Funding lessons to be learned from SC

Off-topic
#1

Hi,
I’m a rather new backer from the kickstarter campaign and primarily came with the advertisement from Chris Roberts in regard to his post on the RSI website. Despite my misgivings about using Kickstarter after the email regarding account hacking, I still backed this game because I felt it had great potential.

That aside, as a backer for Star Citizen since the early going, I have some insights I feel need to be shared. As a reference, let me point to this excellent piece of work by a few members of the Star Citizen community, a google spreadsheet detailing the exact daily pledge amounts and user statuses for SC since the early part of the Kickstarter campaign, along with models and timestamps for certain events.

If you’ll note the early days after the kickstarter campaign surge ended with around 6 million dollars, the funding nearly dried up completely, going at a pace of about $9k per day for a long stretch of time. This was only moderated by occasional events and fresh releases of artwork. One thing I would also note about this period, is a complete lack of stretch goals from 7 million (post-campaign surge) to 9 million (the marker line for reintroduction of stretch goals, along with a few other small updates). That period lasts from 12-8-2012 to 4-29-2013. 5 months, 2 million dollars, a little more than $10k per day.

I bring this up because, at current, SC stands near the $40 million mark and are making nearly $65k a day. Sure, there’s more product to look at but I don’t feel that fully explains it. Many KS startups just get the money and stagnate to work on the product, SC did this too but reinvigorated things by restarting the same model they had along with more things for the community. This way they had more capital to burn, as long as they didn’t force a feature creep. You’ll note that the 9 and 10 million dollar goals were more in-house upgrades rather than game upgrades as well, a sound studio and a mocap studio.

I know we all want a good game but I would like your thoughts on if Kingdom Come should strive for more communication and a reviewing of potential stretch goals. This may not fit their model since they already have a backer, but I thought I would ask the community their thoughts on making sure this game gets made with the quality we expect.

4 Likes
#2

i didnt think about that but your right about us paying to upgrade their studio…i dont know how to feel about that. and i agree fully that communication is important their is no such thing as too much here for that.

#3

Hello. And thank you for the link and your insight.
We are actually actively thinking about how to continue with our campaign. But be aware that we are making a very different game than Star Citizen. Not in terms of a setting but in the whole scale of the game. We want to create a really great game, but you probably won’t be playing it continuously for 10 years like Star Citizen. We want to stick to our vision, keep focused and deliver promised product on a promised release day. We don’t want to add huge stretch goals that would require huge amounts of time and people to fulfill. Like large scale multiplayer for example. We would like to have a bigger community of backers, but we are very carefull not to entice them on something that would compromise our vision or release day.

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#4

Thanks for responding. I get that this is thematically a smaller game and you want to stick to your dates. That said, you ARE focusing on having persistent updates and Acts for us to purchase later. At bare minimum, you’re looking on building a game that you’ll have to build on continuously for probably 2-3 years at bare minimum. I don’t want you guys to have the money to meet initial expectations only to not have that same funding for Act II or Act III. And what if the generous backer you do have lined up decides the initial release doesn’t meet his demands? To ensure a deliverable product, you could take steps to prevent a slow-down in funding so you can ensure we actually see an Act III instead of facing long term cuts to staff and pushing out a half-baked product. Of course, i could be totally wrong but I just wanted to present an obviously similar situation.

@Deacon They didn’t have a studio at all before we funded it. I generally think of any upgrades to their studio as assurances that they have the staff required AND as ways to garner additional funding or to help other projects. It’s not like they need both mocap studio and sound studio all the time so they can lease them out to help the game long term and it’s also cheaper in the long term than renting out someone else’s equipment constantly. With any project, you have to expect them to get the tools needed to get the job done and meet future demands.

#5

As far as the lifespan of this game goes, I think it’s very important to factor in the modding community as well, though. If the modability of KC is anywhere near, say, Skyrim, people will probably play the hell out of it for years after official updates and add-ons dry out.

#6

or the game itself can be deep and complex enough that people will replay it over and over.

i don’t care about huge mods anyway. i like small modifications. i buy games where only small mods are needed anyway. the main thing is still the core game mechanics that keep me coming back.

i mean you can mod left4dead 2 beyond recognition. in the end, it’s still a crappy zombie shoot and run.

#7

It really depends on the game, I think.
I mean, if course, when the core gameplay isn’t particularly good, no amount of mods will enhance the experience enough.

What I meant in relation to KCD isn’t necessarily mods that hugely alter the game itself, I was honestly thinking more along the lines of player-created content (think of Skyrim’s Falskaar mod, for instance). The thing is that, if given appropriate tools, the modding community can be extremely creative and do amazing things with the game assets (we see this even now with Star Citizen, as well).
Sure, you’ll also have your usual slew of mediocre-to-bad sex/slutty clothing/animu/whatever mods, and I’m sure they’ll also exist for KCD, but no matter how complex the vanilla game will be, mods can still add to that, both in content as well as functionality.

#8

As an early higher tier backer for SC and Shroud of the Avatar, I can tell you that this is a sound warning, but also a little too soon. I have no problem giving WH time to digest what they are going through. It’s going to take them a few months to get really geared up and going, that along with the fact they admitted up front they have ample private backing outside of KS support and in game store support. However, looking at the donations given, I’d say that they have a very good chance to get at least a third of this game funded by their customers up front. That gives it a huge responsibility. Remember they asked for $500,000 up front which they stated was approximately what they needed to show their investor that the demand was there. They got 1.1 million and that will increase once the store is open.

To be very honest with regard to SC I am extremely disappointed in my donation to them and feel they have produced very little, have shown less, and communicated to the community nothing but pipe dreams and pie in the sky BS. Mr. Roberts at this point appears to have earned the publisher skepticism he experiences through his career.

