Information Thorvalla Kickstarter goes online

[Excommunicator]

The custom of asking for a million dollars and then coming up with a random game idea over the following month has got to fucking stop.

I don't care who it is or what their background is. This is starting to become a pillar of the crowd funding approach and it is damaging the whole system. Stop fucking doing it. It's crude and unprofessional

You need a solid game idea with a good quantity of setting material, fully outlined mechanics and art that is integrated into that setting and not randomly commissioned crap ("this is like an elf that kinda looks like a race we might put into the game when we start working on it"). Start doing this in a way that respects the audience

 

[skuphundaku]

It just isn't the subject at hand. We're talking about people with a resume that presumably went through that process once already (more or less, things having changed a bit since).

I think that's the crux of the matter: Henkel, Hallford and a minority of old-timer RPG aficionados think about them as proven beyond doubt and expect nothing else than what Fargo and Obsidian got. Unfortunately, for the majority of the audience, that isn't the case. Fargo played his hand on the Fallout brand and that's how he got back in the public counsciouness, even though he might have been just a big an unkonwn as Henkel and Hallford. Obsidian are a niche, but successful in their niche, developer with a lot of famous designers on board. Add to that a lot of Baldur's Gate Bioware fans that got recently disenfranchised by the direction in which Bioware is heading and that were itching to get their Baldur's Gate RTwP itch scratched and you have a recipe for success. Contrast that to a couple of developers whose last hits were 15 years ago and who did nothing worthy of any mention ever since.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Is this really that shocking? People aren't going to just keep throwing money at every other idea on Kickstarter, not in videogames, not in any other field.

Yep, exactly my thoughts. The funding goal has to be in relation to what is offered, or in laymens terms: realistic.

 

[Sacred_Path]

Ok just pledged for this semi-racist dragon riding sim, and via PayPal because I cannot into kickstarter.

"1_Unwashed_Pariah appears, cleave it with your Aryan bronze axe y/n"

Not a very wise thing to do, considering this will most likely fail, and there is no guaranty there will be paypal returns.

Yes, but I couldn't use kickstarter and I wanted to back this (for what it's worth). I wouldn't mind losing the 15$ as much as I would mind missing out on an opportunity for a good (mebbe old-school) game

 

[Moribund]

Is this really that shocking? People aren't going to just keep throwing money at every other idea on Kickstarter, not in videogames, not in any other field.

If you want a lot of money, there has to be sufficient reason for people to give it to you, and name recognition is a huge thing for that. For others, you'll have to stick to smaller amounts or go the traditional indie route and self-fund it. That's less than ideal, but you're overstating it if you think that means Kickstarter is worthless as a whole. Getting sizeable budgets out of Kickstarter is really hard. People will have to realize that, especially pitchers like Henkel, it's still an additional opportunity for funding that is nothing but a boon to the industry.

And making betrayal at krondor, RoA series and planescape:torment isn't enough?

No one can say this is less flushed out than PE or WL 2 or doubefine. There's a lot more detail than any of those, just less name dropping and less money put into the pitch.

So people are really disappointed the pitch isn't higher budget. What a joke. All the crap you hear from marketers seems to be true, even here.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yes? That's what's going to happen. Nothing is for free in life, including crowdfunded budgets. If you want a lot of money, you're going to have to put in some time and effort. These studios regularly make pitch documents for publishers, but you're saying it's too much effort for them to make something like that for the crowd? In that case, fuck 'em.

And it is about ideas too. Not a lack of ideas, but a finalization and presentation of ideas. This Kickstarter pitch is simply too vague on too many things. It'll have card game concepts! Ok, what does that mean? I want to do stuff to innovate the old P&P-inspired cRPG mechanics? Ok, but WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Are you really saying it's unreasonable for people to ask for a pitch to be more than "a handful of cool ideas" when you're asking for $1 million?

And it's common sense by the way. If you have a proposal in the range of 1 million $, the thing to avoid is that you come to the big meeting with nothing but a few crumpled paper sketches, and then beat around the bush and say that you'd need a big cash advance.

I think it's proper that you have to invest something like let's say 50,000$ minimum into the thing before hand. If you can't do that, settle for a more modest goal, I'd say. One million dollar is a lot of money to ask.

