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KickStarter Fig - a new equity-based crowdfunding platform - shut down, RIP

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Y'know...what's interesting to me is that almost no one is discussing what seems to be the whole point of this fig thing: To produce games that have near AAA production value but with indie sensibilities (aka non conventional gameplay, mechanics, and ideas).

Careful now, the terms "indie sensibilities" and "non-conventional gameplay" translate to "walking simulators" nowadays. I don't think you can say that the entire site is dedicated to making one type of game. Each company will pursue its own strategy.

Funny thing is, after what's happened, it's hard for me to see Double Fine actually using Fig successfully. Like, don't they have to give up on crowdfunding now anyway? And in that case, what's the point of Schafer's involvement? Maybe their projects will be the ones that only get like $100k plus lots of investor money. :M
 

Mustawd

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Careful now, the terms "indie sensibilities" and "non-conventional gameplay" translate to "walking simulators" nowadays.

Fair enough. Maybe I should reference "muh nostalgia" instead.


I don't think you can say that the entire site is dedicated to making one type of game. Each company will pursue its own strategy.

Well....not saying it's one type of game, but I think it's obvious they are targeting that vidya game market share that the AAA studios are not willing to touch (due to their own low risk appetite or outdated view of what makes gaming interesting).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that at least some of the founders of Fig realize that there are a lot of us, who enjoyed some of the older style of games (turn based, IE games, isometric, 2D, pixel art, etc.) but have been left behind by the 3D action craze; And we're willing to pay good $$ for it now.

Are you telling me the Codex wouldn't shit their pants if Tim Cain had a near AAA budget to make a proper isometric/2D/lore consistent Fallout 3?


EDIT: I can tell you I'd be willing to throw at least $150 at that shit. Maybe more with proper stretch goals.

Funny thing is, after what's happened, it's hard for me to see Double Fine actually using Fig successfully. Like, don't they have to give up on crowdfunding now anyway? And in that case, what's the point of Schafer's involvement? Maybe their projects will be the ones that only get like $100k plus lots of investor money. :M


Dunno...like I said, it seems like a big miscalculation. Unless the Broken Age games made really good sales or something where they can point and say "see?? Look how much $$ indie games can make with a proper budget!!"
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Dunno...like I said, it seems like a big miscalculation. Unless the Broken Age games made really good sales or something where they can point and say "see?? Look how much $$ indie games can make with a proper budget!!"

According to Steamspy Broken Age has 270,000 owners. For a $25 game that's gotten so much hype, that is pretty lame. AND it has those "near-AAA" production values already.

So yeah, I don't know, it's hard for me to see Double Fine ever actually using this? It'd be funny if they do use it, their game fails to fund and Schafer ends up leaving the partnership.
 

Mustawd

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Let's not discount that Schafer might have put in a sizable amount of $$ to get this off the ground in the first place.


EDIT: Regardless, this advisory council concept might be ok. I mean, to me it seems like the concept, if executed like the founders want it to be, is to become a choice in-between AAA type games and lone devs who kickstart their games.

Which if you think about it....is already happening with Larian's D:OS 2. They're more of a AA studio. So "figstarting" a game would definitely seem to be more socially acceptable than kickstarting the damn thing.

TL;DR, the concept and end goal is pretty cool, but I'm betting that Schafer's involvement and lack of good games will mean this thing will fail...unless some real PE/Angel investors show up to prop it up.
 
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J_C

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Things bad for games should be shot down. These clowns want to to make pseudo shareholders out of people who think games are a good investment (mentally deranged), after going to KS to talk about how big bad publishers kill their potential, or just plain rob people with unfinished crap.
Blah blah blah, most people here shits on this platform, because a) it has Tim on it and b) they don't like the first game presented here. You don't care if this is a good platform or not, you don't care if they let peope invest here, you don't care about them skipping kickstarter fees.

If Larian would run DOS2 here, and it brought in 2 million dollars, you guys wuld be cumming all over it. This means nothing, NOTHING for games. Even if it fails, I repeat, it means NOTHING.
 

Mustawd

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If Larian would run DOS2 here, and it brought in 2 million dollars, you guys wuld be cumming all over it.


