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[Laufman]

I want to pose a few questions. Do you guys think 8-bit funding will ultimately work out or will it just be forgotten? Right now if you go to the site you'll see a lot of games asking for a lot of money. What you won't see is a lot of donations and to me it paints a grim picture. What will it take to make it succeed? More press, better games, or does it just need more time?

This whole indie game funding thing fascinates me as an indie developer. Personally I'm not in a position where I have to seek donations to make my games and I am very grateful for that. This isn't because I have a lot of money but because I do freelance work on the side to help fund my projects and by funding I mean pay my mortgage:) We tend not to develop games out of our means because the risk on return for a long term project doesn't out weigh the potential return. We're also lucky because as a 2 man team I'm able to handle all art tasks and my partner in crime is an amazing programmer. Both of us have over 5 years of experience as well which does go along way.  But everyone's situation and business models vary and I understand that. I'm sure a lot of indie devs get caught up in the idea of wanting to make their dream project and usually that project involves resources out of their current means. This is where a funding program can ultimately be helpful. So I'm just curious how you guys as on lookers and developers alike feel about 8-Bit funding and will it ultimately be successful or a year from now just be forgotten?

[Peevish]

From the temperature of this forum, seems everyone's opinions on 8-Bit Funding are either negativity or silence.

My game's on 8-Bit Funding and so far hasn't raised much. The site's been going for a week now and so far Cardinal Quest is the only one that looks likely to get funded, and even then, it's iffy. The media push for the site hasn't been terribly large, and what attention it's gotten is going to taper off now that it's been live a while. I think it could be a big deal at some point - all it would need is a project that people get really excited about, that draws attention to itself and 8BF on the side.

One of the things that is interested about crowdfunding models like 8BF and Kickstarter is they allow the community to pay for the project while it's in development. It's a kind of sponsorship - a lot of people argue that it's begging for money, but it's really a way for the community to support a developer so they can spend more time making the game. If you like the developer and the idea of the game, you can get it sooner or get it at a better quality by funding it while it's in development.

Jason Rohrer explored this idea pretty thoroughly over here: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/freeDistribution.html

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think the problem is that a lot of indie devs are only seeking funding from *other* indie devs on indie dev messages boards. that's not how it works! you need to seek funding from the people who play your games, from your fans, not from other indie game developers. making a game idea there and posting in the forums here isn't what you should do, you have to have an established base of fans before you try it, or at least be willing to go out and promote it on places that are not solely composed of other poor indie game developers. and don't be afraid of asking people personally if they can donate anything (friends and family especially) to the project.

but the bottom line is that there are more games than there is a demand for them, and more indie game developers than there is a demand for them. the entire gaming audience can perhaps support 200 indie game developers full time, but there are far more than 200 indie game developers in the world trying to make it full time. so there's a lot of competition for not only funding for games, but also sales of games after they're finished, and more importantly a lot of competition for who is *playing* the games (even most finished games get played by almost nobody). this was different 5 or 10 years ago, but the explosion in indie game development also means an explosion in competition and standards of quality.

[Christian Knudsen]

and don't be afraid of asking people personally if they can donate anything (friends and family especially) to the project.

I'd advice any game devs to keep friends and family financially out of your project. I know you'd just be asking them to donate, but things can quickly turn ugly if you try to get funding from personal friends and family. I can't help but think of Adam Coate, who borrowed money from his uncle to make a game, then shat on a friend for not buying the game ASAP once it was done.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

adam coate is kind of a special case (hardcore narcissist); i think his personality and that whole episode where he got angry at derek because spelunky was getting more coverage than flytrap is more responsible for his troubles than simply borrowing money from his uncle. another concern is that coate didn't work on the game himself: he borrowed the money and then hired programmers and artists to make the game for him, he didn't work on it himself. 'miyamoto never had to work for press like this' comments and so on hurt him a lot more than how he funded his game.

i'm not saying you're wrong, just that coate is a poor example.

