Interview Matt Chat 182: Chris Taylor on the Fall of Gas Powered Games

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Chris Taylor (Gas Powered Games); Gas Powered Games

As you might know, Gas Powered Games and Chris Taylor recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for a new action RPG Wildman. As you might also know, the campaign isn't really doing so well and there is a lot of drama involved, first because according to Chris Taylor this campaign is what the whole future of GPG depends on and secondly because, again according to the man, the real goal of the campaign was $3 million but they're only asking for one million because apparently it's a psychological thing or something. And then there were also layoffs.

Anyway, now you can hear more about all this from Chris Taylor himself in the new Matt Chat interview:

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If I got it right, he basically says he'll be able to hire 15 people if the campaign reaches $1 million, which is about half the people he wanted to hire for the $3 million he was initially hoping for.

 

[The Bishop]

As much as I can sympathize with GPG as a developer, I'm having a hard time sympathizing with the game they want to make. This world simply doesn't need another anti-roleplaying game (ARPG).

 

[RK47]

As the guy who spent a hundred hour AFK-ing in Dungeon Siege to level up his healing magic and finishing Space Siege, yeah. His games needs no further releases.

 

[Twinkle]

Skip to 24:40. So sad

 

[Hellraiser]

All the sane people already left that sinking ship and went to work on Planetary Annihilation. The track record of GPG is a bunch of mediocre "aRPG", one very good RTS with an expansion pack, a shitty dumbed-down sequel to that RTS and a MOBA that was plagued by technical problems and some metagame issues that was otherwise pretty good. Sorry but after the fuck up known as SupCom 2 I honestly don't see why GPG should stay on the market. The only thing Chris Taylor had going for him was his TA legacy and SupCom but he even managed to squander that.

 

[Kane]

chris taylor is my internet soul brother :brofist:

 

[Brother None]

15 person sounds like a little much. I'm guessing he and a few others would only be drawing minimum wages on that budget if they want a 15-man team.

Poor Chris He's such a good, honest guy (as Neal Hallford's bit very well shows). But man he digresses a lot. From volunteering in Africa to "too much shit in our food" in the USA (which is true, get some health regulations, you bums).

Matt lecturing Chris on Kickstarter curves was kinda iffy (also man Matt's outro is so jarring out of tone, I hate how he tries hard to act like an internet persona). As if Chris didn't do his research. Chris is perfectly on ball; at best this Kickstarter is trending to barely make it, and massive press coverage past few days isn't helping. It's pretty likely it doesn't make it at all.

Also heh, it was a browser game originally. And he's wondering why it's not an attractive pitch to people? It's just not an interesting enough a game for Kickstarter. It doesn't even sound like a bad idea/game, just not the type that drives people to pledge.

I'd still think a publisher would be very happy to pick this up if it can be made for like 3 million bucks. That's a lot less attractive than getting 3 million from Kickstarter, sure, but if I was a publisher with some money to burn I'd be sending out feelers to Chris already. This has so much press, it'd be hella positive PR, game looks sellable enough, is pretty far along and can be made for little. A small publisher could pick it up fine. Paradox? But y'know, after hearing him talk about 3 projects falling through within 8 weeks and the way publishers lead you on, one can imagine why he's done with that for now. He seems to feel it's not an option.

So many of those developers living project-to-project can cave at any moment. Chris talking openly about it is a real eye-opener for people oblivious to how the industry works (at around 45 minute mark and elsewhere). What Fargo's done with inXile and its revenue streams within 10 years is pretty exceptional, and these developers that are going to release a Kickstarted game really have a leg up.

Very interesting video. Well worth the watch.

 

[Kane]

Poor Chris He's such a good, honest guy (as Neal Hallford's bit very well shows). But man he digresses a lot. From volunteering in Africa to "too much shit in our food" in the USA (which is true, get some health regulations, you bums).

I actually love some perspective in interviews.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Is he trying to make the KS fail or something?

 

[Brother None]

It failing is probably preferable to it barely making it, in many ways.

Too many people go into Kickstarter asking too little and hoping for a bonanza where you raise 200%. Being closely involved in the WL2 and Torment prep (less so in Eternity prep) taught me a lot about the right way to do it. You gotta be honest and budget and ask for your minimum. And Chris did so, I mean, he can make this game for that amount, but he put his company in a bad spot where he had to fire people if it was only going to raise that amount. He asked for 1 mil but expected 3 mil. That's not good.

Not saying Obsidian/inXile wouldn't have seen layoffs if they'd only reached only the bare minimum, but both have had to hire people to expand the project and the firings would have been relatively minor. Hearing Chris explain the situation, he clearly had no choice, so I'm not blaming him, but it is a unique situation and shouldn't become the model for Kickstarter going forward.