 

[Charles-cgr]

Yes? That's what's going to happen. Nothing is for free in life, including crowdfunded budgets. If you want a lot of money, you're going to have to put in some time and effort. These studios regularly make pitch documents for publishers, but you're saying it's too much effort for them to make something like that for the crowd? In that case, fuck 'em.

And it is about ideas too. Not a lack of ideas, but a finalization and presentation of ideas. This Kickstarter pitch is simply too vague on too many things. It'll have card game concepts! Ok, what does that mean? I want to do stuff to innovate the old P&P-inspired cRPG mechanics? Ok, but WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Are you really saying it's unreasonable for people to ask for a pitch to be more than "a handful of cool ideas" when you're asking for $1 million?

And it's common sense by the way. If you have a proposal in the range of 1 million $, the thing to avoid is that you come to the big meeting with nothing but a few rumpled paper sketches, and then beat around the bush and say that you'd need a big cash advance.

I think it's proper that you have to invest something like let's say 50,000$ minimum into the thing before hand.

I understand where you, Excommunicator and others are coming from, but unfortunately I fear it sets the bar too high for our particular type of product. If the KS doesn't come through, those $50K are a net loss. That is a seriously daunting gamble. Not everyone's as crazy as Cleve and... OMG, me

 

[Moribund]

The real dream of KS is not just to get creative control away from mentally deficient amoral publishers but to stop wasting 90% of the money on useless bullshit.

 

[Burning Bridges]

That's exactly what I was referring to when I said $1M budget to raise $6M. What I find sad is that doing it right shouldn't cost that much.

Henkel came up with a vague idea about top-down tactical role-playing in a less than typical setting with two proven industry veterans. He doesn't have the means to show what Star Citizen did, or even the Coles. I don't think that should overshadow the rest

They have a "handful of cool ideas" and a killer resume. This isn't about Antharion (which didn't reach $15K) but about a project with BaK and RoA for a foundation. Something people here have been fantasizing about for over a decade, and now that it is here, everything seems to be about putting them at fault. So if they don't have $50K to invest in their KS (that is more or less what it would take to meet expectations I'm reading here), it is OK for them to give up before even trying? If the question had been asked in those terms a week ago it would have gotten everyone in a frenzy.

Yes, but perhaps it just isn't enough?

 

[Charles-cgr]

Burning Bridges That is what I am having a childish hissyfit about, precisely

EDIT: But there's more to it than that. The way I see it, that not being enough will lead to not having nice things. I may be wrong but I doubt it. And I want toys for later damit. And it wouldn't hurt if the good guys won for a change.

 

[Zed]

Yes? That's what's going to happen. Nothing is for free in life, including crowdfunded budgets. If you want a lot of money, you're going to have to put in some time and effort. These studios regularly make pitch documents for publishers, but you're saying it's too much effort for them to make something like that for the crowd? In that case, fuck 'em.

And it is about ideas too. Not a lack of ideas, but a finalization and presentation of ideas. This Kickstarter pitch is simply too vague on too many things. It'll have card game concepts! Ok, what does that mean? I want to do stuff to innovate the old P&P-inspired cRPG mechanics? Ok, but WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Are you really saying it's unreasonable for people to ask for a pitch to be more than "a handful of cool ideas" when you're asking for $1 million?

And it's common sense by the way. If you have a proposal in the range of 1 million $, the thing to avoid is that you come to the big meeting with nothing but a few rumpled paper sketches, and then beat around the bush and say that you'd need a big cash advance.

I think it's proper that you have to invest something like let's say 50,000$ minimum into the thing before hand.

I understand where you, Excommunicator and others are coming from, but unfortunately I fear it sets the bar too high for our particular type of product. If the KS doesn't come through, those $50K are a net loss. That is a seriously daunting gamble. Not everyone's as crazy as Cleve and... OMG, me

I honestly don't think crowdfunding a million is an option in Henkel's situation, if he can't invest something himself. KS is not a card you can pull to summon a million dollars from thin air. It costs money to make money.
Remember Fargo put WL2 at $900k because he could inject 100k himself if needed? You can't go from dirt poor to millionaire in 30 days unless you win the lottery.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I understand where you, Excommunicator and others are coming from, but unfortunately I fear it sets the bar too high for our particular type of product. If the KS doesn't come through, those $50K are a net loss. That is a seriously daunting gamble. Not everyone's as crazy as Cleve and... OMG, me

You make it sound like it's a huge risk. But other projects have already shown that you can get 1, 2 or even three million dollars, with comparatively little to show. I think this puts it in a bit different perspective. Besides, I think the 50,000$ was a very high figure, I just chose that because I don't want to sound like I'm playing it down deliberately. I doubt WL2 / PE/ Shadowrun campaigns cost nearly that much.

