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[Deleted member 11480]

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[Gregz]

C) Let's cross that bridge when we get there.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

I'm going with B). I think Kickstarter has the dangerous potential to lead to a "too many cocks spoil the brothel" scenario, in which developers feel so indebted to the fans who funded the game (or force themselves into it via tier pledges) that they allow the game to become a schizophrenic mess of what the loudest (and probably dumbest) fans think would be a GRATE IDEA to include. Fargo and co seem to be taking a reliable middle-ground approach, but it remains to be seen how well it works out, or if others will follow suit.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Publishers will always suck, no matter if Kickstarter results in decent titles or not.

 

[PorkaMorka]

A large percentage of games have always sucked and will always suck.

Kickstarter might reduce this percentage somewhat, but nobody would expect it to change the fundamental fact that most games suck.

So we need to get a large amount of data on kickstarted games before we draw any conclusions.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I voted A.
Let's face it. There are some really crappy developers out there.

 

[Commissar Draco]

A large percentage of games have always sucked and will always suck.

Kickstarter might reduce this percentage somewhat, but nobody would expect it to change the fundamental fact that most games suck.

So we need to get a large amount of data on kickstarted games before we draw any conclusions.

Agree with Orc above... Besides we'll have wait anyway.... Pledged only on Wasteland 2 and Brian seems to be competent Fellow.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

A) It will be proven that publishers aren't half as bad as we've thought and bad games are simply the consequence of bad work from the people directly involved in its creation, not because of some trivial demands from above.

B) Publishers still suck. What happened is that the gamers themselves played the role of publishers with their tons of demands, therefore Kickstarter can't be compared with the "free environment" of the 80's and 90's.

Of course I could add more options, but let's discuss the fundamental binary conclusion here.

C) you've bought a shit game for 15 bucks instead of 40.

 

[Ermm]

Well, according to Fargo, the events that took place in his humorous pitch video actually really happened. So I am going with B.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Publishers suck because they are a necessary evil layer between a naive-non-business-savvy-broke developer and the actual customer. Remove the naive-non-business-savvy-broke part from the developer and then we can have good stuff for less money. Kickstarter is not unlike a stock market in that respect that we fund to reap long term probable-benefits, which are games instead of money/stocks.

 

[Burning Bridges]

"too many cocks spoil the brothel"

 

[Burning Bridges]

I actually believe Kickstarter will be like a revelation in terms of what shapes the (bad) quality of a game. Of course we could end the discussion by simply saying that the 80's and 90's also produced mountains of shitty games, so it's nothing related with modern-style publishers, but we're not talking about random, shitty guys jumping in some new medium, but renowed developers of (supposed) caliber. Quality is naturally expected from many of these old devs coming back, as they've already made some great stuff, and if some shit happens we're always shaping the excuses that some external factors fucked their work. It's never their fault, it's always the publisher, the tight schedule, lack of money, lack of freedom, shitty design decisions being imposed...

No matter what will be the excuses for kickstarter fails, I predict it'll be a whole new level of bullshits to protect the devs, so I voted A. It's like the ultimate opportunity for them to show us that "free design" tramples all over the so called and so bashed (by all of us, actually) triple-A models. Fuck this up and you lost all the credibility available.

In some ways, this thread is like a metaphor to
A) It was Garriott's fault
B) It was EA's fault

You can usually tell that a game is going to be great if people are:

1. really motivated
2. professional enough
3. get enough time, resources and freedom

If just one of the conditions is not fullfilled, the game will suck.

Even triple-A publishers turn out really amazing games when all members in their developer team are really motivated, for example the team that made Silent Hunter 3. These guys went at the job like it was the chance of a life time and the result was absolutely astounding.

I tend to believe it's more likely that those right conditions are met with kickstarter games. The "professional enough" is probably the most critical one. It's not likely people have no motivation. That they have absolute freedom can be a blessing or not.

But one thing I am sure. The projects will take much longer than promised. One year from now the tone will get more frustrated when people realize that RPGs are not made in a few months.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

One year from now the tone will get more frustrated when people realize that RPGs are not made in a few months.

with all the focus on gamer maturity plus the fact that people pledging have some personal investment in these projects it won't take much for each individual community to peer pressure dissonance into faithful, loyal anticipation

because the people who would complain that their perfect genre resurrection isn't being done ahead of schedule because we gave them have millions of dollars man are kind of like that

plus if they have any brains at all they'll be using social media to spread their update news around, shit knows they don't have to be muzzled in interviews anymore

 

[Achilles]

Even if W2 ends up being mediocre, it will still be miles better than any FPS "reimagining" of a beloved game.

 

[Spectacle]

Games sometimes turn bad despite the best intentions of everyone involved. I foresee some serious butthurt if a kickstarter game is clearly irredeemably bad when it's 2/3 done. At this point a publisher would usually cancel the project, but you can't really do that when you've publicly taken money from the fans...

 

[Trash]

Bullshit thread. It's up to the customer to decide wether or not a kickstarter looks viable and interesting enough to pledge towards. That simple fact has nothing to do with publishers sucking or not.