Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

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Stark
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Stark »

The lol is that they have no source of funding besides the gullible nerds; not even gullible venture capitalists would help them, it seems. With their track record, its not really surprising.

The Lucas analogy fails, because these guys have made plenty of games over the last ten years, many quite high-profile... and they've all been terrible. This isn't 'maybe he still got the magic', this is 'maybe he still got the magic, despite the mountain of evidence he clearly doesn't'. For fuck's sake, they made a tower defence game that was MORE PRIMITIVE THAN FREE GAMES. :lol:
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by weemadando »

I think it's also an economy of scale thing. Publishers go: "Fuck no, adventure games" because they need to ship at least X tens of thousand units to break even and in order to do that they have to spend Y on advertising it in every magazine and at tradeshows and have to cope with the inevitable cost overrruns at the developer etc. These companies are risk averse, and with good reason, they get burned enough by doing shit like Homefront and uDraw that in theory should sell, but don't to go with something that in theory won't sell. By marketing direct to the consumer and having this kind of response I think it shows that there could be a way to pander to niche audiences more effectively than through some other systems.

Now we see if they fuck it up. Because to be honest, if someone with a history of development (unlike say, 90% of kickstarter games projects) was to post a project that piqued my interest then I'd be tempted by that too if it was the only way of seeing that game get made. But hey, this all sounds very familiar right? I mean, we're just talking about a varient on Interstellar Marines idea of "AAA Indie" where people buy into an idea to fund development. And we've seen how far that game has gone in the past five years.

If Double Fine can stay true to what they say and get this game shipped in October and it's actually good? Who knows, maybe it'll still be a one off. Or maybe it will become a new viable model.

I can guess which one it will be though.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Havok »

Wow...

Alright fellas, how do we tap into this moronic source of capital? I need a new engine. :lol:
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Chardok »

Stark wrote:Chards, what made you think they had the resources to make a game like that? They are literally reduced to begging.
I was sure that they were using the income from all their Downloadable titles to fund development of awesomebomb. Let's be honest - their DL titles do tend to sell well. (Mostly because Microsoft convinces people that they are all AMAZING and you'd have to be retarded to *not* buy them.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Ford Prefect »

To be honest, I wonder about the margins on their Arcade releases, and Arcade releases in general. I mean you bypass the cost of actually printing up a bunch of disks, but that doesn't mean there aren't other costs, and presumably Microsoft takes a cut.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Stark »

The terms aren't too terrible (it's not valve) but the market is relatively small. Most arcade titles sink like stones. Double Fine should have had respectable cashflows from Trenched and Stacking (and Costume Quest).
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by weemadando »

Aren't the terms that MS gets like a 70% cut per unit in XBLA?
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by weemadando »

Stuff I remember from dev interviews, it started out as a super cheap channel for them to distribute through, but once it became a major revenue source MS roughly doubled their fees.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Stark »

Double something = 70% lol?

I'd think a bigger issue is the small market; where only half of whatever console eve goes online, most never pay for anything, etc.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by weemadando »

Doubled as in it was about 30-40% and MS jumped it up to a 70% cut, at which point a bunch of developers and publishers went: "well shit, returns on our planned XBL products just got fucked" and so about the only way to release something profitable on XBL became either go with shovelware that you can get out cheap, or if you've got a major product, fight like a crazy person to get in the 4 week promotions that MS runs where actual XBLA sale numbers happen.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by CaptHawkeye »

They just ran an article on Gamespot on the "Secret to Success" for Double Fine's million dollar kickstart.

Psst, the secret to success in the game industry is brand loyalty. Gamers are such fucking pansies they will literally give developers money for NOTHING.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Stark »

Calling Double Fine a success for resorting to begging after wasting all their capital IS pretty funny.

Ps Ando talking about how XBLA is unattractive to developers = ROFFLE. Maybe he doesn't understand maths. :v
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Terralthra »

Unless MS has significantly raised their XBLA cut in the past 12 months, it is still in the 30%-40% range. Can't be more specific, sorry.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by weemadando »

It is all over.

87,142 BACKERS
$3,336,371 PLEDGED OF $400,000 GOAL

So, kind of a success then. I guess we'll see if it catches on. But from what Kickstarter have been saying, it's brought a lot of attention to their site and the amount of funding coming in has just been exploding.

