(Where credit is due, Ambassador Kosh)
I've been thinking a bit again recently about Kickstarter's impact on computer games. Overall I think we are in a much better place with great games that weren't safe enough for ever-more-cautious big publishers, but there are a couple of pernicious trends that have me worried.
There have also been some great games from established designers who went straight to KS. Sunless Sea is the star of this category, but I'd include Rebuild 3.
As lesser-known folks turned to Kickstarter for their funding, they needed a way to convince backers to gamble on them; eventually it became standard to show some sort of video demo, preferably of alpha-level gameplay, as evidence that the project proposers could actually create a game.
As the idea of Kickstarting games caught on, more and more would-be game makers showed up on KS, and merely proving you could make your game wasn't enough. You needed to stand out in the crowd; if you didn't get picked by the Kickstarter editorial staff or start your own viral campaign you were unlikely to get funded.
And this is where the dark side of crowdfunding really started to show. Making a successful Kickstarter campaign stopped being about the quality of the product, and started to be about marketing to backers. Kickstarter backers are a lot better than big game company executives about taking a chance, and their primary motivation is games they want to play which is a lot better filter than what will safely make money, but a successful marketing campaign still requires different skills than successful game development.
And at this point the idea of Stretch Goals became a tempting way for project proposers to sabotage themselves terribly. These newcomers often had unrealistic ideas of their schedules and costs to start with, but aiming for a small game they could do with a tiny team, all of whom they already knew, it was hard to get too far off in your guesses. But adding Stretch Goals for these types of projects means that they are likely to be making wild guesses at things they have no experience estimating, and finding themselves committed to things they have no design for doing on a schedule that was pulled from nowhere and hiring extra people they don't know to help with it.
The game for which my hopes and expectations have gone to heck for this reason is M.O.R.E. Although they started with a good idea ("Remake and improve MoO2"), they didn't really know what they wanted to change about the classic game they were imitating, and instead went to game design by votes on their backer site. They're already way behind their original schedule and have already gone back to Kickstarter for more money. At this point I expect they will ship something, but I wouldn't bet on whether it will be at all fun for anybody.
One thing that would help a lot is to pressure Kickstarter to provide a much much better way to search, sort, and filter game proposals. Today you can either look only at their editorial picks, or see a massive dump of every project. But honestly, their financial benefit lies in the largest aggregate sum of pledges collected, and helping backers be more selective for themselves instead of relying on the KS staff would work against that.
Another would be enhanced coverage of KS proposals by good journalists, like say Rock, Paper Shotgun. But those folks have just as hard a time finding worthy projects to cover as we do finding ones to back, and being a game journalist doesn't necessarily mean being clairvoyant about the strengths and weaknesses of developers in order to bring them out in interviews.
I've been thinking a bit again recently about Kickstarter's impact on computer games. Overall I think we are in a much better place with great games that weren't safe enough for ever-more-cautious big publishers, but there are a couple of pernicious trends that have me worried.
Successful Games
Established Developers End-Running Publishers
I am really pleased with the great games that have come from KS, mostly funded one to two years ago and starting with the great projects that established game designers couldn't get past publishers: Broken Age, Grim Dawn, Wasteland 2 (with some caveats, see my earlier post). I'm confident in including some not-yet-done games in this group, like Torment: Tides of Numenara and Project Eternity.There have also been some great games from established designers who went straight to KS. Sunless Sea is the star of this category, but I'd include Rebuild 3.
Homages and Updates
Another set of successful KS games are some from newbie designers inspired by classic designs. Xenonauts and Worlds of Magic (probably - they came back for more funding after terrible underestimation but seem to be ready to deliver a product now) exemplify these.Green Fields
And a very few of the completely new games from new developers have managed to avoid the pitfalls, though I can't think of any that I've backed that qualify.Standing Out in the Crowd
The first few game Kickstarters relied on the reputations and resumes of their designers to win backers' support. Broken Age was of course the poster child that started the revolution. Well-regarded names like Obsidian, and long-time designers like the folks at Crate and inXile, didn't need anything more to win our confidence.As lesser-known folks turned to Kickstarter for their funding, they needed a way to convince backers to gamble on them; eventually it became standard to show some sort of video demo, preferably of alpha-level gameplay, as evidence that the project proposers could actually create a game.
As the idea of Kickstarting games caught on, more and more would-be game makers showed up on KS, and merely proving you could make your game wasn't enough. You needed to stand out in the crowd; if you didn't get picked by the Kickstarter editorial staff or start your own viral campaign you were unlikely to get funded.
And this is where the dark side of crowdfunding really started to show. Making a successful Kickstarter campaign stopped being about the quality of the product, and started to be about marketing to backers. Kickstarter backers are a lot better than big game company executives about taking a chance, and their primary motivation is games they want to play which is a lot better filter than what will safely make money, but a successful marketing campaign still requires different skills than successful game development.
The Terror of Stretch Goals
One of the more interesting innovations in good Kickstarter campaigns a couple years ago was to introduce "stretch goals", extensions to the design, resources, and schedule that could be made if funding was sufficiently better than the minimum plan. When the campaign was created by experienced developers with realistic budgets and schedules, they could easily come up with a hit parade of things they'd cut to keep the budget and schedule within their targets. All it took to make "stretch goals" was to quantify what extra time and resources would be needed to add these things back in.And at this point the idea of Stretch Goals became a tempting way for project proposers to sabotage themselves terribly. These newcomers often had unrealistic ideas of their schedules and costs to start with, but aiming for a small game they could do with a tiny team, all of whom they already knew, it was hard to get too far off in your guesses. But adding Stretch Goals for these types of projects means that they are likely to be making wild guesses at things they have no experience estimating, and finding themselves committed to things they have no design for doing on a schedule that was pulled from nowhere and hiring extra people they don't know to help with it.
Crowdsourced Game Design
Possibly the most dangerous problem with games on Kickstarter is novice developers who don't have a strong vision for their own game trying to crowdsource the game design. Seeking input from potential players is a great idea; starting without a clear vision yourself is not. Using polls of your entire backer community to make key design decisions is such an abdication that any coherence in the final result will either be coincidence or a function of a small and very vocal subset of the backers who take up the game design where the "developers" leave it lying on the floor.The game for which my hopes and expectations have gone to heck for this reason is M.O.R.E. Although they started with a good idea ("Remake and improve MoO2"), they didn't really know what they wanted to change about the classic game they were imitating, and instead went to game design by votes on their backer site. They're already way behind their original schedule and have already gone back to Kickstarter for more money. At this point I expect they will ship something, but I wouldn't bet on whether it will be at all fun for anybody.
What to Do?
It's a lot easier to describe these problems than to address them. I don't have any ideas I'm particularly enthused with.One thing that would help a lot is to pressure Kickstarter to provide a much much better way to search, sort, and filter game proposals. Today you can either look only at their editorial picks, or see a massive dump of every project. But honestly, their financial benefit lies in the largest aggregate sum of pledges collected, and helping backers be more selective for themselves instead of relying on the KS staff would work against that.
Another would be enhanced coverage of KS proposals by good journalists, like say Rock, Paper Shotgun. But those folks have just as hard a time finding worthy projects to cover as we do finding ones to back, and being a game journalist doesn't necessarily mean being clairvoyant about the strengths and weaknesses of developers in order to bring them out in interviews.
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