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TIGSource ForumsPlayerGeneralYogscast kickstarter game debacle
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alvarop
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« Reply #80 on: July 23, 2014, 10:46:54 AM »

Imagining all the fan excitement when they first heard about this game makes me cringe so hard. What the hell did they expect?
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Derek
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« Reply #81 on: July 23, 2014, 11:40:33 AM »

Back in the day when someone with no experience wanted to make an ambitious "X meets X meets X" epic open world sandbox action RPG etc. etc., they just failed and life moved on.

Now they can make half a million dollars before failing.

 WTF

Even Penny Arcade had trouble finishing their games. They also worked with an inexperienced developer, Hothead Games. Guess what Hothead made in the last 3 years?

BIG WIN Soccer (2012)
BIG WIN Hockey (2012)
Scarface (2012)
BIG WIN Baseball (2012)
Zombie Ace (2012)
BIG WIN Football (2012)
BIG WIN Basketball (2012)
Rivals at War (2013)
BIG WIN MLB (2013)
BIG WIN Racing (2014)
BIG WIN NHL (2014)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hothead_Games

So yeah, in both cases you have these collaborations where literally no one knows how to make a game but at least one party knows how to bring in a ton of hype.

Kickstarter is still a great platform - so far it seems like the games that fail hard were pretty obviously going to fail in the first place, because the teams lack experience and the projects seems overly ambitious. Unfortunately, most people (including the journos that help hype this shit up) can't recognize this and get suckered by the big names, nice artwork, and glitzy ideas. So this won't be the last time it happens.

What would help is some kind of built-in system or site where other people who work in the field can prominently rate the viability of the project. So if there's a movie Kickstarter, you can have someone who works in the industry rate the chances of success. And likewise, for something like Yogsventure, other developers could have chimed in and said, "hey, this is too large an undertaking for such an inexperienced team", or at least asked the right questions to put them on the spot before it became too late.

Something like that might cause more problems than it fixes, though. I haven't thought about it too deeply.
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gimymblert
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« Reply #82 on: July 23, 2014, 12:04:18 PM »

still waiting for aquaria 3D  Ninja
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Pandara_RA!
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« Reply #83 on: July 23, 2014, 12:34:18 PM »

The rules on kickstarter say you MUST fulfill the rewards or offer refunds.

I say they are responsible for shipping out the game copy rewards as stated. If they can't then those backers need to be refunded. If it's some physical stuff, thats deliverable.

I hope they get sued. Like that kickstarter in washington. This wasnt just "lack of experience" but also failure to even try to make it work when things failed.

Yogscast shouldn't have taken so much money off the top while the project went down in flames. In fact 150k would be enough to get a whole staving indie crew together for a year and make a project.
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« Reply #84 on: July 23, 2014, 01:13:47 PM »

The way Yogscast is acting, it looks like they are worried about being sued.  Using language like "under no obligation" and refusing to give details in their defense regarding the $150k seems like the kind of tone-deaf PR only a lawyer would suggest ...

Aw, I had no idea they ended up becoming a spammy f2p dev.  I did think their efforts were a bit more credible than winterkewl's; they at least put some finished episodes up for sale.  They failed to deliver an episode 3 for their episodic game, but then so did Valve ...
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« Reply #85 on: July 23, 2014, 01:28:50 PM »

Back in the day when someone with no experience wanted to make an ambitious "X meets X meets X" epic open world sandbox action RPG etc. etc., they just failed and life moved on.

Now they can make half a million dollars before failing.

 WTF

It's not just that, but managing to make half a million dollars and then losing it. Wow.
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« Reply #86 on: July 23, 2014, 02:19:01 PM »

What would help is some kind of built-in system or site where other people who work in the field can prominently rate the viability of the project. So if there's a movie Kickstarter, you can have someone who works in the industry rate the chances of success. And likewise, for something like Yogsventure, other developers could have chimed in and said, "hey, this is too large an undertaking for such an inexperienced team", or at least asked the right questions to put them on the spot before it became too late.

Something like that might cause more problems than it fixes, though. I haven't thought about it too deeply.

It could cause problems. But that depends. If you had 10 to 20 professional developers, teams and/or companies ranging from indie to AAA chime in before they went to kickstarter or even in the beginning when they put it up, then I think both parties: Yogscast and Winterkewl could have saved face and either cancelled the kickstarter or came up with other better possible solutions.

It's like Greenlight - where players rate a potential game. Some harp on Greenlight though saying that the voting isn't fair or people vote based on popular opinion - without fairly taking a look at what's on the table for themselves. Nothing is perfect.

I'm sure something like this isn't too hard to organize. Even if you had a system like certification. You start developing a game and then you submit what you have on the project - portfolio style to a board of professionals. They look at the project, its scope, your background.. everything important. What's the plan in case of failure? How will finances be planned?

If the board sees that you know what you are doing, competent in all aspects of your business and project and that you understand risks and have the best plan in case of problems, then they certify your project. Then when you choose crowdfunding or promote the game yourself and fund via paid beta or by donation, you can display a small "Certified by Game Quality and Standards Board (or whatever is the best name)" image on your site or kickstarter page. Plus you have a link to an official write up, review, proof of certification and critique about your project from the board members. I don't think I've seen anything like this, so don't bark if it does exist. Tongue Not sure though how the board would work. Volunteers? Reviewing project after project is no walk in the park.

At first, many backers might not know about such a board or take the certification seriously. However, once the board got popular, I think what would be fair is to also have a list of projects that failed to get certification and the reasons why they failed. So then when you see a project pop up on Kickstarter anyway - but it happens to be one that failed, potential backers might think twice.

