Lemma Soft Forums

I'd like to take a moment to encourage everyone working on a game to use Kickstarter. Why? It's an excellent platform to get money and a huge budget for your game!

Just think: You can post a WIP thread here, detailing all your dozens of characters, how you'll have 30 endings, BxG, BxB, GxG, GxB, BxGxrobot, etc... and how it's your very first project ever, but you'll finish and it'll be great, really! But let's be honest, you'll get people telling you that you're not being realistic and that you should shrink it to make it more manageable.

OR

You can go over to Kickstarter, make that same announcement, but dammit people will THROW MONEY AT IT! Awesome, right? Hell, you'd be a downright sucker to do anything less. Fund a game yourself? Take the investment risk yourself? Not make any money off your idea? Crazytalk, I say, CRAZYTALK!

There are COUNTLESS examples of people who've gotten others to pump their budgets full of thousands of dollars despite never having made a thing! You gotta admit that's pretty darn omg SWEET.

So stop being a sucker and paying for art yourself, trying to find someone who will work with your vision... And find some top of the line artists to hire with other people's money! After all, it's your first real project. What could possibly go wrong? How could it NOT turn out incredible?

And given the amounts of money people will pledge, they obviously KNOW it will be incredible! Way better than anything else that already actually exists that they won't pay for because it's pirate-able available for purchase and has, you know... FLAWS since it is an actual finished product. No product upfront? Then there are no flaws! How can you criticize it? How can you find fault or be disappointed? You can't! Beautiful, if I do say so myself. <3

Even better: Let's say the final product (if you do finish, which of course you will) is unimpressive or dare I say CRAPPY given the budget. Oopsie! At least everyone's been $ paid $, yo. Not to mention that the funders will WANT to think it's better than it is - BELIEVE it's better than it is. Why? Because they put the money upfront and who wants to face that they got suckered into throwing tons of money at a mediocre project? Much easier to live in denial, BOOYA

So again, everyone, get your butts over to Kickstarter and don't forget to chip Big Bro Blue off 10% once you've raked it in for this GEM of advice!

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Edit: Yes, I'm intentionally trying to be provocative here. I'm hoping to spark a conversation about the wisdom of the Kickstarter model from the consumer perspective and creator perspective, as well as the message it sends to self-funded and/or freeware projects. As I've posted later in the thread, I'm not "anti-Kickstarter" - In fact, I believe there are very good Kickstarter projects (see end of this post: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 30#p265638).

I think the problem of a few of us (including me) is that we are neither UK nor US residents. And additionally fear a streak of bad luck so that kickstarter would stop being lenient there when it comes to us (I know that I myself have just THAT type of bad luck normally).

Maybe we could get 1 or more trusted persons together who fit the rules of kickstarter and let THEM create the campaigns there (so those of us who fear bad luck there
would put together the campaign,.... while those "persons" just create the post).

Wow. Just wow.

And that's all I'm gonna say about this thread.

I've been trying to keep an eye out for other VNs on Kickstarter, and to be honest, more and more of them are mediocre. The kinds that know they won't sell many copies, so they are looking to make their profit through Kickstarter.

Of course there are exceptions, such as Coming Out On Top, but I expect there will be a rapid increase in VNs applying for sponsorship, and an equally rapid decrease in quality, making it much harder for other people with games that are genuinely worthy of sponsorship.

The people who sponsor projects tend to sponsor many. If they get ripped off, they are far less likely to sponsor any other VNs.
Yeah, I'm a little touchy because I want to jump on this bandwagon too, although I'm not a US or UK resident (anymore).

Hey, there are plenty of great Kickstarter campaigns, and this advice/post is not directed at anyone in particular (okay, maybe that one I linked since that was the first I ever saw and it freaking blew my mind.)

But if anyone can find a flaw in my argument here, please do tell

Yeah. I would have so done eleven Kickstarters by now, were I a US resident. Fortunately, my current project (classic point-and-click adventure), which I have only written the script for, is produced by a UK company, and they WILL make a Kickstarter as soon as we have a bit to show for the project. But still - if that silly restriction were gone, it would be the perfect way to finance my next ideas.

