Developing a Game? Why not Kickstart?

I've backed a few, i never back projects unless the project has made significant progressa allready or the people behind it has significant experience and a solid trackrecord though.

True. Not sure with my friend's campaign but as far as i know, its for game development. Though they are an indie firm.

I was late backing Pebble & OUYA, those are great gadgets. Now im waiting for new tech/gadget, someone may soon create a campaign.

Looks like this topic is all about advertisement of the kickstarted project.

Though, they will not gather all the money needed, because whole page and the video show like 3 screenshots.

Some people just want to make money from nothing.

Not too long ago I responded to another funding campaign. I see a lot of the same issues here that I saw there. You have some pretty concept art and some loose design ideals, but not much in the way of actual details or project scope, and there's little here to indicate the level of talent your team has beyond the ability to provide fancy concept art.

I have to say, this is an interesting project. I love the idea of i, and the initial art looks really good, but I have some concerns.

Firstly, there's not really any details on what the status of this project is. Is it just a concept, has there been any progress? Further, there isn't much in the way of scope. Some of the description mentions PVP/PVE and servers and the like, so is it Online multiplayer then?

While I'd love to see this project succeed, I have some strong reservations as to whether it's possible. This could just be that your campaign description doesn't have the details, or it could be that the campaign is exactly as ambitious and under-targeted as it appears (which is not something you want people to think when looking at a funding drive).

My suggestion is to step back, look at your project and your campaign. If you want people to throw money at you, they'll need to be confident that you can deliver something. Right now what I'm seeing there is some cool concepts and some neat 3d game art but that stuff is a dime a dozen these days.

• Lay out some real details and fully establish the scope of the project for potential donors to see.
• Establish a reasonable time-line for your project. You don't need a release date, but a ballpark would go a long way as well as some solid milestone dates.
• Evaluate what your budget actually is and state it. The Sad fact is, $5k isn't going to get you much in the way of artists/programmers time; You'll likely get mediocre talent or very little time.

In short, I LOVE the concept of this, but your funding campaign does nothing to make me believe that you can actually manage to produce it. Don't mean to sound harsh as I o want your project to succeed, you just need provide more concrete information to inspire confidence.

I've quoted the post here so you don't have to look for it, but most of it applies here too. You're down on existing art assets, and while your budget is more, unless you already have a few people working for free, you're going to run out of budget well before you finish the project as you have scoped.

Thoroughly evaluate your project scope and get some details posted if you want to have a chance at success. There are millions of great ideas out there, if you want people to throw money at yours, it had better be a fully developed, well scoped idea delivered by a team we can BELIEVE has the ability to pull it off.

I agree, imho a to fund a game project it must be:

1)interesting

2)already in full development

I've never backed a concept and I hate when star developers use their fame to get a lots on money on concepts, I also hate when kickstarter is used to preorder games.

I hope that the attention Kickstarter earned will last, I really like it.

I think this link right here might help you and your friends:

Alex Norton on the crowfunding experience.

The idea of kick starter was never really to get money up-front for an interesting idea -- In general, projects are meant to succeed when they either have done a good deal of the legwork or have track record behind them. It's suppose to be "I can do this, but not without your help", not "I could do this, but I won't, not without your money".

That's just general commentary on crowd funding in general, not a rebuke of your pal's campaign.

I've funded Ouya and a handful of others, and there were still more that I meant to fund, but forgot to. All of which have thankfully met their goals.

I think this link right here might help you and your friends:

Alex Norton on the crowfunding experience.

You accidentally linked one URL to another link. The URL shown isn't the URL linked to (though they are both safe and both related to each other).

Whoa, well... Its the most efficient link ever! You click the link, it gets you to the article. You select the link, "Go to youtube.com/blahblah" and you can get directly to the video. Everything has been foresaw.

Back, well with regards of our campaign, its our first time, we learned so many things in the past few weeks. We are working with our prototype and will probably rerun the campaign. No need to be sarcastic mr. unit187. You don't know whats going in our mind and there are numbers of people failed in kickstarter. We just don't lose hope.

We uploaded a new video, if we can provide the prototype in the next 2 weeks, we might get more people interested on it.

