(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
. 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.