Yet a lot of projects did it (underasking and hoping for a bonanza), and people who pay close attention and know the industry have already picked out a few projects that are guaranteed to fail. Press isn't talking about it much coz they don't actually know shit, but if you do your research it becomes pretty obvious.

So yeah. At this point it might be preferable for it to fail and people to just go their own ways. Making a game with such a small team on such a limited budget is incredible stressful, everyone will overworked and underpaid.

 

[EG]

So yeah. At this point it might be preferable for it to fail and people to just go their own ways. Making a game with such a small team on such a limited budget is incredible stressful, everyone will overworked and underpaid.

A fair bet that it'll fail, with a shortfall around $300,000 on a trend of $27,000 a day, too.

Surely it's better to have money and a project, even at slave wages, rather than nothing?

 

[Infinitron]

Yet a lot of projects did it (underasking and hoping for a bonanza), and people who pay close attention and know the industry have already picked out a few projects that are guaranteed to fail. Press isn't talking about it much coz they don't actually know shit, but if you do your research it becomes pretty obvious.

I know we've had already discussions about this elsewhere, but would you care to elaborate?

 

[Metro]

It's dead in the water. He needs to salvage his dignity and move on. Maybe restart on a smaller scale and prove to potential consumers he can actually create something worthwhile.

 

[Kane]

Yet a lot of projects did it (underasking and hoping for a bonanza), and people who pay close attention and know the industry have already picked out a few projects that are guaranteed to fail. Press isn't talking about it much coz they don't actually know shit, but if you do your research it becomes pretty obvious.

I know we've had already discussions about this elsewhere, but would you care to elaborate?

It's like CT said in the interview: Do a search on Kickstarter. Naming and shaming isn't really in anyones interest here.

 

[Brother None]

Surely it's better to have money and a project, even at slave wages, rather than nothing?

Depends on your perspective. The industry is already a tough one. Sure a lot of Chris' employers love the man to death and would push themselves to make it work, to the detriment of their mental and physical wellbeing, a lot of developers do that period (see Fat Chris Avellone), but is it something you should be *aiming* for? I don't think so. Chris seems to hint pretty heavily that he's just exhausted and it's time to move on.

I know we've had already discussions about this elsewhere, but would you care to elaborate?

Not going to name names, obviously. I've talked about it with different developers and they generally refuse to name people too, just agree it's obviously the case. They have a better view of it, if I start picking out projects I'd be doing a lot of guessing since I don't know the industry and costs quite as well.

There's a lot you can do to be more flexible. A lot of these smaller studios have people working from home, a model that is getting more popular (Rise of the Triad remake team works like that, for example, as do many Kickstarters, inXile has a lot of people that work or worked for them (close to) fulltime but not inside the studio, especially writers). With the "people working from their garage" model it's not so contingent on exact funding and harder to estimate from the outside. It's much, much cheaper. It's easier with a studio, where the cost is high and it's easier to just scoff at what they're asking.

A lot of them underestimate the cost of Kickstarter (which including rewards can easily go as high as 1/3rd of your total, not factoring in opportunity sales lost due to extra digital copies) and how fast money runs out just in regular running costs/overhead. And a lot of them just don't have any experience running businesses.

I am pretty sure Eternity and WL2 both would still have been made if they'd raised the minimum, but we're talking about a final budget in the 700K range. That is absolutely worthless, and for an established studio with an established studio's cost it means you can have just a handful of people working on it. 15 is extremely high, you'd be lucky to budget 12 out of that. Double Fine's original model with a 400K pitch was I believe to have 3 people working on it. That's fine, people will still get the game, but it's also a lot more limited in scope and quality.

But you can just...some are asking so very little in a desperate bid to get something, or come back with drastically reduced minimum goals, for projects that simple need more money. You had that goal for a reason! Then you can kind of pick out hopeful indies instead of seasoned professionals who know how the business works...Budgeting depends on genre, scope, release platforms, you can't always assess it accurately but a bunch just asked for and got too little.

It's weird to see journalists gripe about Kickstarter in general, and some are chomping at the bit to declare it all a fraud when a couple of em fail (Lord knows why some seem to despise it so much, guess it's outside their publisher-PR led comfort zone), but none have done a really good investigative piece looking at the exact budgeting and questioning the goals some are putting up. Goals have to be realistic first and foremost, and while you can definitely look for the ideal minimum goal for perception reasons (coz people will call you greedy and give up on the drive if they think the goal is unrealistic), asking for much less than you *need* is just a fool's game, but one that's being played pretty commonly.

 

[Irenaeus]

$1,100,000 for a Barbarian Action Game?

Tiny Barbarian asked for $10,000 and looks like the better game.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/359201373/tiny-barbarian-dx

 

[ghostdog]

$1,100,000 for a Barbarian Action Game?