[Christian Knudsen]

Oh, definitely. Coate had a lot more against him than the financial side. I just think the extra pressure of owing his uncle money (instead of a bank or some online donators) made matters even worse and made him lash out more than he otherwise would have. But that's pure speculation on my part.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

another key difference is that donations and loans are different things: borrowing money from your uncle or even a bank and saying 'i'll pay you back after this game is a success' is different from asking your friends 'i want to make this dream game see, can you help chip in with some extra money you may have?' i don't really think that there will be too many negative consequences in your friendship if your friend donated $20 and you failed to finish the game or something (and if there is, they'd be a bad friend to hold that against you.)

[Booger]

Two angles to this:

1.  The developer must be proven.  When I first decided to start making shitty little freeware games, as a noob, I went around asking for partners and artists.

No one gave a shit.

So I had to buckle down and do everything myself:  art, programming, even music.  I also offered my services for free for other people's shitty little games as well.  Eventually after a few releases people in the forums I frequented saw that I was a pretty reliable creator -- nowhere as talented of course, but still capable of finishing crap.

I was flattered when the designers/writers that I admired when I was first starting out requested my help for their small and eventually bigger projects.

So in relation to 8-bit funding, instead of begging for funds, its purpose should instead be to hold a game hostage.  Meaning, the creators should be able to finish the game within their means, then withold release to the public unless they are compensated for at least some of the effort.  Make 8bitfunding more of a digital auction site that promises already complete games but won't flood the internet with them unless enough people care enough to pay their development costs back.

With less games out, there will be more attention on the remaining games, which brings me to my second point.

2.  There's so much content nowadays that players are becoming jaded and spoiled.  Many gamers, instead of wading through every single game, just either go to the most popular with the highest ratings, or they set arbitrary thresholds for things that deserve their attention... they may ignore works-in-progress and just focus on finished games (since many WIP tend to die), or they may even just consider commercial games (since they guarantee a minimum amount of polish/value compared to freeware).

That's why I keep asking for raising the lower limit to more expensive projects.  $500 games are short time-sink type games best served on the iphone.  And the Appstore is flooded to kingdom come with these sorts of games.  As a noob developer, it's wise to start small, but at the same time don't expect fame and fortune from these small projects... only a good learning experience.

I want people to really present their 'Magnum Opus' and leave out their little side projects.  Few games on 8-bitfunding really feel like that magnum opus to me.

[Peevish]

i think the problem is that a lot of indie devs are only seeking funding from *other* indie devs on indie dev messages boards. that's not how it works! you need to seek funding from the people who play your games, from your fans, not from other indie game developers. making a game idea there and posting in the forums here isn't what you should do, you have to have an established base of fans before you try it, or at least be willing to go out and promote it on places that are not solely composed of other poor indie game developers. and don't be afraid of asking people personally if they can donate anything (friends and family especially) to the project.

Posting on TIGSource != posting only on TIGSource. There's posting in Announcements, sending out emails, contacting other sites, having people people repost on Facebook. But no one on TIGSource would know about that, would they?

I don't get why anyone would say there's a threshold cutoff or argue that $500 projects aren't worth asking money for. It's crowdfunding. If the public decides that $500 is an amount a person can make without funding, then it simply won't get any funding. The nice thing about crowdfunding is that it's a form of (imperfect) meritocracy. It's only the projects that get people excited that will be funded. If a project doesn't need the money, it probably won't get the money.

Why is it someone always has to say that something they don't support should therefore not exist at all?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

"But no one on TIGSource would know about that, would they?"

indirectly, they'd know about it through the project having a very small % 'funded', or at least know that the dev wasn't doing a good enough job asking in a lot of places (otherwise it'd be more funded than it is).

[moi]

There are at least 3 threads on this subject

[ithamore]

There are at least 3 threads on this subject

Each tends to have slightly different angle and character, but those not related about projects on 8BF and are instead about the site in general should be consolidated.

[tametick]

I just think the extra pressure of owing his uncle money (instead of a bank or some online donators) made matters even worse and made him lash out more than he otherwise would have.

I guess it depends on the uncle and his relationship to him.

Pretty sure my family will be much more accommodating than a bank if I owed them money (it also depends on the amount of money we are talking about, of course).

[tametick]

Why is it someone always has to say that something they don't support should therefore not exist at all?

