Post by Dan @ 10:56am 15/10/12 | 44 Comments
Interested browsers can now access the site's community forums, but most notably, the real-time funding tally has been restored, currently showing pledges at US$695,110 --over 34% toward the lofty US$2million initial goal.
A blog update from Roberts features much love for contributors:
Wednesday morning we set out to prove that PC gaming and Space Sims are not dead… and prove it, we did!At the rate that funding looks to still be rolling in, the project appears to be firmly on track to reach it's goal. However, we can't help but remain a little sceptical of the game's longer term prospects.
We’re absolutely floored by the attention and humbled by your comments. We hoped everyone would be excited about the big idea behind Star Citizen and Squadron 42 — but we had no expectation about the kind of praise and interest we received yesterday.
The downside of all this attention was that the huge number of people from all around the world trying to learn about Star Citizen and make their pledge, crashed our custom crowd funding page and also took down the core community site.
Until then, we were on track to break crowd funding records. Now, thirty hours later, we’re only just getting the core site back online.
The funding raised from crowdsourcing is only a fraction of the estimated US$11M reportedly needed for the game's development --which is expected to be raised from private investors-- and even then, that figure seems hugely ambitious given everything that Star Citizen wants to accomplish.
Does it say anything about the team's ability to deliver on a project of this scope and complexity, if they were unable to maintain a stable website for the announcement? Can supporters depend on the abilities of a star power developer that, despite his pedigree, has been producing films for the past decade, rather than making games. And most of all, can backers trust a crowdfunding platform that is seemingly free from independent oversight?
Make up your own mind, over on the official website:
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Posted 11:23am 15/10/12
Posted 11:29am 15/10/12
Posted 11:57am 15/10/12
Posted 12:01pm 15/10/12
Yeh at least kickstarter requires completion I guess.
Doesn't mean that the completed game has to be any good though, just have the features outlined..
Posted 12:20pm 15/10/12
I really like the Kickstarter projects that have had cool physical rewards, bits and pieces of memorabilia and such, those are the ones that have tempted me to pledge more cos its cool one-off stuff that I'll get anyway, even if the game fails. I mean, I almost pledged a crazy amount of money towards the Tex Murphy one cos one of the tiers (think it might have been the $500 one) came with a Tex Murphy fedora signed by the guys making the game.
Ingame bonus shops or money or titles or whatever don't feel like cool rewards to me, feels more like those dodgy pre-order bonuses you get from places like EB :(
Posted 12:30pm 15/10/12
At some point with all this Kickstarterness happening we're going to become hundreds/thousands/millions of private investors without the rewards of being investors (equity). Business and particularly game making is a risk and if existing publishers and investors with deep pockets can't see the potential of a project then you have to wonder about the viability of the project.
Posted 12:38pm 15/10/12
I'm not saying there's any reason to suspect any nefarious behaviour, but there is very little to stop them faking the tally, and presenting an inflated value in order to attract more interest.
There's no requirements for their pitch to have any kind of warnings, and those kind of things that established third party crowd-funding platforms have been making mandatory.
Crowdfunding is already a pretty shaky proposition, and all I am saying is that this kind of solo implementation only adds even more risk.
Posted 01:06pm 15/10/12
Yeah this sums up my feeling with Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general- it's great when things go to plan but I reckon the fad will wear off after a few high profile projects inevitably go boom before they finish. I have to say bravo to mobs who manage to convince the masses to shoulder a large portion of the risk in exchange for no equity though.
Posted 01:18pm 15/10/12
Still, I can see why the reasons you listed would make it a tough sell for people at first glance, especially those with no prior interest in FL or WC.
Posted 02:20pm 15/10/12
Kickstarter projects are required by the kickstarter agreement to deliver the product, or refund the backers. If it doesn't meet the goal, I know nothing is happening to my wallet. As a backer I know how it works and I know there's a third party making sure the rules are observed.
The question for me is WHY roll your own crowd sourcing platform. Sure there's the 5% cut to kickstarter but I imagine that this would be more than recouped by people being less hesitant about the crowdsourcing platform, not to mention the cost of building the website and funding software.
Just seems suss to me; I'll buy it if it comes out probably, but they won't get a pledge.
Posted 03:02pm 15/10/12
That's one part about Kickstarter itself that I find dubious - has it ever been tested?
Presumably if a project is asking for money then they actually need money so by the time it's determined that the project isn't going to make it the money has already been spent, yeah?
Sure Kickstarter says not delivering can open the project up to legal recourse by the backers, but by that point it sounds like you'd simply be suing a broke company with a trashed reputation.
Posted 05:21pm 15/10/12
Posted 06:41pm 15/10/12
Compare with how CIG explicitly states here:
Posted 07:04pm 15/10/12
Posted 07:13pm 15/10/12
Posted 07:17pm 15/10/12
Posted 07:44pm 15/10/12
Dan answered your post earlier.
