Game News Publisher Exploiting An Obsidian Kickstarter

[Mikko Moilanen]

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. Publishers can handle cost-overruns whereas developers cannot. Let's wait and see how many of these kickstarter developers fail to deliver on their promised games. I bet you the guys who did donate, to such a failed project, will wish that there was a publisher in the background that would have given the studio the other half of the budget. I mean, if the publisher only has to take half, or less, of the risk wouldn't they be more open to riskier projects, like turn-based RPGs?

Because having a publisher guarantees the game will get the funding needed to finsh it.

*loads up VTM Bloodlines, computer explodes*

*thinks about trying Silent Hill 5, which is a very finished and polished game thanks to the great Publisher Ubisoft, not*

 

[Lumpy]

There is definitely room for publishers, but not in their current system. There *has* to be a better way. Where fans and artists decide what gets made, and artists are entitled to the sweat of their brow.

Fans should most definitely not decide what gets made - that would mean the death of creativity.
And I don't see quite how artists aren't currently entitled to the 'sweat of their brow'. Publishers are unlikely to make average profits that are significantly higher than the standard return on investment on the sum of money they spend on the game. It may well be the case that developers don't make particularly huge profits, but that's because they are essentially groups of workers with small capital investments - their main concern is to pay decent salaries.

In the new world, upcoming devs would work with established devs. Which is the Valve business model. When/if they got fans of their own they could launch a a company of their own, or stay at one that values them and promotes their creativity.

Developer houses would have to build up to the point where they had the capital to do their own big projects.

I understand why publishers exist now, but I don't like it and I see a better way.

As a matter of fact I do believe that's already the case for a significant percentage of games, if not for an outright majority. Many of the big titles - GTA, Dragon Age, TES - are self-published.

 

[TripJack]

Jews gonna, uh, jew.

 

[tuluse]

Fans should most definitely not decide what gets made - that would mean the death of creativity.
And I don't see quite how artists aren't currently entitled to the 'sweat of their brow'. Publishers are unlikely to make average profits that are significantly higher than the standard return on investment on the sum of money they spend on the game. It may well be the case that developers don't make particularly huge profits, but that's because they are essentially groups of workers with small capital investments - their main concern is to pay decent salaries.

Any time a developer signs a deal that doesn't include royalties, which is far too often.

Edit: In the end fans do ultimately decide what gets made by buying it or not. It's just not direct feedback right now.

 

[Lumpy]

Any time a developer signs a deal that doesn't include royalties, which is far too often.

Can't quite see what you mean there.

But my point is, by the time a company is earning royalties they're being paid for the new project they're working on anyway.[/quote]

Edit: In the end fans do ultimately decide what gets made by buying it or not. It's just not direct feedback right now.

That's entirely different. Do note that all successful Kickstarters are straight genre games - there's not a hint of innovation or experiment. I very much doubt Thief, or Fallout 1 for that matter, would've ever been successfully crowdfunded.

 

[tuluse]

That's entirely different. Do note that all successful Kickstarters are straight genre games - there's not a hint of innovation or experiment. I very much doubt Thief, or Fallout 1 for that matter, would've ever been successfully crowdfunded.

Deadstate doesn't seem like a straight genre game to me, or FTL.

 

[bhlaab]

Why would any developer take that deal? You already have the funding, but then give it to someone else? What would be the point?

 

[mugarod]

Ehh publisher could probably promise giving more money on development and mass advertise the product so it would reach the casuals. Wasnt one of kickstarters for an fps was trying to reach a certain goal which would show a publisher that their game was in demand and the publisher therefore would fund the rest of it? I am sure that some people with smaller teams would probably love an attention from a publisher but for bigger projects like this, its just an insult after everyhing the company went through with publishers.

 

[Stinger]

Ehh publisher could probably promise giving more money on development and mass advertise the product so it would reach the casuals.

Mass advertisement means nothing when you get no cut or a minimal cut from the sales.

 

[mugarod]

Ehh publisher could probably promise giving more money on development and mass advertise the product so it would reach the casuals.

Mass advertisement means nothing when you get no cut or a minimal cut from the sales.

True but if a product is a great sucess it leads to a franchise which leads to more paid work hours. Also how many times can people donate up to 5 to 10k on projects just to see our favorite games? I allready spent over 300$ on kickstarter myself (while generally spending less then a $100 on games per year) majority of which went to Wasteland 2 and Eternity, because I want this projects to suceed but I cant afford paying over 100$ for every single game I want to see and unfortunately if those games wont see good sales post release they will probably have to rely on another donation run. I hope that if we follow this no publisher road then the ammount of people who donate to this projects will greatly increase otherwise I see people eventually just running out of big sums of money to give based on nostalgia alone.