The idea of kick starter was never really to get money up-front for an interesting idea

That's not really true. Look at their site: they say it's a way "to fund creative projects", not "to finish creative projects". They talk about projects "brought to life", not "seen to completion". But really, the hint is in the name - a kickstart comes at the start of the journey, taking the vehicle from a complete standstill to motion.

The idea was to make projects possible that were previously impossible by providing an alternative source of funding - not to be a glorified pre-sales site or a place for rich companies to apply for an extra top-up of cash.

The idea of kick starter was never really to get money up-front for an interesting idea

That's not really true. Look at their site: they say it's a way "to fund creative projects", not "to finish creative projects". They talk about projects "brought to life", not "seen to completion". But really, the hint is in the name - a kickstart comes at the start of the journey, taking the vehicle from a complete standstill to motion.

The idea was to make projects possible that were previously impossible by providing an alternative source of funding - not to be a glorified pre-sales site or a place for rich companies to apply for an extra top-up of cash.

emphasis mine.

What I meant was that, in general, having an idea alone is not a recipe for successfully running a Kickstarter. We don't see waves of newbies succeeding on Kickstarter with their idea for a great MMORPG, after all.

It is meant, as you said, as a means to fund projects that would not otherwise come to fruition, but it wasn't meant as a funding source for grandiose delusions any more than it was meant to be a glorified pre-order mechanism. Regardless of how loosely their mission statement might be interpreted, it would be poisonous to their business if the bar were so low that nearly any "good idea" got funded. Of course, its ultimately the backers who decide what's worthwhile, so Kickstarter themselves are insulated as long as they've enforced their own guidelines, but their brand would still be diluted.

Mostly my statement is a backlash against unproven, would-be indie devs who see it as a way to profit before they've really committed to doing the hard work, or possibly even without understanding the depth of the work involved. Granted, we don't see a dearth of complete non-starters, and there are many a modest Kickstarter that goes unfunded despite demonstrable progress and polish, so the system seems to be working (in the sense that it's appropriately skeptical, and not just spending like so many drunken sailors), I just mean that those would-be indies shouldn't look at Kickstarter like "If I get funding, *then* I can do my game." -- I say take a run at a Kickstarter when you think you're ready, but pursue that game regardless, and if the first Kickstarter fails, come back and try again when you have more to show.

The idea of kick starter was never really to get money up-front for an interesting idea

That's not really true. Look at their site: they say it's a way "to fund creative projects", not "to finish creative projects". They talk about projects "brought to life", not "seen to completion". But really, the hint is in the name - a kickstart comes at the start of the journey, taking the vehicle from a complete standstill to motion.

The idea was to make projects possible that were previously impossible by providing an alternative source of funding - not to be a glorified pre-sales site or a place for rich companies to apply for an extra top-up of cash.

emphasis mine.

What I meant was that, in general, having an idea alone is not a recipe for successfully running a Kickstarter. We don't see waves of newbies succeeding on Kickstarter with their idea for a great MMORPG, after all.

It is meant, as you said, as a means to fund projects that would not otherwise come to fruition, but it wasn't meant as a funding source for grandiose delusions any more than it was meant to be a glorified pre-order mechanism. Regardless of how loosely their mission statement might be interpreted, it would be poisonous to their business if the bar were so low that nearly any "good idea" got funded. Of course, its ultimately the backers who decide what's worthwhile, so Kickstarter themselves are insulated as long as they've enforced their own guidelines, but their brand would still be diluted.

Mostly my statement is a backlash against unproven, would-be indie devs who see it as a way to profit before they've really committed to doing the hard work, or possibly even without understanding the depth of the work involved. Granted, we don't see a dearth of complete non-starters, and there are many a modest Kickstarter that goes unfunded despite demonstrable progress and polish, so the system seems to be working (in the sense that it's appropriately skeptical, and not just spending like so many drunken sailors), I just mean that those would-be indies shouldn't look at Kickstarter like "If I get funding, *then* I can do my game." -- I say take a run at a Kickstarter when you think you're ready, but pursue that game regardless, and if the first Kickstarter fails, come back and try again when you have more to show.

Very well said, we learned so many things this past few weeks. This week we will decide do cancel the campaign and proceed to the prototype then we will re run it.