 

[getter77]

Trying to reach a given goal on Kickstarter, of just about any stripe save maybe the way the Iceblink Engine project has recently went about things on what is now their Round #2, is very much a moving target on a fluid landscape. What the early runners managed to get by with has no guarantee of working in the present and near future, nor does releasing at any time guarantee you a large mindshare of the audience as if the early day vacuum was still a thing.

To have the best odds going forward, aside from some dumb luck, a project can't just try to somewhat emulate past successful ones----you've got to surpass whatever your peer targets are in terms of genre, pedigree, etc as the bar has been raised by at least some degree. IIRC, they looked into things and saw this as their best near window to launch as otherwise the stats, thus far, indicate that Feb of 2013 or some such would be the next chance----so they took it. Perhaps they would've had a better pitch by then----perhaps more juggernauts would also land on KS at that same time and wipe them out of view entirely or at least folks out of money, there is no predicting these things since you have a myriad of individual actors that don't act in any sort of concert. Unless somebody goes through the trouble to keep tabs on all the classic devs that are still alive the world over and their current status, all you can assume is that competition will be robust. Hell, there has never BEEN a "Holiday Kickstarter Gaming Period" to draw conclusions from since the computer game side of things just livened up these past few months----closest thinking is the traditional, foolish rush on the consoles where everything comes out around now while leaving the Summer barren and many get wiped out.

Hopefully they can turn this around with more detail given, perhaps taking a cue moreso from the P&P side of KS since that is closer to the heart of the manner than some others in terms of how to present that sort of detail. The most important thing is to keep at it, and not wind up like the Ars Magica one----if you have budget issues to hinder you at aspects of successful ones then at the very least you should be paying equally close attention to the easier to maneuver missteps of failed projects on Kickstarter.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I honestly don't think crowdfunding a million is an option in Henkel's situation, if he can't invest something himself. KS is not a card you can pull to summon a million dollars from thin air. It costs money to make money.
Remember Fargo put WL2 at $900k because he could inject 100k himself if needed? You can't go from dirt poor to millionaire in 30 days unless you win the lottery.

Moreover, Fargos campaign was extremely original, and hammered down the important messages quickly and with great skill. Like making the point "publishers suck", without even saying "suck".

Not to forget that it is Wasteland 2 made by the same guy who did Wasteland 1, and since he said he is going to make a true sequel, there is not even hint of a doubt what he wants to achieve.

 

[Moribund]

I think this puts it in a bit different perspective. Besides, I think the 50,000$ was a very high figure, I just chose that because I don't want to sound like I'm playing it down deliberately. I doubt WL2 / PE/ Shadowrun campaigns cost nearly that much.

I'm sure they cost a lot more than that. 10 guys sitting around thinking of ideas for one month is 50k, that's before they actually do anything at all.

You make it sound like it's a huge risk. But other projects have already shown that you can get 1, 2 or even three million dollars, with comparatively little to show.

If you don't have the names to back it up it's probably not so much a risk as a certainty you'll fail.

I don't think KS is realistic for random schmoe to get much without a big campaign and mass appeal and a lot of work to show, maybe a demo. But it is a bigger surprise to see that people are really only responding to fluff and to names, that's it. 90% of the comments on the last kickstarter were about the pitch, too. Very depressing.

 

[Zed]

I understand where you, Excommunicator and others are coming from, but unfortunately I fear it sets the bar too high for our particular type of product. If the KS doesn't come through, those $50K are a net loss. That is a seriously daunting gamble. Not everyone's as crazy as Cleve and... OMG, me

You make it sound like it's a huge risk. But other projects have already shown that you can get 1, 2 or even three million dollars, with comparatively little to show. I think this puts it in a bit different perspective. Besides, I think the 50,000$ was a very high figure, I just chose that because I don't want to sound like I'm playing it down deliberately. I doubt WL2 / PE/ Shadowrun campaigns cost nearly that much.

Writing is cheap, only costs time. Ideas are free. Artwork isn't too expensive if you know people in the game's industry - which Henkel should. Hell it may even be free if you can draw it yourself or if you can get your best buddy in on it. That's why my impression is that this KS went out too early with too little info prepared, rather than it being a question of bad budgeting.