 

[Christian Knudsen]

Pretty sure my family will be much more accommodating than a bank if I owed them money (it also depends on the amount of money we are talking about, of course).

Yeah, but I'd personally rather owe a bank money than personal friends or family. To me, it's not as much about how the person I owe money feels about it, it's how I'd personally feel about owing money to someone I have a very near personal relationship with. You only have a professional relationship with your bank -- and they're in the business of lending money.

I guess it's just the age old advice of not mixing money/business with friends/family. Some people might not have a problem with that, of course...

[Peevish]

"But no one on TIGSource would know about that, would they?"

indirectly, they'd know about it through the project having a very small % 'funded', or at least know that the dev wasn't doing a good enough job asking in a lot of places (otherwise it'd be more funded than it is).

Enh. That's an assumption. Maybe the project's just not exciting people, maybe the video and pitch don't impart information well, maybe they don't have that many friends, or not many friends with money anyway... silly to make assumptions.

I am so surprised by how incredibly negative the response to 8BF has been on the forum. Yes, it is possible for 8BF to be a place for lots of half-cocked projects to go begging for money they don't deserve. But it seems the assumption is it can't be anything else.

Any project that is half-cocked and undeserving probably won't get funded. I don't see why anyone should be offended. The system is designed to favor deserving ideas.

8BF has served me in one surprising way: a coder and an artist have seen the page and offered to help with the project by commenting on my blog. If nothing else, 8BF is a short burst of free advertising.

[ithamore]

I think they need to fix their Browsing. The most comprehensive list of games I've been able to find are the most recent games, which is only available after clicking on Browse and then New Projects if you are trying to get through the site's broken navigation.

Maybe they're still trying to correct some html and php discrepancies, but I find it quite disappointing when I click on All Categories and only get 6 projects (1/4 of the current games in the above link).

This unfriendliness toward guests and potential donators isn't helping.

[:^)]

I think they need to fix their Browsing.

Yeah, the site design and navigation is pretty bad.
In my experience, this doesn't lead to much respect.

I also think that maybe they should have been more careful in what projects they approved right off the bat.
If they had more projects that at a first glance appear credible and exciting I think there would have been a much higher feeling of quality or whatever.
Which would lead to developers rethinking whether or not their project is worth posting.
Excellence leads to excellence. No? 

[tametick]

I think it's too early to tell, but it does seem to be growing & I think it's actually on a pretty good path to improvement at the moment.

I was pleasantly surprised the culled the popular and featured lists, which were pretty over-populated with somewhat less than exciting games before.

[valis]

Is there a large market for finished indie games?  

If so, there will be a market for unfinished indie games.  If not, there will not be.

Looks to me like the answer to both questions is "no."  If you're putting your platformer out there with 300,000 other platformers, the bottom line is that it takes an incredible fluke to make yours successful.  Braid and Super Meat Boy are flukes.  These represent the peak on the long tail.  Over to the right side, the "long tail" part of the long tail graph, are the rest of the huge number of hopefuls that come out every year.

The funding beg is a way of frontloading the risk so that you don't spend a lot of money on a title that's not going to earn out.  That's great and all but the money is not magically going to arrive out of nowhere when there is very little market for even finished indie games.

Since there is so little market for finished indie games, there will be an even smaller market for unfinished indie games.

Not only that but the more people who become aware of the funding pool, the less money there will be available in the pool.

There is the guy who got 7 grand for an interactive fiction game.  He was successful.  Good for him.  Others (like Azteka or whatever it's called) have been vastly less than successful.

Another reason this is unlikely to go very far is that a large proportion of those interested in contributing funds are, so far, other indie devs.

And if these funding requests somehow reach the public at large (without spending money on advertising which, again, you don't have) you are now in the larger market that isn't interested enough in indie games to support the large number of indie developers.

The math here should be obvious to most people and frankly I'm astonished that it isn't.

The inevitable conclusion of this effort puts people back to square one: creating assets for themselves or funding it themselves, then selling finished products.

Frankly the whole idea of this, as well as being distasteful from another perspective I won't go into here, just seems so unbelievably naive and unrealistic to me.