Game News Deathfire Cancelled

[Kz3r0]

A second Kickstarter with a lower goal would have brought in more money than what he got on the site, but apparently he did not want to sacrifice more time on another Kickstarter. He wanted to focus on the game instead of the financing and now he got neither the financing nor the game.

Or worse, he wanted a publisher and Kickstarter was only instrumental to that, someone should put him in contact with BitComposer.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I'm sad to see a blobber cancelled since it's my favorite RPG subgenre, but in a way I'm glad it got cancelled - there's no way he could make a good game with just $50,000, and the episodic approach didn't sit well with me either.

It is, however, unfortunate when people like Neal Hallford and Guido Henkel fail to get a chance at making a new game.

 

[HobGoblin42]

Guido had to try everything to keep the project alive, because they already invested so much (not just him).
But this game was way too big from the beginning - it needs at least $600k USD to develop a decent cRPG in 3D.
Of course, you can start with a small dungeon crawler, like Grimrock did, and then add more and more features. But Guido wanted to revive the complex RPG simulations like Arkania - and that just needs pretty much effort in state-of-the-art 3D enviroments.

He has my full sympathy and respect, especially because I experienced a similar trauma recently.
And now, codex trolls, leave Britney Guido alone!

 

[Lady_Error]

The sad fact is that almost nobody likes blobers

I like party-based 1st person games almost more than isometric ones - and I'm sure there are many who feel the same.

 

[Infinitron]

There hasn't been a truly great blobber Kickstarter campaign yet, so the jury is still out on whether they can succeed. Of course they're not as popular as iso, but I don't believe a million dollar blobber Kickstarter is completely out of the question.

 

[l3loodAngel]

The sad fact is that almost nobody likes blobers

I like party-based 1st person games almost more than isometric ones - and I'm sure there are many who feel the same.

Number of backers and amount raised tells another story. The pitch was decent, the looks were awesome and his ideas are not so bad.

I don't want to get into a fight about taste, but saying I like something therefore there is a market for something is a bit meh.

 

[HobGoblin42]

There was a market for blobbers and Grimrock fully satisfied it. People are waiting for Grimrock 2 now, no need for any other blobber. I also strongly doubt that M&M X will achieve sales numbers anywhere close to Grimrock.

 

[Kz3r0]

Guido had to try everything to keep the project alive, because they already invested so much (not just him).
But this game was way too big from the beginning - it needs at least $600k USD to develop a decent cRPG in 3D.
Of course, you can start with a small dungeon crawler, like Grimrock did, and then add more and more features. But Guido wanted to revive the complex RPG simulations like Arkania - and that just needs pretty much effort in state-of-the-art 3D enviroments.

Going for the more expensive 3D than the 2D loved by what his supposed target audience likes, great move.

 

[Infinitron]

There was a market for blobbers and Grimrock fully satisfied it. People are waiting for Grimrock 2 now, no need for any other blobber. I also strongly doubt that M&M X will achieve sales numbers anywhere close to Grimrock.

Even with Ubisoft's marketing muscle?

Judging by how well it did on Early Access it might already be well on its way.

 

[Kz3r0]

There was a market for blobbers and Grimrock fully satisfied it. People are waiting for Grimrock 2 now, no need for any other blobber. I also strongly doubt that M&M X will achieve sales numbers anywhere close to Grimrock.

MMX will double that easily.

 

[HobGoblin42]

There was a market for blobbers and Grimrock fully satisfied it. People are waiting for Grimrock 2 now, no need for any other blobber. I also strongly doubt that M&M X will achieve sales numbers anywhere close to Grimrock.

MMX will double that easily.

You just told me, M&M X will sell more than 1,5 mio copies

 

[Infinitron]

There was a market for blobbers and Grimrock fully satisfied it. People are waiting for Grimrock 2 now, no need for any other blobber. I also strongly doubt that M&M X will achieve sales numbers anywhere close to Grimrock.

MMX will double that easily.

Probably not, because it's more expensive and the price won't go down as quickly as Grimrock's did to make it an indie "impulse buy". It'll probably earn much more money though.

 

[Kz3r0]

There was a market for blobbers and Grimrock fully satisfied it. People are waiting for Grimrock 2 now, no need for any other blobber. I also strongly doubt that M&M X will achieve sales numbers anywhere close to Grimrock.

MMX will double that easily.

You just told me, M&M X will sell more than 1,5 mio copies

And I stand by that, Steam&Ubisoft grant that much and more.

 

[l3loodAngel]

This was good 1-2 years ago, but now the indie market is getting over saturated with WL2, AOD, DS, DOS, POE, TTON and BG (Not baldurs gate). To compete with these projects you need to stand out. Sadly, not by being a blober. Even if MMX sells more copies than Grimrock, it doesn't mean they'll get a decent payoff as the marketing muscle has costs associated with it.