 

[tuluse]

And making betrayal at krondor, RoA series and planescape:torment isn't enough?

No one can say this is less flushed out than PE or WL 2 or doubefine. There's a lot more detail than any of those, just less name dropping and less money put into the pitch.

So people are really disappointed the pitch isn't higher budget. What a joke. All the crap you hear from marketers seems to be true, even here.

Fargo was vague with the details but he described the kind of game he wants to make (Fallout clone).

P:E was even lighter on details at first, but fleshed them out a lot in the following updates, and again they described the kind of game they want to make (BG clone).

What kind of game does Henkel want to make?

 

[J1M]

Kickstarter is not supposed to give anyone a pile of money who asks for it.

Kickstarter is to allow a developer to make their pitch to their players instead of to a traditional publisher. You still need a pitch.

Since they are talking to players instead of MBAs, they can skip the "market research" and "target demographic" bullshit. (Yay.) But they still need to convince us that they will produce something with our money. This should be easy. They don't need to convince us that they will produce a 20%+ return on investment. We are perfectly happy with a product that results in a negative 100% return on investment as long as the product is complete to specifications.

 

[Charles-cgr]

What kind of game does Henkel want to make?

Not a clone. there is a lesson to be learned here. Publishers pumping out sequels had it right all along?

Note that I'm not beating on W2 or PE, but it would be nice if a new franchise had a chance. How many are actually getting funded? Dead State seems to be the oddity here...

 

[Zed]

The reason why I personally react to pitches is because I try to put myself in "average Kickstarter-Joe's" place. I've backed every single project that has appealed to me. That includes one that fucked failed as well (Haunts - motherfuckers)*... luckily I didn't pledge more than $5 for that. So it's not a matter of me personally being persuaded to pledge or not, it's a matter of me being disappointed that the creator hasn't been creative enough to make it succeed taking everybody else in account.

*

 

[tuluse]

I'm sure they cost a lot more than that. 10 guys sitting around thinking of ideas for one month is 50k, that's before they actually do anything at all.


If you don't have the names to back it up it's probably not so much a risk as a certainty you'll fail.

I don't think KS is realistic for random schmoe to get much without a big campaign and mass appeal and a lot of work to show, maybe a demo. But it is a bigger surprise to see that people are really only responding to fluff and to names, that's it. 90% of the comments on the last kickstarter were about the pitch, too. Very depressing.

I'm not asking for a whole team to do pre-production for month full time.

I'm asking for 2-3 people to do pre-production for a month part time.

I'm asking for a brief description of what the game will be like. So far I haven't seen that. I've seen stuff that will be in the game, and stuff that might be in the game, but not a description of what the sum of the parts will be like.

 

[Charles-cgr]

The reason why I personally react to pitches is because I try to put myself in "average Kickstarter-Joe's" place. I've backed every single project that has appealed to me. That includes one that fucked failed as well (Haunts - motherfuckers)*... luckily I didn't pledge more than $5 for that. So it's not a matter of me personally being persuaded to pledge or not, it's a matter of me being disappointed that the creator hasn't been creative enough to make it succeed taking everybody else in account.

Sorry if I made it sound personal. I suck at keeping my temper.

 

[Brother None]

Are you going to claim the project is shoddily-made whenever one doesn't make it or it barely does?

I don't know. Isn't this the first time I've made such a claim? I called Hero-U's art bad. coz it is. But it made it.

Or maybe there aren't that many people interested in this anymore?

If there's no people interested, then it won't make it. Big shock? You still need to sell, which means people will want to buy. Kickstarter is a way to circumvent publishers, not a way to circumvent capitalism as a whole.

If a good project fails because the pitch video was not funny or it didn't have tits, then this is a fucking failure. A couple of big successful projects don't mean anything in the big scheme.

Why not? What big scheme? Did you want Kickstarter to oust publishers and change the face of gaming? That was never going to happen. But thanks to Kickstarter, a bunch of developers are working on games they really want to make, and I as a consumer feel a lot better about the near future of cRPGs. That's worth *a lot*.

