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[JackOSpades]

 Preorders, Kickstarters, free with $$ donation, and pretty much Any other sketchy marketing tactic which Isn't straight up selling a copy of a product for a price gets a pass from me. and yes I include the "we're just renting it to you" EULA's in that.

out of those Kickstarters are the only ones with potential but only if you have dedicated Individuals working on it. what I'd look for are game which are going to get done eventually no matter what, but where the cash is going towards letting them work on it full time. donations above the price of the product Should Include the game as a donation gift. In which case you are Still buying a product Sight Unseen and that's more than a little stupid. Donating then having to purchase the game at full price afterwards Well that's double stupid and ether way you've no cause for complaint when inevitably unscrupulous Individuals take the money and run.

It's a system which has high potential for Abuse built into it's very foundation.

[Zangi]

Errr... but most of the good/decent examples do promise you the full product when it is done?

I don't know about ones that ask investors/donators to buy it for full price after it is done.  The stuff I am interested in never does that.  So I don't really know where this is coming from, other then finding the worst sketchy stuff and using them as examples.

[miauw62]

Which is the sole difference.
In both cases your decision to donate is driven by trust in the developer, the assumption that he won't just run off with the money.

I must disagree. I don't need to trust Toady. He already delivered a enjoyable product (I know that technically DF is still in early alpha, but I think we can agree that it can be compared to a finished product, at least when compared to alphas of other games). With Kickstarter projects, I have to first donate money, THEN I get access to a small fraction of what the game will be one days (if everything goes as planned).
However, I do understand your viewpoint. As I said, I'm thankful for all the people making various Kickstarter projects possible, as some of them are really ambitious. But I personally would not buy a pig in a poke.

Yeah, I understand your viewopint too. Argueing much further seems rather pointless :v

[GlyphGryph]

Kinda surprised how many people don't agree with OP. Sure, he's a bit harsh, but I understand the point(s) he's trying to make.

Yes, so do I. And the point he's trying to make is that patronage is a worthless and terrible idea. (And that he won't be engaging in any, but that seems secondary to his more general argument) In fact, he seems to be going a step further than that, and saying that ANY sort of of "paying before the product is built" is bad, despite the fact that every single custom order, contract, and employment market is based on the idea that, no, that's really the only reasonable way to get things done.

Considering all the great things patronage has accomplished, that seems... quite weak, to be honest.

[Neonivek]

Or maybe he is saying that these tactics people do to get patronage are pathetic and don't really fool anyone.

"It will cost more later" being one that I see in particular.

[Reelya]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=138478.0

There. 15 pages of learning curve discussion.

I think the word that would perfectly sum up that amazingly pointless argument is "sperging".

Lol, I'm seeing GavJ's overall point though. I never really looked into that before, but would probably think twice before using the phrase again.

I like how most of the arguments are more or less "I always used the phrase like this, but never thought about what the curve is or why it's steep. it's just semantics anyway", and when asked to graph it just make any old random crap up to fit their usage, that mostly contradicts their own definition. It's just used as a synonym for "hard to learn" without anyone actually thinking that "curve" means an actual graph with an actual X and Y values.

I want to see a thread now with people justifying "could care less"

[Bauglir]

I always assumed it was shorthand for required learning curve. As in, a curve describing the rate at which you must learn in order to progress.

"could care less" has no justification, though. None. 

[Reelya]

rate doesn't work either - since that's the derivative of actual learning. Rate would fall over time to zero - no more learning required. Y would have to represent accumlated learning.

And X as "time" as it's normally labelled doesn't work either - because that implies you just sit on the thing for 3 hours and have all this "learning". That's what the actual graphs have: amount learned vs time. So steep = quickly learned. Not what is mean colloquially. But it works if you use "progress" instead of "time"

So it needs to be Y: total learning, and X: game progress.

But then you run into a problem: The X-axis is dependent on the Y-axis, not the other way around. We have "game progress"(X) causing "total amount learned"(Y) and not the other way around. If you try and flip the axes to make sense, then you're back to hard things having a shallow curve.

So, it's not really "graphable" in that way, it's just a colloquialism that doesn't translate well into actual mathematics.

[Bauglir]

Eh. I don't actually buy parts of that reasoning, but this obviously isn't the place to get into it.

[Reelya]

The X axis is the independent variable and the y axis is the dependent variable. That's standard mathematics. The colloquial meaning fails this test. Hence it cannot be "graphed" in any sensible way.

Anyway this is OT so PM me if you disagree.

[Bauglir]

this obviously isn't the place to get into it.

[penguinofhonor]

No, we definitely need to restart an argument from a locked thread. That's the only way this thread could get more exciting.

[Putnam]

(comparing "could care less" to "learning curve" is what we like to call wronger than wrong)

[Reelya]

(comparing "could care less" to "learning curve" is what we like to call wronger than wrong)

"Could care less" can be similarly justified. As short-hand for "(As if) I could care less". i.e., sarcastic or ironic usage. The point being, pretty much any language usage can be justified by a just-so story after the fact.

[GlyphGryph]

People using language to communicate in way Rellya not think appropriate make Reelya mad. So mad Reelya need to derail thread, and Reelya not talk about any other thing. Grrr.

Seriously though, this is dumb. Stop it. It doesn't even have anything to do with what the thread is really about.

Or maybe he is saying that these tactics people do to get patronage are pathetic and don't really fool anyone.

"It will cost more later" being one that I see in particular.

How many groups actually use these tactics, though? I'm honestly not sure I've heard that one, it's usually "You'll be the first one to get one" sort of thing, or if its about being cheaper, it's "It will be cheaper for everyone since we'll be able to do this in a much bigger batch with a known quantity", rather than "an then it will suddenly become more expensive."