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“It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

kickstarter.com

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Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#371

Post by erikb »

agumonkey wrote: post #66

It's interesting to see the reactions here. The matchstick project ended up giving full refunds to the backers and yet they were trashed in the comments. While here people are showing lots of love even after the bankrupt notification.

End users suck as investors. They think they already bought the product+rewards and feel it's quite painful that they still need to wait a few months before starting to use them.

Hell, to say the truth although I'm a developer, when I paid something on Kickstarter I also feel that way...

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#372

Post by estel »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #242
s73v3r wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about how you believe that fulfilling a book order is that simple.

Can you be more specific? They actually said they had everything made and printed, can't be that hard... they simply didn't end up having enough money for shipping costs because they went bankrupt for other reasons. Again, they made an accounting mistake, instead of earmarking the funds for shipping, they expected once the game launched they'd sell easily (they were greenlit in days, featured at the E3 etc), they'd e…

> They actually said they had everything made and printed, can't be that hard

Lots of it was "ready for printing", but not actually printed yet.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#373

Post by Thimothy »

Narishma wrote: post #362
Thimothy wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Witcher 3 is also available in last gen consoles, and although XCOM 2 has not been announced for consoles (it's still in development), the first XCOM was released even for iOS and Android.

Current-gen consoles (PS4 an Xbox One).

Oops, yeah, that's what I wanted to say. Brain-fart there.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#374

Post by facepalm »

kybernetyk wrote: post #247
facepalm wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused - how is it failed if they launched it on Steam? Is that just a demo?

The game doesn't sell well enough to cover running costs.

What are the running costs - does it have an online component? Or just the fees they have to pay to Steam?

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#375

Post by agumonkey »

erikb wrote: post #371
agumonkey wrote: post #66

It's interesting to see the reactions here. The matchstick project ended up giving full refunds to the backers and yet they were trashed in the comments. While here people are showing lots of love even after the bankrupt notification.

End users suck as investors. They think they already bought the product+rewards and feel it's quite painful that they still need to wait a few months before starting to use them. Hell, to say the truth although I'm a developer, when I paid something on Kickstarter I also feel that way...

we're mostly humans.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#376

Post by erikj »

simoncion wrote: post #297
cylinder wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't played a game in 10+ years. Kind of miss it. If you had to pick one console game I should play what would it be?

The Orange Box is a fantastic collection of games. I can also recommend Portal 2. However, if you have a friend who likes first person shooters, you could play through one or more of the Gears of War games in cooperative split-screen mode. I hate, HATE, HATE playing FPSs on consoles, but I had a blast playing Gears in coop. It was the first console FPS I'd ever played where * the gunplay felt good and * I didn't find…

Gears of War is not a first-person shooter, though.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#377

Post by shdon »

fpgaminer wrote: post #273
justin66 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would feel a lot better having been a KS contributor to this than I would having been a KS contributor to Oculus. "Thank you for your contribution and now some other, better-connected investors and employees are going to make money off of their investment in us" is about the worst possible outcome of a Kickstart.

This is exactly the problem with Kickstarter. Backers assume all the risks, but gain no benefit from success.

I'm not sure I agree with that last bit. The rewards for backers are there for a reason. When it comes to software projects -- especially games, you can frequently have access to test and beta versions and get the final product (depending on your backing level, this may be at a price lower or higher than the retail price). Additionally, it usually means you get to follow along in the development process, maybe even provide input or feedback. Another common reward is being made into a character in the game or providing another piece of content.

It may not sound like much, but it is a benefit. I for one got a real kick out of seeing my name in Broken Age's credit roll.

I've backed quite a few Kickstarter projects and so far, none that were successfully funded have failed. Some still might and that would be disappointing, but I wouldn't regret backing them in the least. I have "bought" the fun of being a small part of something and watching things develop.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#378

Post by kinleyd »

dasil003 wrote: post #282
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In colloquial English, no. The distinction between two main types of simplicity, those of parsimony and elegance, has been a long-standing philosophical topic [1]. In engineering, the so-called KISS principle (first coined as such in the early 20th century) has always had the implication of minimalism and implementation simplicity, in contrast to mere ease of use. Fred Brooks wrote a famous paper in 1986 [2] perfectl…

"historically illiterate" are pretty strong words. Actually everyone is historically illiterate by these standards because the ideas that any one person is familiar with is a vanishingly small percentage of all the ideas the human race has ever had. Furthermore, the origins of ideas are impossible to trace with any great precision. Is the most famous person the person with the best ideas? Was the person with access t…

"Rich Hickey gained fame for this because he stated an idea very clearly and compellingly, this is non-trivial and should not be so flippantly dismissed as just recyling old ideas."

+100 for this.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#379

Post by dagw »

nstart wrote: post #352
jgroszko wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I definitely do the "manager doubling" when it comes to estimates. If I think it'll take a month, I estimate 2 months to my boss. If I have to report several levels up, I multiply by 2 for every level. Hah, I like this. Every level up that sees it is also a potential for more scope creep, as each person will have their own vision of what's being produced. One of my favorite estimating guidelines from a mentor was t…

The most common time the 8 hours policy breaks down (insert rage face here) is when going bug hunting on non straight forward bugs. I just got out of a 5 day bug hunt where the fix was literally changing a 10 to 40 (so, 1 character change). The debugging process to realise this was painstaking elimination of possible causes. I eventually stumbled on the root cause by mistake when I out of frustration just switched an…

It takes 8 hours to implement the feature. It takes a lot longer to make it actually work.

Re: “It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”

#380

Post by RYL-Meseeks »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #179
coldpie wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish software kickstarters would stop doing physical rewards. The logistics of manufacturing and shipping are non-trivial and are so outside of any software studio's wheelhouse.

I'm not sure if it's true. It depends. Some stuff, for sure, like 3d printing tiny models of ingame characters, is something you can't just go out and do at scale without experience. But there's a lot of 'artbook' and 'wallpaper' and 'soundtrack' stuff. i.e. 100% of things that they already have. This project on its kickstarter already displayed lots of art and wallpaper material, and they launched the game obviously…

So at this point, what stops them from giving digital copies of the soundtrack/artbook out? Bandwidth costs a hell of a lot less than postage/packaging, and it'd be a nice gesture to backers.
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