Talk:Crowdfunding in video games

Star Citizen - World record breaking Crowd funded game.

It is worthwhile to note that the most successful crowd-funded game is Star Citizen by Cloud Imperium games. It raised 6.23 million dollars during it's fundraising campaign. It got mentioned by forbes and many other gaming websites.The official fundraising counter now stands at over 7 million dollars now. Here are a few links to ponder. http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/11/19/star-citizen-smashes-previous-video-game-crowd-funding-records-raising-6-2-million/

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/323369,star-citizen-sets-crowdfunding-record.aspx

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/26865/star_citizen_breaks_crowdfunding_record_raises_6_4_million/index.html

http://www.destructoid.com/star-citizen-breaks-crowdfunding-record-for-games-238966.phtml

And of course the Official Star Citizen community website www.robertsspaceindustries.com (has the counter for the funds raised so far) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.222.15 (talk) 07:54, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Risks of Kickstarter

In this Gamasutra article, the developers of The Banner Saga outline some peculiarities of developing a crowd-funded games. I think it is relevant to the article, since they are one of the first big gaming projects that already began to deliver their products. Maybe one of the primary editors of this article could find a way to work this data into it? --Koveras ^☭ 07:09, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

There's no one "primary" editor of an article. Perhaps the person who will add it could be you! Cheers, Axem Titanium (talk) 14:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

And please feel free to add that as it is appropriate - there's been a few "one year later" type articles on the whole Kickstarter thing that are broader concepts that I've not had a chance myself to add. --MASEM (t) 14:24, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

What I meant by "primary editors" was "people who regularly contribute to this particular article". I am not one of them and I spend most of my limited time on Wikipedia tweaking a limited set of articles I feel dedicated to. I don't feel the necessary dedication to this article, so my contribution to it remains limited to pointing toward a good source of new information and hoping that other editors agree with me and add it to the article. --Koveras ^☭ 18:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup - "Notable" successes and failures

This is outside the scope of the article. There are tons of successes and failures, they're not worth listing here. There's a similar list over at Video game journalism, which I'm fairly certain is going to go via Wikipedia_talk:VG#Video_Game_Journalism. When I have time, I'm going to work on List of Kickstarter video games to broaden the scope into (something like) List of video game crowdfunding projects, which should cover the lot. - hahnchen 15:00, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

There's two separate lists for two reasons. The first list are games that were KS'd successfully in the direct shadow of DFA and part of that initial wave. In other words, they, alng with Ouya and others, are responsible for starting this trend. The second list is for then general list for noted successes and failure outside of the DFA success shadow but now highlighted by the idea of the Kickstarter mechanism. "Code Hero" is a prime example of that since that was before DFA launched when it went through its Kickstarter.

I'm not against a separate list of KS'd games, though clearly this needs to be for notable ones (since these are technically user-generated efforts, we don't want every failed homebrew game listed on WP.). --MASEM (t) 15:15, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Code Hero is something that should be worked into a "risks" narrative, with stuff like Haunts: The Manse Macabre. We don't append a list of "notable" video games to the video game article, or "notable" cars to the automobile article. - hahnchen 15:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Er, we do do all the time. Video games as an art form, art games, roguelike, etc. etc. Now if the list gets large, a separate list makes sense, but when the topic can be covered in one article including example notable works due to how short the article and/or list may be , that's acceptable. --MASEM (t) 15:48, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

We might do all the time, this doesn't make it a good idea. FTL was in DFA's shadow, so how is that a standout while, Kentucky Route Zero or Star Citizen isn't? I'd be OK just moving List of Kickstarter video games to List of video game crowdfunding projects and dropping it in the "See also" section. - hahnchen 15:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

First, the list of notables will always be incomplete, because there are always new projects coming along and sourcing for others will come out, so it is not like that is the only 5 examples there ever. The thing is with reporting on these is that some of the reporting is just one story "project X got its KS funding" and that's all we hear until the game is released. Hence the need to apply the idea of notability to this list until we know more. --MASEM (t) 16:15, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:Inc-up covers incomplete lists, it's not relevant. The genuinely notable projects like Double Fine and Ouya are already well covered in the main article. Alpha Colony while falling $28 short is sweet, has no impact whatsoever on crowd funding in video games - hahnchen 16:32, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it is important, as you indirectly suggested, that there's a risk these can fail, even by a paltry sum of money. --MASEM (t) 16:49, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

It's as important as all the other failed projects. It's the hay, not the needle. - hahnchen 16:52, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

There are vg ks projects that succeed and fail every day, that's not a question, so what we report on are those that have been highlighted as success or failures by journalists. Alpha Colony was specifically highlighted when it failed by $28, and calling out the dangers that KS is a "all or nothing" approach. I'm sure there are other KS attempts that have failed possibly by a closer margin, but AC was called out by the press. To be clear, I'm not against expanding the list of notable KS games, though whether that list needs to be in this article or separate is a matter of opinion. But if we build out such a list, sourcing is going to be a minimum requirement for it; it can't just be that the game was put on KS, we need third-parties to note the game's success or failure on the system. --MASEM (t) 16:58, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Hybrid crowdfunding

There seems to be a new trend among video game Kickstarter projects, where a traditional publisher agrees to sponsor a game if the developers prove with a successful Kickstarter campaign that there is a demand for it. In theory, this allows the developer to combine AAA-level funding with the continuous development feedback from the backers. Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Bloodstained are two such examples, though I guess we'd have to wait how they turn out first. Still, is it notable enough to be included in the article at this stage? --Koveras ^☭ 08:41, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I've been trying to figure out how to include commentary from VG journalists on what they consider unique or successful approaches (There's a good article from Ben Kuchera at Polygon on why Bloodstained's KS was completely the right way to do it), but I'm having problems coming up with how to include it. It definitely should be considered for inclusion, no question. --MASEM (t) 14:21, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd suggest the awkwardly named "Other arenas" section be renamed to "Traditional publisher reactions" or something along the lines and add a new paragraph describing the Bloodstained case. Thematically, it would fit with the EA and Nintendo's less successful attempts to learn from the KS model. --Koveras ^☭ 19:26, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Here's another article that just came up today [1] about how KS may be skewing perceptions of development costs. I'm still not 100% on what a narrative here is. --MASEM (t) 18:06, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

The narrative seems to be that the author did not get enough money for her own campaign because it coincided with two big-name campaigns and is understandably pissed about. But the reality is that it is in each indie developer's hands to create transparency about what they need the money for, so the backers can decide whether they want to pledge that much. Igarashi and Warhorse were perfectly transparent about securing most of their funds elsewhere. Divinity was actually 80% finished with the money from the studio's previous project when they went to KS. Obsidian and inXile's projects paid a bulk of their development costs with early access and pre-orders. And Dreamfall Chapters got half of its budget from the freaking Norwegian government. It's obvious to anyone who had followed the topic closely that raising the full costs of a game has never been "the exact problem Kickstarter was intended to solve". All data is out in the open, and it's not fair to blame the big projects for the backers' unwillingness to think about these things. --Koveras ^☭ 07:37, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Update: Shenmue III seems to be going the same way, using KS as proof of interest while simultaneously getting funds from Sony. Jim Sterling discusses it in his latest Jimquisition episode, so secondary sources should be popping up about this topic by now... --Koveras ^☭ 17:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I definitely think we can write on larger products that are using KS to prove there is a market (and one of put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is due to the financial commitment) to assure other investors of the viability of KS, between these. --MASEM (t) 17:35, 22 June 2015 (UTC)