Contrast that with Shroud of the Avatar, which while much more modest in what they plan to do, is actually producing and showing results. You see what your donations purchased and they have moved as fast as possible to get the players involved in the process, as well as say hey you didn’t back us on nothing but faith.

The true step for Deliverance is if they stick to the timeline they advertised in the video. If we start seeing things in 6 months, now approximately 5 months it will be a good start. They should also open back up the stretch goals immediately. If they needed an extra $100k for better voice acting (which I think is important) lets get that started now, not after an additional $500k in donations. If this project, like SC, turns into a year+ of nothing but BS news releases, web-store donation package milking and concept art, then I’ll be regretting this project as well.

#9

Small point of clarification - they asked for 300K GBP and got about 1.1M, so that’s an even bigger difference.

Right now it’d be nice to see Warhorse have their store open for those who missed the KS, couldn’t donate via that way for whatever reason, and so on, but first things first: they’ve got hiring to do and work to continue in this stage of the game’s life. We’re still a few months inside of two years away from the expected release, so whether the shop takes another month or so to open or not isn’t really the biggest deal right now.

There’s a lot of stuff the stretch goals have led to and I’m guessing that side of things is being evaluated as well. I know there are people champing at the bit to donate, but they just need to be patient.

#10

As for SC, I really haven’t read much about it aside from the general basics. Have they really gone a full year with little actual substance?

#11

There has been a lot of modeling, concept art, and white papers on how things can work which they have shared.

There has been zero releases of even modest tech demos showing any of the stuff put together and in action. Remember X-Rebirth had a sound foundation behind it with the previous X models, and outlandish graphics for their previous Avalon game (on the space side). Yet Rebirth was more like a failed Abortion. If you don’t see these things working together, I don’t believe any of it. Pictures and short videos are cheap.

Don’t take my word for it read for yourself: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13610-Monthly-Report-February-2014

Also first Dogfight module is planned now for release before Pax East for Citizens (of which I’m a Rear Admiral.) Remember SC’s problems are going to be different than Deliverance because it has a Multi-player component. So I understand what they say about servers and back end. But the original scope of the project was suppose to facilitate completely off-line play as well. That means the bare bones should be presented. We’re just now going to get the first module a year and a half after the close of the KS campaign.

#12

Well, to be fair, it’s not the first module, it’s only the first real gameplay module.
We shouldn’t forget about the hangar, though. Might not be much in terms of actually doing stuff, but it’s a lot more substantial that early in development than most crowdfunded projects will give you.

#13

Point taken and given on the hanger. But still unimpressed with where we are at on SC.

#14

Do they have a current ETA for completion?

#15

No ETA on competition, or it’s more given in years, which can easily turn into more years. The Dog fighting module was suppose to be out before the end of the year and they had to push that back 5 months. But we’re getting off the subject of Deliverance. Mr. Roberts runs his company and Warhorse Studios runs theirs. I’ve bled enough bad vibes into this topic, I apologize in part for that, sore subject.

#16

Yeah, I see in the original Kickstarter their projection was Nov. 2014.

Maybe the lesson to be learned is “don’t get too big for your own britches.” But like it was said, SC’s scope is a lot different than KC’s.

#17

Personally, I’m thrilled with the amount of stuff we’ve been shown by Cloud Imperium. There have been literally hundreds of updates, in addition to daily posts from artists and designers, live streams, a monthly magazine, three different weekly shows… I have been a gamer since about 1980 and have never, ever, ever seen this level of communication from a game developer.

You have every right to say that the pace of progress is too slow (though I disagree, as most “AAA” games take 3-5 years to develop), but there is no way any sane person can object to the level of transparency in Star Citizen’s development.

As to what they’ve accomplished so far, they have models, textures, animations, AI, and even working combat gameplay. No, they haven’t released the dogfighting module yet, but they are playing it every day in their offices as they work out bugs and get it ready for rollout at PAX. If you watch the latest Wingman’s Hangar, you can see AI ships fighting each other, too. It’s all coming together very quickly, and it looks great.

Also, to say that they haven’t released anything, “not even a tech demo,” is a bald-faced lie. The hangar module contains far more than most tech demos, and it’s been out for months. It has models, textures, lighting, sounds, animations, and interactivity. That’s a pretty good foundation IMHO.

I am more disappointed with SotA, so I guess we have to disagree there, too. :slight_smile: They are clearly working on it, but while their level of progress is roughly equal to Star Citizen (playable demo that allows you to look around at different houses, but no actual combat), I find the look and feel of the game to be abominable in its present state. The graphics look like something from 2004 (at best), and yet the frame rates are half what I get in Star Citizen, which is gorgeous. We won’t mention the controls. All in all, it has a very amateurish feel to me. I hope it improves, as I have pledged deeply and am a believer in the project, but so far it’s been a disappointment.

What will make any game truly good or bad, though, is the gameplay. We have yet to see that from either SC or SotA, so we’ll see how they deliver on what matters most.

Just so you know, I am deeply invested in both games (Grand Admiral in SC and Citizen-soon-to-be-Knight in SotA), and both Chris Roberts and Richard Garriott are childhood heroes of mine. If I sound a little White Knight, I apologize. I really do believe that Star Citizen has delivered above and beyond even my own lofty expectations, and it baffles me when people make such negative comments about it. I think it’s amazing.

As for KC: D, it’s an unknown game from an unknown developer, but what I’ve seen so far has really captured my attention. We can only hope these guys have the professionalism to weather the bumps along the way and deliver on their vision, because it has the potential to be really good.

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