In terms of games? Well, Wasteland 2 has been pitched and is going thusly: 16,263 BACKERS $931,493 PLEDGED OF $900,000 GOAL 33 DAYS TO GO.

Big names on nostalgia products seem to be getting cashed up. Smaller projects have been seeing some flow-on benefits from people being aware. I still think this will be a fad, but fuck it, it's interesting to watch.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by CaptHawkeye »

Then Gamespot runs this article...

http://www.gamespot.com/features/the-pr ... n-6365709/

"Are gamers just giving developers money for little more than brand names?"

:roll:
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Xisiqomelir »

The Wasteland 2 pledges crossed the point where they'd put in a native Linux client, so I'm thinking of pledging $15.

Can one of you DOS gamers tell me how much you liked the original Wasteland? Youtube playthroughs aren't really giving me a sense of the game.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Starglider »

On the subject of Kickstarter for game funding, I saw guy a guy trying to get $8000 so he can quit his job to work full time on SHROOM : The Movie : The Game. There seem to be a lot of those at the moment; instead of slaving away for a year plus making your faux-8-bit IndieGame in your spare time, you slave away for 6 months, post some videos of your progress and then hope to hit the crowd funding jackpot so you can be a Bonne Fide Indie Dev and do the fun stuff all day. The trend hasn't been going long enough for me to get a feel for the success rate yet.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Xisiqomelir »

New Leisure Larry: LotLL kickstarter with Al Lowe involvement + No Sierra
So why are we jumping on the Kickstarter bandwagon with LEISURE SUIT LARRY IN THE LAND OF THE LOUNGE LIZARDS?

It’s simple. We love Larry…Larry Laffer. We were there when he was born, in 1987. We were there for his last adventure, LOVE FOR SAIL, almost exactly 10 years later.

And we’ve long wished for a version that would combine the characters and game play we already love with:

The freedom to play on mobile devices
A modern point-and-click/touchscreen interface
Updated, ultra-high res graphics
Fully voiced characters
Even more of the humor that’s made Al Lowe a household name…like “Borders” and “Enron”!

So we’re making it. From scratch. And we want YOUR help.

Do you remember Lefty's Bar from the original? Did you know it's famous?
We've already accomplished two of the hardest tasks:

Prying the Leisure Suit Larry license out of the hands of Big Software. DONE!
Convincing Al Lowe himself to come out of retirement for this top-to-bottom re-imagining of his 25-year-old creation. DONE!

What’s in it for you? That depends on what you pledge in Larry’s Kickstarter campaign!

Take a look at the list of rewards we’re giving to Larry’s supporters. They include everything from a copy of the game to actually being PART OF the game – as a character! -- to actually going to Las Vegas with your very own private limo and villa on top of the world's coolest hotels with Al Lowe and writer Josh Mandel!

Those rewards are cumulative. Pledge at the $100 level, for instance, and you’ll not only get the $100 reward, you’ll also get the rewards given for $50, $25, and $15 pledges. So your sack of goodies can fill up VERY quickly.

Now, these rewards have never been available before, and will never be available again. They’re strictly for this game, for this campaign, and every single one has been approved by Al Lowe. They are collector’s items to commemorate YOUR partnership in gaming’s biggest comeback EVER.

So please help us make LEISURE SUIT LARRY IN THE LAND OF THE LOUNGE LIZARDS: the 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION a perverted, hilarious reality. Kick in now, and stake your claim in gaming history.

The team that created Leisure Suit Larry 1 has been reassembled to create a 2012 "Reloaded" version. Al Lowe, Josh Mandel, Sabine Duvall, and Leslie Balfour have teamed up with Replay Games to form what we call "The Dream Team" of adventure games. We'll be making Leisure Suit Larry 1-7 and keeping you guys informed every step of the way. If this game is successful then we can bring you guys the rest of the Leisure Suit Larry games (and maybe even Leisure Suit Larry 4: The Case Of The Missing Floppies)!

We couldn't do it without you, the most loyal fans in video game history!! We get all of your fan mail everyday and reply to as much of it as we possibly can. This is what drove us to create this Kickstarter campaign. Had we taken this idea to a publisher, they would've turned us down cold since they think adventure games are dead.

So, please help us make this a reality and bring Leisure Suit Larry back to his dad, Al Lowe, like he was intended. We promise to keep you laughing and wetting your pants all the way 'till the end of the game!!!

What happens if we exceed our goal?

