Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[forsaken1111]

This analogy is making me hungry.

[AlStar]

This is primarily my gripe. People treat Kickstarter like they're investing in a product, but real investors share in profits.

This isn't necessarily a good thing.  When I split a pizza with my friends do we start by raising capital so an investor can buy the pizza and sell us slices at a markup?  No, we ask "who wants pizza".  Kickstarter is the same principle on a larger scale.  "Who wants OGRE?"

What he's trying to say is:

What if the pizza never arrives?

I don't think that works though - if the pizza/game/product never arrives, then it doesn't matter if you've got a stake in the product - a donor would make $0, and someone with a share would also make $0 - they're both screwed.

Its closer to... hmm... we all want pizza, so we all pitch in for a pizza oven. The person who gets the oven gives us all one pizza, then starts making more pizza and selling it to other people, making money off of it. In this case, a donor gets a pizza for their cash, while an invesor would get a pizza, then a return on their investment in the oven. Now, are people satisfied? I think it depends on how much we paid for that oven.

If I'm a donor throwing in $100, and all I get is a small cheese pizza, I'm going to be pissed. If all it cost me was $5, and I get a large pizza with all the toppings, I've gotten a deal.

For Investors, it doesn't necessarily work that way - they might be willing to pay $100 for a small cheese pizza, if they know they'll have a steady revenue stream.

Another point - how much of a profit share are you really going to get? For people investing the minimum (like, say, for one of the big computer games in development) They're throwing $10 or $15 towards a multi-million dollar project - they've got, maybe, a 0.001% stake in the product - you're never going to see anything worthwhile back from that.

[mainiac]

If you are a donor throwing $100 at a small pizza then you really didn't do your research.

[nenjin]

If you are a donor throwing $100 at a small pizza then you really didn't do your research.

And yet "$100 to a small pizza" accurately describes the aspirations of many Kickstarter games.

[PTTG??]

The thing with Kickstarter is it takes money to make money, and frankly banks have failed their traditional role as a provider of capital. They don't get new businesses started and they don't fund expansions of existing businesses. Because you're only risking $20, you are fine doing so. If you were risking $20000, even for 2000 copies of the game, yes, it would be a bit foolish.

Even things like the OGRE campaign have a valid role- if the project is successful, that' very cheap market research right there.

[Sowelu]

If you are a donor throwing $100 at a small pizza then you really didn't do your research.

Or you take 'donor' seriously, and believe firmly in the concept of pizzas and wish for them to exist.

[alway]

If you are a donor throwing $100 at a small pizza then you really didn't do your research.

Or you take 'donor' seriously, and believe firmly in the concept of pizzas and wish for them to exist.

I think this hits the nail on the head. Kickstarter is not a preorder system, it is not a system in which you are buying anything. It is a system in which you browse for interesting projects, and if you see one that makes you scream "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" simply because of how much you want the project to happen, then you give them money. If you expect it to be worth the money for any other reason than for the project to simply exist, you are going to be disappointed, because that is not the purpose of Kickstarter.

[Sowelu]

Which, to send back at you:

I never thought about it that way, but Kickstarter is the very incarnation of "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY".  It is the means by which, at long last, you can throw wads of cash at your screen and have it do something.

[forsaken1111]

and have it do something.

Sometimes.

[Grakelin]

http://www.sjgames.com/general/stakeholders/

Oh shit, wow, the last time I peaked at that they had 2010 up, now they have 2011. Damn these last two ears have been great for Steve Jackson games. I guess getting Muchin into Target was quite the benefit. Or maybe I'm horribly butchering my millions here. XD

Err, I'm not sure what you're saying here. Getting Munchkin into Target actually is a huge benefit because now teens all over the US are going to buy it when they ordinarily wouldn't. There's no financial reporting there, either. The company is, however, glowing about their large gross.

Let's all stop pretending Steve Jackson Games is an impoverished business. It is quite successful.

I was looking for something more like this, incidentally, which is an accurate report of a game company's financial standing.

[nenjin]

If you are a donor throwing $100 at a small pizza then you really didn't do your research.

Or you take 'donor' seriously, and believe firmly in the concept of pizzas and wish for them to exist.

I think this hits the nail on the head. Kickstarter is not a preorder system, it is not a system in which you are buying anything. It is a system in which you browse for interesting projects, and if you see one that makes you scream "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" simply because of how much you want the project to happen, then you give them money. If you expect it to be worth the money for any other reason than for the project to simply exist, you are going to be disappointed, because that is not the purpose of Kickstarter.

And now the "press the button to make the fanbase gush money" has been realized. So far, we're liking what we see and the people we're seeing it from. But inherent in the whole "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" thing is saying you don't simply don't care, give it now. That's the kind of trust that gets abused even by people you don't fault for it. I mean, consider whose mouth the meme comes from.

We've built up this whole culture of Caveat Emptor when it comes to buying from AAA industries....and now we've flopped in the complete opposite direction with Kickstarter, where we say "Eh, even if I have reservations, I know what I'm buying going in, it will be what it will be." Can that sort of mentality really last, or survive when professional vultures take advantage of it?

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   HAHAHA, God no. I am surprised its lasted this long. The second a single Kickstarter made it past a million dollars I figured you would have to use a electron microscope to find any legit ones.

[Karlito]

I guess I sort of like that Kickstarter makes it difficult to find projects through their website for that reason. You basically need to garner the attention of outside internet communities (or already have your own) to successfully fund a large project, which seems to have been a good filter for shady projects.

[alway]

I guess I sort of like that Kickstarter makes it difficult to find projects through their website for that reason. You basically need to garner the attention of outside internet communities (or already have your own) to successfully fund a large project, which seems to have been a good filter for shady projects.

This. I find the terrible ones by browsing their website; I find the good ones by browsing RockPaperShotgun. All the terrible projects jumbled in with an occasional good one serve to reinforce a sort of awareness of the limitations of kickstarter projects.

[SealyStar]

The biggest problem with Kickstarter is that you don't have to (though you can) put in any terms stating that you legally owe the donor anything, AFAIK. Which means anything could be a huge-ass scam, where the "developers" could run off to their Swiss account...