesn't pan out, they'll have many other fun ideas.
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by Mr_Cyberpunk »

As much as I'd like to think in the idealistic manner, and rest assured I want to, the fact of the matter is most of these pitches are being rushed for the sake of riding the popularity kickstarter has gotten since the Tim Schafer publicity. Its causing people to make some really poor choices in their business planning, the ant game shouldn't even be attempting to build an MMO in 8 months, that's impossible. Just saying, investors will be considering these things when putting their money in, if you're rushing to kickstarter, you're a fool. Community Funding is something that can't be rushed into and should not be the first thing people think of when they have an idea for a game. They should be well underway first, and then consider it as an option only.

If we can get an authority in to quality check and make sure everyone's doing the right thing, I'd be more happier to impulsively buy into products like you're saying we can DDL.

many people thinking Kickstarter is a get rich quick system, that's not right.
Point is most people going into kickstarter have no idea what its even like being an indie, many of them are new to game development, many of them have no idea the amount of failure and hardship there is being an indie.. and a lot of people buying into it are also in the same position and shouldn't be giving their money away so quickly. Mediation is necessary, if the people wont think about this prior to investment, they need someone doing it for them IMO. That's where Gamers Gate and Desura have the right idea, they just don't have the popularity that Kickstarter has.
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by DDL »

Really? I mean, really?

I don't mean to sound harsh, but reading through your response there, there are a shitload of unsupported assertions.
the fact of the matter is most of these pitches are being rushed
attempting to build an MMO in 8 months, that's impossible
investors will be considering these things when putting their money in
if you're rushing to kickstarter, you're a fool
Community Funding is something that can't be rushed into
[They should] consider it as an option only
most people going into kickstarter have no idea what its even like being an indie
many of them are new to game development
many of them have no idea the amount of failure and hardship there is being an indie
Mediation is necessary
I mean...citation needed?

It's only when you get to the very end that you put "in my opinion" for anything.

Am I suggesting that everything on kickstarter (which, incidentally, is apparentlyfor 'creative projects', and is not exclusively game-related) will be a roaring success? No. Am I suggesting that this example here is a brilliant pitch that cannot fail? Of course not.

BUT. One of the major lessons I've learned over the years is that the internet can really, really surprise me ("fucking twitter? Seriously? I don't want to live on this planet anymore..." etc etc). And the internet is one of the most neophilic environments ever. If you don't strike when the internet is still in OOOH SHINY mode, you may never strike at all.

Sure, YOU may not want to invest in this product, since you have a better idea of the likely ground rules...but "enbittered industry stalwarts" are probably not who they're pitching to. "People with disposable income who are willing to throw chump change at amusing ideas"? That's closer to the mark. Probably. Trying to pigeonhole something like this into "things you should do" and "things you shouldn't do" misses the point: crowdsourcing is new, it's hot, and it's entirely untested. Trying to set ground rules from the start is counterproductive, stifling, and probably likely to fail in surprising ways anyway. People will try crazy shit. Some of it will stick. Some of it won't. The point is that if people didn't try crazy shit in the first place, crazy shit would never happen. And that would be a loss to everyone.

Plus, I think you underestimate the level of enthusiasm for crazy shit. Even failures can be glorious if they were crazy and ambitious enough.
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by AEmer »

I don't mean to sound harsh
Really? I mean, really?

:giggle:

(added: I agree with the point tho)
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Re: If you liked older Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, or SWAT gam

Post by Mr_Cyberpunk »

(which, incidentally, is apparentlyfor 'creative projects', and is not exclusively game-related)
That's really the thing, for documentaries and for things that are designed purely to be community based projects it works brilliantly. Its more when you try to do it for profit that things get a bit tricky. Most people pushing the Kickstarter is the future arguement are basing it entirely on those successes in more charity or community based projects.. the few startups that were on the system weren't making anywhere near the type of money that the video games industry is drawing in.. its huge but this is mostly due to the fact that it definately is needed in our industry badly, people see the need for it. We're talking a huge amount of money here, and a lot of it is going to Amazon instead of recycling back through the industry, it all should be self contained- hence why Gamers Gate and Desura are better options right now, it cuts out the third parties and works directly with the distributor, Tim Schafer still had to go through Steam and Valve in order to get his game distributed, cut he middle men out, if he had just gone through Valve to begin with not only would his royalty cost been reduced leaving more money for the project, but it also means fewer hands touching it because its contained within the one system.. that said there are risks with that as well (reliance on Steam may be seen as intrusive-- that said there are plenty of alternatives that offer this exact thing). The only thing stopping this is popularity. It is a given that Steam will adopt it, when this happens, Kickstarter will have expired its usefulness to the industry rest assured.

