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[MorleyDev]

I'm not saying that, he was. But I'll admit I tend to find Kickstarter works 'best', in my mind, for digital goods like games because it's basically paying for the time they spend developing it in advance. Game finished before funding runs out, they maybe get to make some more off further sales but haven't had to go into the "red" for their time working on the project.

Physical goods have all of the shipping and associated overheads.

[Draco18s]

I'm not saying that, he was.

Oh, I know.

[10ebbor10]

These guys are building a space elevator.http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaellaine/space-elevator-science-climb-to-the-sky-a-tethered?ref=live

For 10.000 you can jump.

[Hubris Incalculable]

These guys are building a space elevator.http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaellaine/space-elevator-science-climb-to-the-sky-a-tethered?ref=live

For 10.000 you can jump.

How on earth is only $8,000 enough to fund a space elevator? I'd rate such a project to be in the billions at the least, or even the trillions.

Edit:

We’ve gotten critiques from our friends that “we’re not asking for enough…”  The (usually unspoken) implication being that “if you’re really serious about building an Elevator on the Moon, why are you only asking for $8,000?”

We made this financial decision for a reason.  Sure, there are many things we can do (will do) that will take a lot more cash… But that’s not the point of this – specific – campaign.  The goal of this Kickstarter event is to rebuild our community.  We will launch another campaign; and another, and another and another.  Over time, after some successes and after we’ve rebuilt trust that our company can do what it says it can do, we’ll raise our financial targets.

Oh. I see.

[andrea]

keep in mind that space elevator is a very far away goals. what they are asking money for is just testing some climbing robots, and training the new team ( composed of volunteers). for that 8000 $ is not that bad.

a proper space elevator would have to be a multinational effort.

[Sergius]

Has this been mentioned? I didn't find anything in the forum search:

Broken Sword - the Serpent's Curse Adventure
by Revolution Software

They're going back to their 2D roots. Also, they were actually approached by one of the biggest studios and they turned it down, saying "nah, we'd rather do it ourselves". According to them, after the publisher's cut, there's almost no money left for the developers.

(note that this is the same company that contributed a LOT of stuff to the ScummVM engine thingy, including freeing up two of their classic games Beneath a Steel Sky and Lure of the Temptress as freeware. (lots of respect)

Anyway, big fan of the first 2 games. Haven't played the 3D ones, so I don't necessarily think they're bad (I actually have the 3rd one in my Steam account somewhere).

Does this deserve its own post, or is it OK here?

[Megaman]

It's on Kickstarter. It's also going right. I'd imagine it's fine here.

[Sergius]

It's on Kickstarter. It's also going right. I'd imagine it's fine here.

Yeah, not finished yet but 25 days to go and already got >280k from their 400k goal, so I'm pretty sure they'll reach it.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

fuck.

Game characters are created and animated in 3D and then pre-rendered and saved as 2D frames so we can deliver ultra high quality visuals in full HD glory.

count me out

[Sergius]

fuck.

Game characters are created and animated in 3D and then pre-rendered and saved as 2D frames so we can deliver ultra high quality visuals in full HD glory.

count me out

[Draco18s]

fuck.

Game characters are created and animated in 3D and then pre-rendered and saved as 2D frames so we can deliver ultra high quality visuals in full HD glory.

count me out

So you don't like The Longest Journey, do you?

[olemars]

He's saying he finds it funny when the rewards for a donation cost the developer so much they make the donation pretty much pointless.

You know, Kickstarter sometimes feels like buying future me a present. "Great job surviving for that whole year, here have a Wasteland 2". It's kinda trippy when I think about it...

I backed the Star Command game, and in a backer update they wrote up a fairly interesting breakdown on how the funding worked out for them. Useful read since it's from the perspective of an inexperienced team trying a kickstarter for the first time:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In honor of tax day, we thought we would give some insight to our backers (as well as potential kickstarters) to how we spent the funds we were given at the end of September. Hopefully it sheds some light on why money disappears so quickly for game development.

Our kickstarter earned $36,967 after asking for $20,000 so that was incredible.

To begin with, we didn't get all of that. We lost about $2,000 to no-shows, just people that pledged and the funds didn't not transfer.

That got us down to $35k, and kickstarter and Amazon Payments take their portions, which got us down to right around $32,000.

Now, right off the top you had $10,000 for prize fulfillment. That includes printing the posters, the shirts and shipping everything (thanks Australia). If we had to do it again, we would have probably had the price point a bit higher for the t-shirts and posters, as those turned to be a very large expense. We also would have included the cost of a 3rd party fulfillment house - we just aren't equipped or skilled in that area, and it was (still is) something that we struggle with.

After that, we had $22,000 remaining. From there:

Music - $6,000
Attorneys, startup fees, CPA - $4000
Poster art - $2000
iPads - $1000
PAX East - $3000

TOTAL: $16,000


Leaving us with around $6000, which is income, so that was taxed (piece of advice to other kickstarters - spend that money before the end of the year).

So were right around $4000 remaining and even that cursory math isn't working as there are other things that weren't big tickets but sapped the coffers. There's odds and ends etc, so that goes rather quickly as you can imagine.