Basically (see my edited post sbove). I think the end goal is to have studios like Larian pitch their games...get good funding from kickstarter-like donations, but also big ones from would-be investors. which, on its face, is pretty damn cool. But dunno...hard to see this thing taking off unless they get some really good and successful games through this.
 

Turjan

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The legal setup of this makes me think it's only accessible to citizens of the United States. Is it?
 

felipepepe

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If Larian would run DOS2 here, and it brought in 2 million dollars, you guys wuld be cumming all over it. This means nothing, NOTHING for games. Even if it fails, I repeat, it means NOTHING.
Imagine if Larian ran D:OS2 there. If it had this pathetic result Outer Wilds is getting, instead of being fully funded in 12 hours. That means a lot.
 

J_C

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Imagine if Larian ran D:OS2 there. If it had this pathetic result Outer Wilds is getting, instead of being fully funded in 12 hours. That means a lot.
I think the reason why Outer wilds is failing is not because it is a bad game, or pitch, it's because fig is not a popular platform.
 

Zed

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I think the reason why Outer wilds is failing is not because it is a bad game, or pitch, it's because fig is not a popular platform.
it got more exposure than any KS in the last 2 years

the game is trash
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Would you pledge to it if it was on Kickstarter?

They need a better game. At least this one is good as a beta test for the platform or something.
 

Xor

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Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
At first glance, Outer Wilds looks like a dime a dozen space exploration game. It would probably have done better on kickstarter simply because kickstarter has an established userbase, but I doubt it would breaking records simply because it doesn't stand out from its peers.

And as for Fig having a small userbase, that's exactly the problem. Despite getting plenty of press, the project is still $45000 short of their goal. If this first project is receiving this tepid a response, how are they ever going to get enough money to fund a AAA game? Sure, more people might show up to invest in a more interesting project, but that just makes me wonder why they wouldn't start with a bigger project to begin with.
 

felipepepe

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Which just shows how pointless the whole advisory board is... "hey look, it's one of those exploration kids crave today, it has a celebrity and won an award! We do dis!"

Of course, the game looks like a hipster, low budget version of No Man's Sky, the celebrity was popular like 10 years ago and the award was from fucking IGF, which only those who give it & win it take seriously nowadays.

So this expert board, instead of trying to uncover new breakthroughs and indie stars, seems like a bunch of old people trying to run after "what kids these days like", completely missing the mark in the process. To the point where the first, hand-selected game to launch their platform will likely fail.
 

Gondolin

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So this expert board, instead of trying to uncover new breakthroughs and indie stars, seems like a bunch of old people trying to run after "what kids these days like", completely missing the mark in the process. To the point where the first, hand-selected game to launch their platform will likely fail.

I'm guessing that they wanted to start with a project that has a reasonable chance to succeed, going by conventional wisdom, instead of an original, off-the-wall and very risky game. It remains to be seen whether that was a good decision or not.
 

Mustawd

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I'm guessing that they wanted to start with a project that has a reasonable chance to succeed, going by conventional wisdom, instead of an original, off-the-wall and very risky game. It remains to be seen whether that was a good decision or not.


If that's the case then it defeats the purpose of what they are trying to do. From my understanding, the whole point is to bring in games with high production values ("iii") which large publishers like EA won't touch.

And the reason they won't touch it is due to high risk....which makes it even dumber when they choose something that by definition is not as high risk because "it has a reasonable chance to succeed".

It's like spending a ton of time and money to trick out a Supra; only to race it against a Mazda Miata or something. I mean the industry they're trying to tap into has tons of risk, which means a ton of reward potential if you're an investor. They should swing for the fences and race against the stock Lamborgini instead.
 
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
And the reason they won't touch it is due to high risk....

That's not really the issue. A Fallout: New Vegas style Wasteland game (especially if Obsidian and inXile collaborate) isn't exactly a huge gamble, it will easily make $60,000,000 dollars for a cost of $10-20,000,000.

The issue is that if a company like EA is going to drop $20,000,000 paying rank and file programmers $70,000 per year for 2-3 years they want $300,000,000 in profits.
 
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