 

[MicoSelva]

Why is The Codex quoting Destructabloid's news? Is this little quote from Faergus news worthy at all? And if it is, why wasn't it quoted from the original source (Obsidian forums)?

 

[Grimlorn]

Publisher probably offered to market and distribute the game while the kickstarter pays for the development. Publisher gets the IP and Obsidian gets dick. It's a terrible deal, but there are a lot of deals like these where someone develops something new but doesn't have the money to mass produce or distribute their product so they have to sell most or the whole thing to investors because they won't invest otherwise. The investors make the most money off the idea while the innovator gets a one time fee and maybe small royalties if they're lucky.

 

[Jarpie]

Fans should most definitely not decide what gets made - that would mean the death of creativity.
And I don't see quite how artists aren't currently entitled to the 'sweat of their brow'. Publishers are unlikely to make average profits that are significantly higher than the standard return on investment on the sum of money they spend on the game. It may well be the case that developers don't make particularly huge profits, but that's because they are essentially groups of workers with small capital investments - their main concern is to pay decent salaries.

Any time a developer signs a deal that doesn't include royalties, which is far too often.

Edit: In the end fans do ultimately decide what gets made by buying it or not. It's just not direct feedback right now.

I'd guess that royalties are tied to the profits, and I bet that publishers would do some "creative bookkeeping" so that game would never make any actual profit, which film studios are already doing. Developers probably would take fixed lump of money instead due smaller risk for them. I've read and heard some comments from old finnish game developers how publishers screwed them and they didn't get any money for the game and I doubt it's any better nowdays with the NDAs and shit.

 

[Davaris]

"We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter," he revealed on his team's own KS page. "I said to them 'So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don't get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits.'

"They said, 'Yes'."

A very similar offer was made to Brian Fargo and he laughed at them as well. My, how the tables have turned. lol

 

[Kane]

Oh to see the look on Feargus' face when he replied:

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH!

<silence> Sorry but no. We'll keep in touch.

Notice, that Urquhart never said no anywhere in the bits tossed at us.

 

[sigma1932]

OOOOOh, you touch my Tra-la-la..... mmmm, my ding-ding-dong!

 

[Dantus12]

Why is this news? Kickstarter is not a publisher free model.
Stretch goals-funded by gamers
are milestone payments funded by publishers.
Also
EA Origin is involved with Kickstarter. It's a matter of time until the developers embrace additional funding and famous names get away with it.
There isn't even a the smallest chance that I will trust Fargo for example on this, simply because the first Wasteland is included.
It's a good thing but also a bad thing, there's yet to be a model that is more prone to sabotage than this.
--------------------

 

[sigma1932]

I very much doubt Thief, or Fallout 1 for that matter, would've ever been successfully crowdfunded.

Pretty sure this isn't quite how KS works (I admittedly haven't really looked at it more than passingly myself), but if someone handed me the demo of Fallout 1 as a sales-pitch, I would've tossed a few dead presidents in an accompanying tip-jar to get it made.

Just a thought.

 

[RK47]

Ok, so they have two purposes: pay for big projects that are hard to fund otherwise, and fund new developers that can't get fans to pay for their costs because they don't have any.

Really though, I don't find these purposes compelling, and I think there has to be a more efficient way for the system to work.

How can you not find those purposes compelling?

He lives in a world where every kickstarter is always successful. It's one of those fantasy science fiction universe.

 

[Lumpy]

I very much doubt Thief, or Fallout 1 for that matter, would've ever been successfully crowdfunded.

Pretty sure this isn't quite how KS works (I admittedly haven't really looked at it more than passingly myself), but if someone handed me the demo of Fallout 1 as a sales-pitch, I would've tossed a few dead presidents in an accompanying tip-jar to get it made.

Just a thought.

Uh, yeah, but by the time a demo can be released a game needs to be 80% done or so.

 

[sigma1932]

I very much doubt Thief, or Fallout 1 for that matter, would've ever been successfully crowdfunded.

Pretty sure this isn't quite how KS works (I admittedly haven't really looked at it more than passingly myself), but if someone handed me the demo of Fallout 1 as a sales-pitch, I would've tossed a few dead presidents in an accompanying tip-jar to get it made.

Just a thought.

Uh, yeah, but by the time a demo can be released a game needs to be 80% done or so.

Like I said, it was just a thought...

 

[Tolknaz]

Fuck publishers. It is about the time to get rid of those cretins and leeches. Sadly though they will continue to exist for long because they can use their brand and marketing machine to boost sales of shitty AAA asshole game clones.

What have the publishers ever done for us?

To put things into perspective: Looking Glass Studios was publisher-funded. Bethesda is self-funded.

