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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”

#41

Post by jeremiep »

michaelt wrote: post #33
dmbaggett wrote: post #10

I wanted to believe that a team of 6 to 10 people could make a game that looked and felt AAA. Boy was I wrong! When we made Crash Bandicoot (with a team of 7), it was already virtually impossible to make a AAA game with 6-10 people, and that was 20 years ago. I tell inexperienced entrepreneurs to take their honest best estimate and multiply by 10. Or, as Mark Cerny (our producer on Crash) used to tell us, "add one an…

Also, the original kickstarter [1] was for $50,000 with $72,000 raised. I'm not an expert on the economics of the video game industry, but I can't believe that would pay a team of 6-10 people for very long. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/45588301/woolfe-the-red...

Barely one programmer for less than a year.

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

#43

Post by dudul »

bko wrote: post #38

> But we have literally no money whatsoever to pay for stamps, let alone print the artbooks and dvd-cases. How did this happen? Shouldn't that money have been allocated earlier? Did they spend every dollar thinking that this is the dollar that turns everything around. Maybe I just don't get the mentality of those looking to fund projects on Kickstarter.

Agreed. I don't understand how they can not give anything at all to all the people who poured money into their kickstarted. What does it say about crowdfunding?

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

#44

Post by rkangel »

dmbaggett wrote: post #10

I wanted to believe that a team of 6 to 10 people could make a game that looked and felt AAA. Boy was I wrong! When we made Crash Bandicoot (with a team of 7), it was already virtually impossible to make a AAA game with 6-10 people, and that was 20 years ago. I tell inexperienced entrepreneurs to take their honest best estimate and multiply by 10. Or, as Mark Cerny (our producer on Crash) used to tell us, "add one an…

Issues with estimating, particularly something like this, mostly comes down to meta-ignorance: you don't know what you don't know.

Given a particular problem of a similar sort to something he's worked on, an experienced engineer will be able to list 10 different issues that might crop up.

An inexperienced engineer won't know of those potential problems and will just see the most optimistic path possible.

When you're moving massively outside your familiar zone, many unexpected problems will crop up. Best solution is a phased approach. Pick the bits you judge as most risky (you should hopefully have some idea) and implement prototypes in those areas, in the hope that most of the scaries will crop up. You've then got a better idea as you move on.

I've written this in the context of doing engineering, but it's equally true in all fields - like trying to sell a product into a new an unfamiliar market.

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

#46

Post by rkangel »

I'm actually finding it reassuring to see some of these 'our project failed, sorry' messages coming up.

It reassures me that kickstarter is actually being used to fund new things, rather than just as a marketplace for existing products, where you don't even have to have found any capital up front.

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

#47

Post by jordanlev »

kkt262 wrote: post #42

It's interesting that failure articles seem to always go up to #1 on HackerNews. Why is that?

Because people upvote them.

(As to why they upvote them, I'm guessing it's because often we learn more from failures than from successes, and usually you don't hear about the failures as much as the successes).

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

#48

Post by Cthulhu_ »

jeremiep wrote: post #21
valarauca1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Passion and commitment are not a substitue for experience The author explained more or less. Inexperience.

I say the exact same thing about Agile practices, "methodologies and procedures are not a substitute for knowledge and experience." That message is a LOT harder to get through than it seems.

OTOH, if they embraced the agile methodology, they could've said "We do not know how long it will take, it depends on our velocity which we haven't yet established". $72K for a team of 6-10 developing an AAA-level game is just unrealistic.

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

#49

Post by coldpie »

dudul wrote: post #43
bko wrote: post #38

> But we have literally no money whatsoever to pay for stamps, let alone print the artbooks and dvd-cases. How did this happen? Shouldn't that money have been allocated earlier? Did they spend every dollar thinking that this is the dollar that turns everything around. Maybe I just don't get the mentality of those looking to fund projects on Kickstarter.

Agreed. I don't understand how they can not give anything at all to all the people who poured money into their kickstarted. What does it say about crowdfunding?

That contributing money to an unfinished product is a risk, and that you may never see the result you expected from your investment. Which is exactly what everyone should have known before contributing. Weighing a team's experience and ability should be a major factor in deciding whether to back a project.

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

#50

Post by malkia »

dmbaggett wrote: post #10

I wanted to believe that a team of 6 to 10 people could make a game that looked and felt AAA. Boy was I wrong! When we made Crash Bandicoot (with a team of 7), it was already virtually impossible to make a AAA game with 6-10 people, and that was 20 years ago. I tell inexperienced entrepreneurs to take their honest best estimate and multiply by 10. Or, as Mark Cerny (our producer on Crash) used to tell us, "add one an…

For NHL2k2/NHL2k3 we had dozen of people just doing the UI - Granted good UI is crucial in a sports game. That also was back in 2001
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