The Indiegogo campaign is going really slow, and I mean ssslllloooowwww.
I guess either the project is not appealing, or the presentation is poor, or the perks are not interesting...
Any advice, guys?
I don't know if you're still interested in this, but I've come across your IndieGoGo campaign a couple of times, and each time decided not to back it. There's two big reasons why:
- The game seems to be multiplayer only, which makes me much less interested in it. One only has to look at the fuss The Banner Saga had when they released Factions to see that there's a significant proportion of the audience for this kind of game which is completely uninterested in multi-player games; I know I am!
(For what it's worth: a big part of it is that a significant proportion of the people I've ever gamed with over the Internet have been obnoxious dicks, but an equally big part of it - for me at least - is that this kind of game can take a while to get through a round of, and it's a bit unfair on the other player if something comes up and I have to leave the game unfinished.)I realise that a competitive multiplayer game may be your core vision and you may not want to go to the hassle of implementing a single-player campaign, and this is more of a personal-preference thing on my part, but I for one would be far more interested if there were at least an option to play the same competitive-multiplayer option against AI enemies rather than people over the Internet.
- The rewards seem... well, to be blunt: completely uninteresting. I don't know, maybe there are some people who get excited at the thought of little digital badges next to their username in a game, but it doesn't say "return on investment" to me. The only other thing - the shopping discount - veers towards pay-to-win, which puts me off the project as a whole rather than interests me to give you money.
It's been said before on this thread, but I think it bears reiterating: I don't think I can remember a single time I've seen a KS campaign succeed when one of the rewards was not "a copy of the product I'm asking for your money to make". I'm sure it's happened, but I've followed a fair few and I can't remember any. Rightly or wrongly, people view KS and IGG and similar as pre-order services, and if they can't pre-order your game then a lot of people will see very little point in giving you any money.
I realise it's hard to give away XBLA copies of a game, but is there any particular reason you're so dead set on not releasing a Windows version, which you could then give away to backers on IGG? Is it just the concern about running a server? It's not unheard of for Windows titles to self-host...
Lagging behind all of this there's also the problem with IGG not being so popular as KS, and the 'Flexible Funding' option you've chosen often being perceived as 'dishonest cash grab'. Then there's the point that your largest backing point is $5, which means you'd need 400 top-level backers to meet your goal - which is a lot of people for a relatively unknown indie project... but I suspect even without these issues the lack of an option to get the game itself would already have scuppered your campaign.
It's a shame, because the game looks really nice - the graphics so far are superb, and what I can gather about the mechanics from the videos make it look like the kind of thing I'd really enjoy with a single-player option. I did try downloading the demo, but it wouldn't run - it's complaining it can't find RGSS102E.DLL. :/
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