Tiny Barbarian asked for $10,000 and looks like the better game.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/359201373/tiny-barbarian-dx

I loved the "tree Of woe" moment in the video ! It looks pretty sweet actually and indeed more interesting than the extremely boring proposition of GPG.

If you're a big developer asking for a lot of money you'd better make a kickstarter about a game people are craving for, or about something pretty innovative.

 

[Angelo85]

Watched the entire video. Chris Taylor seems like an awesome human being, too bad the upper echelon doesn't care about decency.
You can also tell that he is very creative, with his thoughts going all over the place

Chris Taylor. I dub thee Exemplar of Excellence.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's weird to see journalists gripe about Kickstarter in general, and some are chomping at the bit to declare it all a fraud when a couple of em fail (Lord knows why some seem to despise it so much, guess it's outside their publisher-PR led comfort zone), but none have done a really good investigative piece looking at the exact budgeting and questioning the goals some are putting up. Goals have to be realistic first and foremost, and while you can definitely look for the ideal minimum goal for perception reasons (coz people will call you greedy and give up on the drive if they think the goal is unrealistic), asking for much less than you *need* is just a fool's game, but one that's being played pretty commonly.

I don't think it's hard to figure out why some people don't like it. In fact, you just gave the reason yourself:

"I am pretty sure Eternity and WL2 both would still have been made if they'd raised the minimum, but we're talking about a final budget in the 700K range. That is absolutely worthless, and for an established studio with an established studio's cost it means you can have just a handful of people working on it."

This, in a nutshell, is problem #1. The lack of transparency and anything resembling honesty, with all the potential consequences. The system even encourages it, which is problem #2. A studio announces a game, says that need a mil to make it happen, when in reality they need a lot more (applies to Wildman, PE, WL2, and many other games). Some manage to raise more by offering loot bags and overpriced "goals" (problem #3) and have a chance to deliver, but like you said, for a proper studio a 700k budget is nothing. I suppose they can put a few people on it to make some kinda game, but a 'some kinda game' isn't what they've been selling.

Don't get me wrong, crowdfunding is a great thing and I'm excited that games we wouldn't have a chance to play otherwise are in development, but the current KS model is pretty fucking awful.

 

[Brother None]

I don't think it's hard to figure out why some people don't like it.

It's fine to point out the risks and costs involved, and to say "I won't give money without being guaranteed a product or knowing what kind of product I'm getting". The problem I have had with some journalistic "exposés" is that they seemed to treat it as a breaking insight that you're pledging to a vague promise and not guaranteed a game. I'll be equally annoyed when journalists start declaring Kickstarter "dead" when a bunch of em fail. Point out and inform, for sure, but journalists shouldn't be trying to delegitimize the whole concept just because people should be made more aware of the realities of it.

I'm not saying the system doesn't have problems, and I would love investigative, properly journalistic pieces on the hidden costs, problems involved, and the way the system stimulates dishonesty, and to push for it being reformed.

But that's not what game journalists are doing, a number of them appear to be hating it as a concept rather than investigating the structure. Even if they're aware of actual problems - which they don't always seem to be - they seem to conflate issues the concept has with the concept being awful overall. That's why I'm pointing to a somewhat baffling angle of hatred and speculating if they're simply uncomfortable with this, many of them not used to indies and PR-people-free game coverage. That's speculation though. And perhaps I've simply missed the good journalistic writeups. But I'm responding here to some irksome coverage, not to "why some people don't like it". People can like and dislike it for whatever reason they want, my post wasn't really addressed to people in general, but it is or should be different for journalists.

Maybe Polygon will do something. They seem to like investigative journalism.

 

[Infinitron]

Investigative game journalism, lol

 

[Aeschylus]

Investigative game journalism, lol

Fixed that for you.

 

[Maiandros]

can i cry too? please? such drama i have untold..oh..snif..do pity me as well..snif..
i too know what it is like for your artistic calling to be non-lucrative..i too have faced difficulties..snif..
but i shut the fuck up and got me a proper job. Now i can both write and be self sustained.

Ain't life tough.
Someone please award me the pity award. memememememememe

 

[Irenaeus]

can i cry too? please? such drama i have untold..oh..snif..do pity me as well..snif..
i too know what it is like for your artistic calling to be non-lucrative..i too have faced difficulties..snif..
but i shut the fuck up and got me a proper job. Now i can both write and be self sustained.

Ain't life tough.
Someone please award me the pity award. memememememememe

I thought your artistic calling was that piece of shit abstract art you use as avatar.

 

[villain of the story]

but the current KS model is pretty fucking awful.

What do you mean by "current model"? How could it be different and should it? What does it need to stop being fucking awful?