CITATION! (I've already linked it before but incase you missed it).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLC_zZ5fqFk
Skip to 5:00. Gabe explains what he wants to do with Steam eventually.
If you don't strike when the internet is still in OOOH SHINY mode, you may never strike at all.
That's what the AAAs are all banking on, that may work for them, it won't work for Indies who desperately need a system like this to work for them. It won't work if people are tarnishing its reputation. I'm concerned because this may be our only chance to finally be rid of the need for publishers, if people exploit it and screw it up we'll be forced to go back to the old ways. We finally have to chance to do something amazing, there's no point in going into it half assed.
Trying to set ground rules from the start is counterproductive, stifling, and probably likely to fail in surprising ways anyway.
Ah yes the catch cry of pre-GFC venture capitalists. I think setting the ground rules is a good idea, sure it slows things down, but it at least ensures that the system would not be misused and that everyone can be expected to participate orderly. It shits me off when people don't do the right thing and the rest of the community has to deal with the burden of their dodgy business practices- when kickstarter first started up there were a lot of dodgy games on the site, you can check their archives, I doubt even half of these got released. Kickstarter has also had some problems with plagarism as well which are documented on the wikipedia article, but also in the case of Orion Prelude which copied content from other games and failed to pay royalty to their developers. Prior to Schafer, Kickstarter was a place full of dodgy Indies, I haven't forgotten this and in all fairness I'd argue the general public sees nothing more than the glamorized version its become now in this post-Schafer Kickstarter world.

Valve will do it, and valve will do it 20x better than what Amazon did, their system will cater to our industries needs and at the utmost protect the user. The second this happens I can safely shut the fuck up and start using it :D. Again I'm not opposed to the community funded model, I support it, but it needs to be implemented with our industry in mind.
Plus, I think you underestimate the level of enthusiasm for crazy shit. Even failures can be glorious if they were crazy and ambitious enough.
This would be all well and good if the work was good, I'm skeptic of this though. I think Schafers game will be really fun to see even if it did fail. But excluding those AAA guys, if we focus on the indies, realize this is a lot of their industry debuts, if they can't make this work then there's not much hope for the indie developer.. this model is a godsend for them.. if they screw it up I will be shocked because there were plenty of indies in the past doing fine without community funding.. they're getting a free pass.. if they screw it up they weren't cut out to be game developers.. and in the end that depresses me. Ideally, I want to see a flourishing industry. True these arguements are strictly theoretical, as you've said, new system untested. But the entire point of community funding is risk management.. and I'm assesing the risks they're faced with.

Ok I get that you're like "hey people just want to throw pocket change at people and hope for the best" but with regulation you can do this a lot more care free.. I'd love to be able to do this, but as has been proven in the past with Kickstarter, there isn't anything protecting you once that quota has been met- its between you and the developer, kickstarter denies any resoncibility- whereas over a digital distribution network, its treated as a purchase and subjected to all sorts of trade laws. That protection would make me feel a hell lot better knowing that if they did screw us over, we could seek legal action and actually be compensated for being ripped off.

And you're saying "Chump change" but don't forget they're asking for anywhere between $1-$50,000... I'm cool with the $15, and imo that should be the only option, once you add the ability to pay more, it becomes a bit of a problem and you're asking people to take huge risks with a much larger investment. Personally I wouldn't do this, especially as it creates a sense of entitlement.

I'm perfectly fine with your criticisms of my arguements and I welcome that.. realize this is just a leisurely discussion on the subject.
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