Taleweaver wrote:Yeah. I would have so done eleven Kickstarters by now, were I a US resident. Fortunately, my current project (classic point-and-click adventure), which I have only written the script for, is produced by a UK company, and they WILL make a Kickstarter as soon as we have a bit to show for the project. But still - if that silly restriction were gone, it would be the perfect way to finance my next ideas.

Similar for me, that is how I got the idea that maybe we could get someone to make those campaigns (who is trusted of course).
So that person would automatically be part of the teams he/she makes the posts for.

Blue, I was wondering if you have any experience using crowd funding sites or running a crowd funding campaign? Obviously your theory about why people should kickstart sounds good on paper, but a lot of successful Kickstarter projects also succeeded because people worked hard to make sure they had something to show for before looking for investors/backers.
Not the mention there are also many failed Kickstarter projects. The concept-only Kickstarters that succeed tend to have very good concept art (based on my observations), but otherwise Kickstarter is probably not a viable platform for people in the idea/no art stage.

And maybe it's just me, but I feel like your tone is kinda sarcastic about the topic?? Idk.

I think most people replying so far are missing the "hidden" message and the conversation I was hoping to ignite.

Oh Blue, thank you! Your idea is wonderful, I really do want to thank you.
I thought about making a Visual Novel with 20 datable characters and at least five endings for every route with bxg and bxb plus, of course some mini games. First I thought I would never be able to do it since I'm bad at coding, drawing, writing and plotting, but with kickstarter all my problems are solved!
My first VN will become so wonderful thanks to you and kickstarter ♥

Seriously. Why do so many people donate so much money to a project of some unexperienced bunch of developers? Do they have too much money or are they just starry-eyed enough to never ever think of the possibility of the developers just running off with the money without ever releasing a game at all?
I really do hope I have not misinterpreted your post as ironic.

Blue Lemma wrote:I think most people replying so far are missing the "hidden" message and the conversation I was hoping to ignite.

They're not. The problem is you're describing the situation realistically. There's tons of Kickstarters, many get funded successfully, even the developers' experience seems kinda shaky. But they still raise the money.

I don't think there's much to discuss, except for what's lacking with the Kickstarter business model.

@Taleweaver: Thank goodness! I was starting to worry

I think, though, the only "cure" for that is for more projects to be on Kickstarter. Then only the best will rise to the top (mostly) because funding dollars are finite. People would have to think harder about what they want to back.

To me, there are only two types of projects people should consider backing:
1) Innovative/unique projects
2) Projects led by reputable people

Otherwise, I just don't get it.

Wow. Just wow.

And that's all I'm gonna say about this thread.

Ok, after receiving some info that cleared this up my issues with this thread (thank you Blue Lemma!)...

...I find it amusing that the sarcastic tone of the original post is mostly ignored by those of you want to do a Kickstarter. But in any case, just to address what's being discussed above, I'll reiterate what I just told Blue...

...which is that Kickstarter is now considered a very real source of alternative funding (if not primary source) for both video game devs, comic books, and more recently, movie studios.

As stated above, until enough people get burned by enough projects, it's the modern-day equivalent of the Gold Rush. It's very much a wild west environment, with few regulations and laws to protect the consumer. I do think I've heard of one Kickstarter project getting sued by a backer for failing to deliver, but that's pretty much the only one.

My husband and I have backed a number of projects. Recently it was for the latest MSI album, which was well worth it because it's freaking INCREDIBLE (if you happen to be into their stuff). For projects from unknowns, there's always a bigger element of risk, but I'm usually willing to throw something at an idea I like. The bigger risk, the smaller the donation. And yes, it might very well make us suckers, but I view KS like I view gambling. Never risk more than you can afford to lose.

Overall, I'm grateful something like Kickstarter exists (and this was before I ever actually had a project on there, mind you). For a consumer, it's a very cool way to see offbeat things getting made, and for a producer, it's a way to find out if your offbeat idea has any legs.

I don't like that backers can get burned, but I'm not sure what will realistically happen first--some sort of accountability system, or people being far more shrewd about their donations. I'm going to guess the second, since KS does take a cut of everything that goes through their system.

And I've got more thoughts about KS accountability but I need to go to sleep.

Ah, I heartily enjoyed the entire thread. I read OP with some sort of announcer voice, which was probably intended.