It's out loud thinking. I mean who knows if it's realistic or not. It's also a whole different industry than say food - where if you want something organic, you get certified organic, so you know you're not just buying something that 'says' it is, but it turns out it's partly or completely made out of processed Monsanto gmo garbage.
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« Reply #87 on: July 23, 2014, 02:30:33 PM »

Back in the day when someone with no experience wanted to make an ambitious "X meets X meets X" epic open world sandbox action RPG etc. etc., they just failed and life moved on.


this is such a great quote
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« Reply #88 on: July 23, 2014, 04:37:34 PM »

Failures like these are what help a system like Kickstarter (including its audience) mature and become wiser about their future purchases.  This just means that the easy money is gone, and every developer after this will have to come with a much more substantial and believable pitch than they had before.

With regards to the Yogscast guys, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just say that they were incredibly naive about the process of creating a game.  What bothered me though was how flippant they seemed about all that money down the drain.  If I were in their position I'd feel mortified and responsible for each and every dollar that was lost.  A little humility would have gone a long way.
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« Reply #89 on: July 23, 2014, 07:25:54 PM »

Failures like these are what help a system like Kickstarter (including its audience) mature and become wiser about their future purchases.  This just means that the easy money is gone, and every developer after this will have to come with a much more substantial and believable pitch than they had before.

With regards to the Yogscast guys, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and just say that they were incredibly naive about the process of creating a game.  What bothered me though was how flippant they seemed about all that money down the drain.  If I were in their position I'd feel mortified and responsible for each and every dollar that was lost.  A little humility would have gone a long way.

The money was never easy.
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Derek
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« Reply #90 on: July 23, 2014, 08:15:52 PM »

Aw, I had no idea they ended up becoming a spammy f2p dev.  I did think their efforts were a bit more credible than winterkewl's; they at least put some finished episodes up for sale.  They failed to deliver an episode 3 for their episodic game, but then so did Valve ...

It's true, it was a much better situation all the way around. PA and Hothead were both better equipped than Yogscast/Winterkewl, it was a less ambitious and better-organized collaboration, and they didn't use crowdfunding. And it still ended up being kinda messy and lackluster. So that should really show how challenging it is to make the transition from reviewing/writing about/making cartoons about games into actually making them. And a big part of that is challenge is recognizing whether you're working with the right people and choosing the right projects.
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« Reply #91 on: July 24, 2014, 01:53:13 PM »

Also the developers at hothead had a lot of experience in AAA and software development in general. One of the smartest programmers I've ever had the pleasure of knowing works there.
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« Reply #92 on: July 26, 2014, 10:09:18 AM »

The rules on kickstarter say you MUST fulfill the rewards or offer refunds.

They also say that Kickstarter is not responsible for enforcing said rules. The backer(s) would have to file a lawsuit in order to get their refund or reward.
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« Reply #93 on: July 26, 2014, 08:46:40 PM »

They also say that Kickstarter is not responsible for enforcing said rules. The backer(s) would have to file a lawsuit in order to get their refund or reward.

A handful of people with over $10k to spend on a Kickstarter might be able to do just that.
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jamesprimate
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« Reply #94 on: July 26, 2014, 08:58:36 PM »

i just feel awful for those people getting hung out to dry like that. these fans that were so excited that they were willing to spend all that money and hype it up, feeling like they were contributing to something really fun... just to be completely disregarded. it makes me cringe so hard. how could you do something like that to people?

from my own kickstarter experience, i literally wake up every single morning thinking "OK, today we've got to keep hacking away at this game so those people that believed in us get what they paid for and are satisfied." This yogscast thing gives me nightmares.
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« Reply #95 on: July 29, 2014, 03:08:46 AM »

Have there been any lawsuits concerning kickstarter games? I know there have been a few with other kickstarter funded products that fell through.
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« Reply #96 on: July 29, 2014, 06:09:10 AM »

There was the Washington state suit against a card game, but not against any video game to my knowledge.
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« Reply #97 on: July 30, 2014, 03:39:21 PM »

Having a solid focus & the right team of people makes all the difference. Yogventures didn't have either. The PA teamed up with devs who have made games before; Yogscast teamed up with amateurs with some experience in the cinema animation and no programming.

What surprised me is how they paid $3500 in legal contract fees, $1500 Accounting and still lost $35k to that one artist. That suggests the lawyer & accountant were as just as incompetent as Winterkewl or that the main person didn't listen to the advice at all and did what his 'friends' told him.

The big question is what Yogscast did with the $100k for the lead programmer (after the $50k for rewards).
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« Reply #98 on: July 30, 2014, 04:38:32 PM »

Yeah, I mean at the end, they took away all the money for a programmer. What the hell did they expect. Yogcast seems way more at fault here.
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« Reply #99 on: August 01, 2014, 02:38:02 AM »

I have a theory about what happened - moneywise.

What if they fakebacked $100k by themselves (family + friends) to push the campaign - it's not a secret that this is a typical way to get some initial and/or final momentum to a KS campaign. Maybe they had an agreement to get back their "investment" from the sales of the game but at some point in time, they noticed it's just not gonna happen, the game will never ever be done nor will it match the quality expectations/requirements to generate decent sales.
At that point, they just tried to not lose their money but, for obvious reasons, don't want to tell the true story in the public as this may hurt them even more.

Just my thoughts but it's the only sane idea I can imagine.
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