Chances are,they'd still be in business if they had been self-funded. Publisher bullshit and flipflopping was one of the main reasons they went under (although not the only one).

 

[Dexter]

First, this really isn't much newsworthy in any way, the "news" might as well have been:
Publisher asked Obsidian to give them $1 Billion, Obsidian said no. It might be rather pathetic that they tried, but if someone is stupid enough to take a deal like that then eh...

Fans should most definitely not decide what gets made - that would mean the death of creativity.
And I don't see quite how artists aren't currently entitled to the 'sweat of their brow'. Publishers are unlikely to make average profits that are significantly higher than the standard return on investment on the sum of money they spend on the game. It may well be the case that developers don't make particularly huge profits, but that's because they are essentially groups of workers with small capital investments - their main concern is to pay decent salaries.

Second, people are actually arguing against the "KickStarter" funding model, really? I mean, I see how it might in some ways put more risks on the consumers and get that argumentation.

But in what POSSIBLE way would it be worse for developers or the games involved?

I especially don't get Lumpys arguments throughout this entire thread, it is like he wants the publishers to succeed because they are "responsible" for making all the games and developers are just some paid workhorses towards that goal.

The worst thing that might happen is that some projects don't get released or we get some more "Valves" or "Mojangs" around able to stand on their own. If they budgeted correctly they will have their entire development budget accredited for and will not have to worry about that and if they get funded they'll know there is a demand, they will have total creative control over their game, they will have ownership upon their IP so there won't be publishers hawking off franchises like Gothic or similar to other developers because they offered to work cheaper and they don't get that games are creative works as much as "products", and they will get up to ~70-90% off of all the profits they make with selling the game, since the development has already been largely funded that will be DIRECT profit that can be put towards new projects (just one breakout hit like MineCraft or similar and the developer is "made" instead of their publisher) and not just some bonuses or 3-5% royalties that publishers give out if a game sold exceptionally well.

I really don't see any downside to this model in that way if a game gets made.

True but if a product is a great sucess it leads to a franchise which leads to more paid work hours. Also how many times can people donate up to 5 to 10k on projects just to see our favorite games? I allready spent over 300$ on kickstarter myself (while generally spending less then a $100 on games per year) majority of which went to Wasteland 2 and Eternity, because I want this projects to suceed but I cant afford paying over 100$ for every single game I want to see and unfortunately if those games wont see good sales post release they will probably have to rely on another donation run. I hope that if we follow this no publisher road then the ammount of people who donate to this projects will greatly increase otherwise I see people eventually just running out of big sums of money to give based on nostalgia alone.

The beautiful thing about it is that you don't have to. It is very likely not the same people/communities putting 10k/5k into the campaigns (other than Notch), while you might really really like a good turn-based RPG someone else might really really like a new oldschool Adventure game or shooter etc. and it's not always the same people funding everything. If you like something other people have funded when it's done you can still buy it and contribute to profits directly.

That's entirely different. Do note that all successful Kickstarters are straight genre games - there's not a hint of innovation or experiment. I very much doubt Thief, or Fallout 1 for that matter, would've ever been successfully crowdfunded.

Uhm...

Faster Than Light (this one is already done): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light/ (and I'd like to point out that it is doing rather well, being at the Top3 of the "Top Seller" list on Steam for the past week, so there goes that "most interested people will chip on to KickStarter and there are no more sales to be made" argument)
Castle Story: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/902505202/castle-story/
Banner Saga: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoic/the-banner-saga/
Code Hero: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primerist/code-hero-a-game-that-teaches-you-to-make-games-he/
A new game called "Blackspace", which will hopefully get funded: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1035580424/blackspace-plan-dig-defend-survive

Please do tell what innovative "non-straight genre games" came out of publishers in the last 3-5 years, I'll wait.

Regarding success rates on KickStarter, I guess this is a rather interesting Infograph: http://www.abload.de/img/120824kickstarterfinazkuoc.jpg
You will never EVER get anywhere close to 43% success rate on a Pitch with a publisher, it's more along the lines of 3-5% and with all he negative sides that entails.

There's also certain publisher influences in regards to marketing, for instance this is a recent example of what can happen to a game within a single year to "make it more marketable":

 

[DwarvenFood]

We will never know.

We will, after we have sent Prosper to the RPG session at Obsidian...

 

[J_C]

There's also certain publisher influences in regards to marketing, for instance this is a recent example of what can happen to a game within a single year to "make it more marketable":

Holy shit, how can the publisher fuck the game so badly in so little time?

I mean, both are shooters, buth the former had some silly charm, but the second tries to be gritty, realistic, modern and violent too hard.