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[Nix]

good luck getting funded with that

ya but if people are as amazing and commited and creative as they say they are, they should have no problem

[Impossible]

Do you guys know about Indie Fund? There's probably more opportunities for game VC like that. Kickstarter is hard because all people have to go on is a video, images, and a description and that's pretty risky given how few games make it to completion. VC firms can meet with developers one on one and guage much better what sort of people they are working with. Don't be pissy about Kickstarter not working for you. It's a miracle that it works for anyone, really. There are other avenues that are much friendlier to unknowns.

Yeah, because Indie Fund works so much better than Kickstarter .  There is no magic solution.

[Nix]

The perfect solution is to get a job, save money, and pay for it yourself. Everything else is an extra opportunity to bypass all that, and shouldn't be taken for granted. If you can't prove yourself, you can't prove yourself. No on is obligated to throw their money at you so you can work on your projects.

[Radix]

Nobody suggested obligation. This seems unnecessarily argumentative and kind of mean-spirited.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm surprised it's even 25%, that's higher than i expected, i'd have figured more like 10%

and yeah, i think the reason is not so much that people can't "imagine" a videogame, or that indie game developers tend to be young kids with big ideas that they can't fulfill, but rather that indie game developers tend to be worse at promoting their projects and getting them funded than other people are, because they're less social and have less skill at marketing. it's not enough just to put up a kickstarter page, you also have to let people know it exists. the site won't take care of that for you. and indie game devs tend to be bad at that part of it

[Nix]

Nobody suggested obligation. This seems unnecessarily argumentative and kind of mean-spirited.

It just seems strange to me that people would complain about some projects getting funded and others not when the source of funding is all individuals with their pocketbooks open.

[Radix]

I agree.

But while I've only skimmed parts of this thread, I thought the complaint was about the skewed way people seem to perceive projects in the video game category. Which, while a bitch, is just the reality of the situation and not anything that's productive to whine about. But it's still a fair point and not necessarily related to obligation or whether specific projects are funded. It'd be cool if people could talk about it without the normal kickstarter negativity popping up here as well.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@nix - i didn't interpret what he said that way, i think you're being too defensive. all he pointed out was that it's even less likely for your project to get funded with the indie fund than with kickstarter (which is true: the indie fund is invite-only, and funds very few games compared to kickstarter)

[Radix]

Yeah, I've had personal experience with the indie fund. They are, more or less in their own words, market-oriented and aren't interested in ideas that are unprecedented or not evidently profitable.
They're therefore not really an applicable alternative to the sorts of things Kickstarter is in theory most helpful to.

[ANtY]

Do you guys know about Indie Fund? There are other avenues that are much friendlier to unknowns.

Yeah, because they hear about unknown games since they closed the registration thing.

[Fallsburg]

Do you guys know about Indie Fund? There are other avenues that are much friendlier to unknowns.

Yeah, because they hear about unknown games since they closed the registration thing.

My impression of the indiefund has been "Do we know you? We do? Ok, funded." and while it is probably more along the lines of "Do we know you? We don't? Nope, not funded."  Which, is fine, but to pretend that it is there to help "the indies" is a bit disingenuous.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

exactly. if a funding source wanted to foster indie game development, they wouldn't give tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to just a few games that they think will sell well; they'd give smaller grants to a wide array of indies, to encourage experimentation rather than to expect a return as if it were a venture capital investment

when you fund only games which demonstrably will make money, and don't fund games that are untested or new ideas, what you do is kill rather than help innovation. you'd think indies (who run the indie game fund) would have learned that from how AAA games are made, but nope

[Nix]

I didn't mean that indie fund was great for unknown indies. I was trying to suggest that the VC model was more effective for lesser known developers than Kickstarter and that there was probably a lot of room for game-oriented VC in the industry.

[Nix]

Relevant: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starcommand/star-command-sci-fi-meets-gamedev-story-for-ios-an/posts/208395

[Nix]

Relevant: http://www.design3.com/industry-insight/double-fine-productions/item/2516-tim-schafer%E2%80%99s-top-5-pitch-tips-for-kickstarter-success

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

isn't that a bit like a rich celebrity giving how to get a date tips? people would have funded his game no matter what, due to name recognition alone

[Nix]

isn't that a bit like a rich celebrity giving how to get a date tips?

haha. Yea, that's probably true. It would be really hard for a new developer to say "We need to make another game just like that super popular one we made years ago because all these new games suck!"

[team_q]

isn't that a bit like a rich celebrity giving how to get a date tips? people would have funded his game no matter what, due to name recognition alone

You say that now, with the benefit of hindsight, but they were unsure and expecting to have to lay people off.

[Fallsburg]

isn't that a bit like a rich celebrity giving how to get a date tips? people would have funded his game no matter what, due to name recognition alone

You say that now, with the benefit of hindsight, but they were unsure and expecting to have to lay people off.

No, Paul is still right (well at least the first half, the second half is debatable).  Just because they were unsure of their business footing before the kickstarter, it doesn't make their tips applicable to the average developer, because the average developer doesn't have years of fan support and goodwill built in from the beginning.

[team_q]

It still doesn't make sense why you would discard advice on how to be successful from someone who is successful in doing something you want to do. Did any of you bother to read the list?