And yeah, you do have to make an investment into your pitch in time and effort. And yes, sometimes a Kickstarter will fail simply because it lacks press coverage or big names. And that sucks, but no one (reasonable) is really claiming it is some kind of videogaming valhalla. A savior of the down-trodden. You are presenting the situation as if it's either Kickstarter being a perfect flawless system where all the worthy with good ideas and the ability to make a game get money, or a complete and utter failure that'll soon disappear. Doesn't it seem more likely to you the truth lies somewhere in between?

Bioware would make a killing on Kickstarter with no pitch, just with "I MAEK GAEM". Think about that. If you think they won't because Kickstarter is some sort of an old-school magical fairyland, you're deluded.

They wouldn't. Because EA. Maybe prior to EA.

And making betrayal at krondor, RoA series and planescape:torment isn't enough?

Not really, no. Do you think Fargo could have raised millions based on his own name, without Wasteland or MCA or Mark Morgan?

No one can say this is less flushed out than PE or WL 2 or doubefine. There's a lot more detail than any of those, just less name dropping and less money put into the pitch.

Now you're starting to lose me. There is not more detail than PE or WL2, and what's more PE and WL2 both depended on the concept of taking existing, loved games and saying "base your basic expectations on that". You could to some extend fill in your own details based on what you know of Wasteland or Infinity Engine games, and that makes a pretty significant difference.

Double Fine isn't a repeatable success. Henkel should have known that before going to Kickstarter, because this in what it shows this campaign is on that level. But you can't do that. DF has a level of adoration that is matched by only a handful of studios in this industry, and it was the first big one to do this. There's no hope of that happening again.

So people are really disappointed the pitch isn't higher budget. What a joke. All the crap you hear from marketers seems to be true, even here.

Yes? We're still consumers. What you're asking us to do is accept and invest in a product "just because". But I'm still a consumer, on Kickstarter as much as anywhere else. I backed this project because of Guido Henkel's name, but at the same time I am aware it's not a huge selling point. As a pitch to sell me a product, it falls short. Because that's what you're doing if you're raising $1M. At smaller Kickstarter amounts you might get away with "I have a neat idea!" At this amount? No.

You're also railing against the wrong people here. The people posting in this thread probably include a bunch of pledgers, and we're also all people who care and want to see this succeed. We're being critical because we understand the reality of Kickstarter means he needs to sell and market his product better, do a better job in showing what he has, have more to offer and do better with the media. If you're going to rail at anything, rail at the people who aren't paying this game any mind, not the people who are.

The custom of asking for a million dollars and then coming up with a random game idea over the following month has got to fucking stop.

I don't care who it is or what their background is. This is starting to become a pillar of the crowd funding approach and it is damaging the whole system. Stop fucking doing it. It's crude and unprofessional

You need a solid game idea with a good quantity of setting material, fully outlined mechanics and art that is integrated into that setting and not randomly commissioned crap ("this is like an elf that kinda looks like a race we might put into the game when we start working on it"). Start doing this in a way that respects the audience

This, basically.

What kind of game does Henkel want to make?

Not a clone. there is a lesson to be learned here. Publishers pumping out sequels had it right all along?

Note that I'm not beating on W2 or PE, but it would be nice if a new franchise had a chance. How many are actually getting funded? Dead State seems to be the oddity here...

Now you're just looking for stuff to rag on. Seriously, no new franchises? Seriously?! You're naming two out of three right there!

 

[tuluse]

What kind of game does Henkel want to make?

Not a clone. there is a lesson to be learned here. Publishers pumping out sequels had it right all along?

Note that I'm not beating on W2 or PE, but it would be nice if a new franchise had a chance. How many are actually getting funded? Dead State seems to be the oddity here...

Dead State, Expeditions: Conquistador, FTL, Double Fine, Jack Houston are all games I've pledged too that are new franchises.

Also, P:E is a new franchise.

I was being pithy with my descriptions, neither game is going to be an exact clone of the game I mentioned, but it gives an indication of how the game will play. Henkel hasn't done that yet.

 

[J1M]

Personally, I am offended when someone claims to have spent a decade planning their dream game and has nothing to show when asking me for money. Do they think I am stupid, that I will believe anything I see in a youtube video? Are they lying about their time invested? If not, why don't they have anything to show for it?

Also, when I see a bunch of expensive apple products in a pitch video it does not engender confidence in:
a) Their ability to spend money wisely
b) Their 'oldschool hardcore PC cred'

Give us a PDF of your design document. Put your developer team on camera. Show screenshot mock ups. Artwork. Describe what you will spend the money on. Anything.