Depending on how far past our goal we get, here's the list of things we'd like to do with the extra development effort:

Fully localize all the voice overs in to as many languages as possible. We will start with FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish) and then branch out from there.
We will shoot Leisure Suit Larry on to additional platforms: XBLA, PSN, Android, iPads, iPhones, Windows Phones, Kindle, and of course, Mac!
The game will come to life with a live orchestra performing all your favorite Leisure Suit Larry tunes.
More game!! Help us figure out how to add more game to Leisure Suit Larry! We've got Al and Josh standing by waiting to take orders from YOU, on how we can make the game that much better.

Sincerely,

Al, Josh, and the guys behind the scenes that are making this a dream come true for all of us!!!

p.s. we have 2 extra reward tiers but they are a bit too......"outlandish" to put in this official Kickstarter page so go here and we'll let you know what they are.
144.4/500 K funded as of this post, 28 days to go
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Xisiqomelir »

And they just keep coming!

Shoot Straight. Conserve Ammo. And Never Cut a Deal With A Dragon.
Jordan Weisman, the creator of Shadowrun, is back and Shadowrun Returns (for Apple & Android tablets and PCs) is the game that Shadowrun fans have been waiting for a long time. A graphically rich 2D turn-based single player game with deep story interaction, meaningful character development, and highly-contextual tactical combat, Shadowrun Returns is not only going to make some old geeks (like us) very happy but it will introduce new players to a dynamic gaming universe that is beloved around the world.


Created almost 25 years ago, Shadowrun remains one of the most original and cherished role-playing settings. The game world’s origin story mashes-up the dystopian Cyberpunk future of a Blade Runner with the high fantasy creatures and races of a Lords of the Rings in an organic way that produces iconic characters, environments, and situations.

Here's how it works:

According to the Mayan Calendar (and lots of tabloids), the world will end on December 12, 2012. It’s part a 5,200 year cycle of death and rebirth that, in Shadowrun, actually charts the ebb and flow of magic from the Earth. So, on 12/12/12 magic will return, end this world, and wreak holy havoc while starting the next. Aboriginal cultures, who maintained their mystical traditions, are the first to feel the return of magic and use their newfound power to reshape the political, financial, and physical world around them. As the magic increases, Elf and Dwarf babies are born to very surprised parents who carry the right combination of long-dormant genes. But all of these events pale in comparison to the horror of "goblinization", which painfully reshapes the teenage bodies of those unlucky enough to carry dominant Ork or Troll genes. And then the first Great Dragon rises from its 5,200 yearlong hibernation and circles over Tokyo, signaling that the world has truly AWAKENED.

Fast forward two generations, to a world transformed not only by the growth of magic but by the acceleration of cyber technology—a continual effort to improve upon the gifts that nature gave humanity; by the inevitable maturation of the World Wide Web into the Matrix—a network directly accessible by the human brain; and by the near elimination of governments as they are replaced megacorporations—monolithic entities who see only customers, not citizens.

And moving through the dark shadows cast by the gleaming towers of the corps, are Shadowrunners – disposable assets and corporate pawns scratching out a living using a combination of technology, magic, and street smarts. Shadowrunners live between the cracks and operate outside the law, doing the dirty work that corporate wage-slaves won’t soil their hands with and occasionally acting as the only protection the citizenry can turn to.

Welcome to the world of Shadowrun, where man meets magic and machine.


There are a couple of key ideas at the core of Shadowrun Returns.

Deep, Interactive Stories

We intend to follow a braided anthology structure for our story. Jordan, his partner Mitch Gitelman and Mike Mulvihill, who led Shadowrun game development at FASA Corp. will craft and structure the meta-story, then supply key information for a group of writers to weave into their own short stories, which we'll then use as the basis for our missions. To ensure an authentic tone, we'll incorporate the storytelling skills of many Shadowrun authors and designers who've been carrying the flame over the last 23 years such as:

Michael A. Stackpole
Mike Mulvihill
Tom Dowd
Malik Toms
Mel Odom
Jason Hardy
Stephen Kenson
The result should be an overall narrative that is layered, textured, and satisfying.

One of the many innovations in Data East’s Shadowrun Super Nintendo game was a unique conversation engine that opened up new avenues of conversation based upon information you learned through interactions with characters and objects. We intend on taking a similar path with a new twist or two.