 

[Crooked Bee]

This was good 1-2 years ago, but now the indie market is getting over saturated with WL2, AOD, DS, DOS, POE, TTON and BG (Not baldurs gate). To compete with these projects you need to stand out. Sadly, not by being a blober.

Amusingly, from the context you put it in, it sounds to me like a blobber would exactly stand out.

I do agree blobbers are a very niche genre, though. There might, however, still be a market for a new Wizardry game (spiritual successor) -- so far no KS or non-KS title has targeted that market, and Wizardry fans seem to be fairly numerous for a niche. Unless you count Brenda Brathwaite's "Truly Hardcore Oldschool RPG" aka Shaker, but that was a complete joke of a pitch.

 

[Infinitron]

but that was a complete joke of a pitch.

...and still got $250k! More than Guido did. That's nothing to sneeze at. Imagine how much a good pitch could have gotten.

 

[Crane]

Is a blobber just a party-based dungeon crawler? Why in satan's name call it a blobber?

 

[Burning Bridges]

Good riddance.

It's grid based gameplay that killed my interest. Grimrock convinced me that it's a shitty design for the 2010s, especially when the engine could easily do everything without grids.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Is a blobber just a party-based dungeon crawler? Why in satan's name call it a blobber?

The way I understand it, it means the party moves as a single unit, like in Wizardry or Bards Tale.

 

[Taluntain]

Guido's marketing and approach are more of a problem than the game(s) he failed to get funded. The art was also kinda meh to me in more or less all of his attempts and eye candy is important when you're selling games. There's only one constant in all his failed KS attempts and anyone sensible would step back, swallow his pride and humbly ask for help from the devs who've successfully piled up enough money via KS to make their dreams actually happen. He's got about 75% of what it takes, but needs another 25% before launching the next one.

 

[Lady_Error]

It's grid based gameplay that killed my interest. Grimrock convinced me that it's a shitty design for the 2010s, especially when the engine could easily do everything without grids.

Here we go again. I wonder why MMX chose grid-based if it is so shitty in the 2010s. Grimrock is shitty for its RT combat and other reasons - and yet it still sold very well.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Guido got 200k from his DF kickstarter, that's a pretty decent sum. But of course he had to be greedy/arrogant and ask for 400k.

Worst part is, more humble kickstarters can get more money just on account of people believing in them delivering and wanting to back a winner.

I always dislike seeing people fail like this, but he would just do it over and over again.

 

[m_s0]

In a world of hopelessly vitriolic message boards and web site comment sections filled with unqualified hatred, it has truly been a fresh breeze to watch the “Deathfire” community spring to life. The outpour of support from our fans has been astonishing and often helped us forget the struggle we were going through.

How can he still not get that this is the kind of attitude that contributed to the failure of his projects, shitty pitches aside? "It's totally not my fault, it's those assholes on message boards, waaaaaah"

Those assholes that raised tens of thousands for several Kickstarter projects, tracked down a guy making obscure Ultima clones, offered him help, advice and encouraged him to carry on making his games, and so on, and so forth. Not to mention that quite a few of them (this includes me) are starved for new decent blobbers. How fucking dare they not give our saviour money. Continue alienating a community of people who'd be the first in line for your niche game, Guido, because of a bunch of fucking retards every place on the Internet is full of anyway

inXile, Obsidian and Larian at least had the foresight to not bite the hand that might've potentially fed them. And guess what? It fucking did. That has nothing to do with swallowing one's pride or whatever. That's just common sense.

 

[Kz3r0]

In a world of hopelessly vitriolic message boards and web site comment sections filled with unqualified hatred, it has truly been a fresh breeze to watch the “Deathfire” community spring to life. The outpour of support from our fans has been astonishing and often helped us forget the struggle we were going through.

How can he still not get that this is the kind of attitude that contributed to the failure of his projects, shitty pitches aside? "It's totally not my fault, it's those assholes on message boards, waaaaaah"

Those assholes that raised tens of thousands for several Kickstarter projects, tracked down a guy making obscure Ultima clones, offered him help, advice and encouraged him to carry on making his games, and so on, and so forth. Not to mention that quite a few of them (this includes me) are starved for new decent blobbers. How fucking dare they not give our saviour money. Continue alienating a community of people who'd be the first in line for your niche game, Guido, because of a bunch of fucking retards every place on the Internet is full of anyway

inXile, Obsidian and Larian at least had the foresight to not bite the hand that might've potentially fed them. And guess what? It fucking did. That has nothing to do with swallowing one's pride or whatever. That's just common sense.

Apropos, the Codex is not good enough for Guido Henkel but is worthy of Unisoft attention for MMX, what the World has come to?

 

[undecaf]

Maybe these cancellations eventually wake the devs up to try something more creative than just nostalgia driven rehashes.