What would we do different? Keep the attorneys out of it. We got a little nervous after we recieved all the Kickstarter money and wanted to make sure our business was set up correctly. We registered our LLC's, got operating agreements etc, but in hindsight a nice piece of napkin paper probably would have done just as well. You plan for the worst (we all start hating each other and people start leaving) but if anything the team has gotten closer, so it seems like a lot of wasted money. If we could take it back we would. Maybe we will get another attorney and sue them.....wait.....

Rewards are something to watch out for as well. We just didn't fully appreciate the cost of printing 200 posters, shirts, and more than anything shipping. Shipping is a) expensive b) a pain in the ass when you have tubes and c) time consuming. None of those things are productive. We don't resent having sent that stuff off - we think the posters and shirts are awesome and we are super proud of them and it seems like everyone loved them, so thats great. But they were a lot of work.

So that gets us to the present. We have still taken a lot of debt on ourselves (over $50k), and hopefully this can help give insight to other kickstarters and would-be-developers on what to expect. We promise to keep this stuff open as possible and if you have questions, or feel like telling giving us a piece of your mind for the way we spent the money, hey, we're all ears.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

fuck.

Game characters are created and animated in 3D and then pre-rendered and saved as 2D frames so we can deliver ultra high quality visuals in full HD glory.

count me out

So you don't like The Longest Journey, do you?

didn't play that. i enjoyed discworld noir, baldurs gate, torment, etc. but that's beside the point, but i much prefer sylvain chomet to pixar, and that's what i was expecting from a new broken sword. instead i got ultra high quality visuals in full 3d glory, and i lost all the interest

[Thief^]

i enjoyed discworld noir, baldurs gate, torment, etc. but that's beside the point, but i much prefer sylvain chomet to pixar, and that's what i was expecting from a new broken sword. instead i got ultra high quality visuals in full 3d glory, and i lost all the interest

Full HD glory. It's pre-rendered 3D, same as most sprite games, including all those you mention.

[Draco18s]

I see.

I backed the Star Command game, and in a backer update they wrote up a fairly interesting breakdown on how the funding worked out for them. Useful read since it's from the perspective of an inexperienced team trying a kickstarter for the first time:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In honor of tax day, we thought we would give some insight to our backers (as well as potential kickstarters) to how we spent the funds we were given at the end of September. Hopefully it sheds some light on why money disappears so quickly for game development.

Our kickstarter earned $36,967 after asking for $20,000 so that was incredible.

To begin with, we didn't get all of that. We lost about $2,000 to no-shows, just people that pledged and the funds didn't not transfer.

That got us down to $35k, and kickstarter and Amazon Payments take their portions, which got us down to right around $32,000.

Now, right off the top you had $10,000 for prize fulfillment. That includes printing the posters, the shirts and shipping everything (thanks Australia). If we had to do it again, we would have probably had the price point a bit higher for the t-shirts and posters, as those turned to be a very large expense. We also would have included the cost of a 3rd party fulfillment house - we just aren't equipped or skilled in that area, and it was (still is) something that we struggle with.

After that, we had $22,000 remaining. From there:

Music - $6,000
Attorneys, startup fees, CPA - $4000
Poster art - $2000
iPads - $1000
PAX East - $3000

TOTAL: $16,000


Leaving us with around $6000, which is income, so that was taxed (piece of advice to other kickstarters - spend that money before the end of the year).

So were right around $4000 remaining and even that cursory math isn't working as there are other things that weren't big tickets but sapped the coffers. There's odds and ends etc, so that goes rather quickly as you can imagine.

What would we do different? Keep the attorneys out of it. We got a little nervous after we recieved all the Kickstarter money and wanted to make sure our business was set up correctly. We registered our LLC's, got operating agreements etc, but in hindsight a nice piece of napkin paper probably would have done just as well. You plan for the worst (we all start hating each other and people start leaving) but if anything the team has gotten closer, so it seems like a lot of wasted money. If we could take it back we would. Maybe we will get another attorney and sue them.....wait.....

Rewards are something to watch out for as well. We just didn't fully appreciate the cost of printing 200 posters, shirts, and more than anything shipping. Shipping is a) expensive b) a pain in the ass when you have tubes and c) time consuming. None of those things are productive. We don't resent having sent that stuff off - we think the posters and shirts are awesome and we are super proud of them and it seems like everyone loved them, so thats great. But they were a lot of work.

So that gets us to the present. We have still taken a lot of debt on ourselves (over $50k), and hopefully this can help give insight to other kickstarters and would-be-developers on what to expect. We promise to keep this stuff open as possible and if you have questions, or feel like telling giving us a piece of your mind for the way we spent the money, hey, we're all ears.

Sounds about right.  V!C! has had lower attorney fees (no seriously, this guy offered to be our contract negotiator for like $200.  Flat).
But yeah, 5% to kickstarter and amazon, some loss from non-processed charges, a huge chunk is dedicated to printing and shipping (I think it's like $30,000 of the base $43,000) and then paying people for stuff.