Contextual Gameplay in Four Realities

Four realities overlap in the world of Shadowrun (the Physical, the Digital, the Mystic, and the Astral) and associated character classes such as the Street Samurai, Hacker, Combat Mage, and Shaman, each have the ability to view and interact with the world in ways the others can’t.

Here are some ways that selecting each character class allows you to see the map from a different perspective:

Street Samurai see a threat assessment overlay of the environment that notes enemy appraisals, options for cover, potential weapons, and statistics for drawn weapons.
Combat Mages see magical auras, granting them the ability to locate magical items, identify spells being prepared, and find the intersections of magic lay lines where they can recharge their power.
Hackers/Deckers see the digital control circuitry that allows them to manipulate the physical world via the digital one.
Shaman see the “true world” that lies in the astral plane, distinguishing the true nature of people, plants, creatures, and magical objects while buildings and other “dead” objects appear as mere shadows.
Missions (aka "Runs") in Shadowrun Returns can require interaction with all four realities simultaneously, requiring you to use information learned from each character’s perspective to coordinate their context-sensitive actions to get the job done. . . and survive.

That’s why we decided to make Shadowrun Returns a turn-based game—so we can offer you a wide range of context-based gameplay options from which to craft a your plan.

The Streets Tell a Million Stories

One of the things that we feel most strongly about is that the world of Shadowrun was created for all of us to tell stories within. That’s one of the beautiful things about in-person tabletop role-playing—the stories are extremely relevant to you and your friends because they were made by you and your friends.

In honor of that tradition, we plan to release our PC-based level editor when we release Shadowrun Returns so that everyone can create their own Shadowrun stories & “runs”. When you upload your stories, you can make them available to your Friends Only or the entire Shadowrun community.



The game we want to make is very humble by modern blockbuster game standards but it is still way beyond the ability of a small start-up to fund by itself. The restraints on the license from Microsoft made it impossible to get established publishers interested in Shadowrun and so it remained just a dream for a long time until Jordan saw the recent successes of some other veteran designers on Kickstarter.

Crowd sourcing to fund creative content represents truly profound change to the status quo. While we watch financial models for the creation and distribution of creative content continue to erode, Kickstarter charts a direction for how fans can directly impact development of creative content they want by funding its creation.

We hope that Shadowrun Returns is a creative concept you want to help make into a reality and we thank your consideration and support.


It is strange to be required to license your own game in order to make a new version of it but that’s what can happen when you’re old and keep changing companies. Here's the fast-forward version:

Image

And so, our favorite game has come full circle and Jordan is again leading the development of a world he started oh, so many years ago.


And for those of you that have been around since the very early days, we want to make sure that YOU understand that WE understand and that we'd love to see things like this (and more) in the game.

Ares Predators and Ruger Super Warhawks (yes, with smartlinks), Maglocks and Doc Wagons, datajacks and credsticks, dermal plating and wired reflexes, “chummer” and "drek", Ares and Fuchi and Aztechnology (Oh my!).

But that's not all.

Mr. Johnson(s), Lofwyr (can’t leave him out can we?), gangers, toxic spirits, Renraku Arcology, The Sprawl, the Redmond Barrens & the Ork Underground (oh yes), UCAS, Tir Taingire and even the Sioux Nation, but most of all you WILL be saying (or is that screaming?). . . “Never EVER Deal with a Dragon!”
34.8/400 K funded, 24 days to go
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Starglider »

Naturally some devs on Kickstarter are trying to milk the X-Com fanwhore base. In this case they have a basically finished game that they've already been taking conventional pre-orders for, and they're raising another $50K from Kickstarter (and apparently succeeding) because hey free money right.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by weemadando »

I've commented on Xenonauts a few times around the web. It holds no fucking interest because they aren't even trying to be something new or different, it's slavish recreation and fanwhorishness. I copped a lot of shit on Rock Paper Shotgun for saying as much.

But Kickstarter appears to have pretty quickly lost any remaining sense of curation: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/114 ... me-release

That this one got vetted and approved speaks fucking volumes about how ridiculous it's gotten.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by CaptHawkeye »

I guess this isn't any more out of the ordinary than religious nuts donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to "charities" so they can build big fancy spires on their churches.
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Re: Doublefine/Kickstarter/Adventure gaming

Post by Aaron MkII »

May as well drag Star Control out at this rate.

So the only Double Fine game I've played is BL, which I loved purely for Blacks voice acting. What have they made that hasn't bombed?
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