Dunno, when I go to Kickstarter I see projects funded in Brisbane: http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/cities/brisbane-aus?ref=home_location
Posted 07:55pm 15/10/12
edit: This clears it up http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/10/kickstarter-crosses-the-pond-with-uk-based-projects-simplifies-international-shipping/
Posted 07:57pm 15/10/12
Looking at their site its US and UK now.
Posted 08:02pm 15/10/12
To be fair, Chris Roberts can manage a project - or knows a few people who can. One thing you'll be hard pressed to find is a Chris Roberts game running either over budget or behind schedule. In fact, Wing Commander 4 was targetted to an extremely optimistic 12 month development cycle - it missed it, but only by two months.
Remember that the budget for WC3 and WC4 was USD4m and USD12m respectively, most of which went in to the FMV production - at the time completely unheard of - and from WC3 Electronic Arts basically got a freebie as they then released Armada later in the year based on the WC3 engine. Also worth noting that 'Prophecy' basically kicked off Jeremy Renners career.
If there's a game designer that knows how to keep a project on target and under budget, I'd say it's Chris Roberts.
He might not be the best at marketing though, maybe developing an actual product that fans love for the money - given that Wing Commander (the movie as abhorrent to a franchise as The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie) lost about 18 million dollars.
Posted 08:29pm 15/10/12
Posted 11:00pm 15/10/12
And yeah, I have no doubt Chris Roberts can make a good game, I'm not really worried about the quality of the project, its just like Dan said though, when theres no third party oversight over the whole crowd funding process, how can you really trust any of the numbers you're seeing or the system you're pouring money into. I just don't think it sets a very good precedent, I think this whole crowd funding movement in general is such a fragile thing and all its going to take is one big scam or one big project to fail and leave the backers with nothing, for the whole movement to just collapse in on itself. Getting people used to the idea of pledging money through these independant, self-managed crowd funding portals is just asking for that to happen even sooner.
Posted 12:00am 16/10/12
How will the game ACTUALLY PLAY?
My fear (assuming it doesn't faceplant) is that I fork out some cash, only to get the 'haha LOL an Aussie expecting to play a multiplayer game based in the States'.
He's got some of my cash now tho. I 'trialled' some of his earlier works, and given how much I enjoyed those, I consider it a late/guilt payment :P
Posted 12:06am 16/10/12
Posted 12:20am 16/10/12
And THAT is why the kickstarter fee is worth it - at least 1 in 20 people who may have otherwise thrown down will have reservations, unfounded or not.
Posted 01:15am 16/10/12
Definitely true in my experience.
Posted 01:47am 16/10/12
Still, on the site it says that you have to opt out of not getting refunded if the goal isn't met, so I presume that they'll still be going ahead regardless.
Posted 02:20am 16/10/12
Posted 09:18am 16/10/12
last edited by Twisted at 09:18:09 16/Oct/12
Posted 11:41am 16/10/12
Posted 09:56am 19/10/12
Posted 11:37am 19/10/12
Totally lost now.
500k fresh target on kistarter. 2M target on their own site, 50% done. Does this mean that 1.5M is actually a viable launch target?
Whole thing just seems ad hoc as s*** now?
Posted 01:12pm 19/10/12
At least it's resurged my interest Eve again!
Posted 01:39pm 19/10/12
You're asking questions! Stop asking questions and just throw more money at them!
Posted 06:11pm 19/10/12
So it has come to this, people are paying to win before games even exist these days?
Posted 08:11pm 19/10/12
Posted 08:44pm 19/10/12
Posted 09:35pm 19/10/12
Agreed that it does seem disingenuous that they set the Kickstarter goal so low though, when that clearly wouldn't be enough funding alone for it to happen.
It was definitely a mistake to try and go it alone, at least it might ward off others from trying that method.
Maybe I need to exercise a bit of Hanlon's Razor, but I find it difficult to believe that they had motives other than not having to part with 10% of the tally. Wanting to engage with backers more than crowdfunding sites would allow them to seems like a bit of a crock, as there are plenty of ways to incentivise rego on their own site to people that were keen enough to back them.
Anyway,, I still genuinely hope the game gets made as advertised, but I remain more sceptical of this one than most other high-profile games Kickstarters,
Posted 09:35pm 19/10/12
Posted 09:50pm 19/10/12
Tbh I don't have a problem with them holding their own fundraiser, if I was in their situation (being more professional devs than the common indie products) I'd probably be attracted to do the same. Though that being said, Planetary Annihilation, Castle Story, and Project Eternity all look top notch as well, and two of those have experienced game dev teams.
Posted 04:13am 20/10/12
Posted 04:41am 20/10/12
Posted 04:53am 20/10/12
Posted 10:03am 20/10/12
The multiple funding sources make a little more sense in the context of this statement.