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What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

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Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#51

Post by shuzchen »

corin_ wrote: post #45
jay_kyburz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Corin, I'd love to hear more about why you think so. I'm always trying to work out how to best spend my marketing money (and energy). Do you have any metrics you can share about how an appearance at a show relate to final game sales? Or even press coverage? For example, if they were to spend that money on banner advertising they could generate say 6-10k clicks through to their website.

Press coverage - not metrics, but I've seen an awful lot of stories come out of events, and most importantly an awful lot of journalists meeting exhibitors, from bloggers to mainstream websites or newspapers. Obviously this doesn't guarantee coverage, but it puts the ball in your hands, once you're stood talking to a journalist while standing over your product it's time to knock it out of the park. I don't really hav…

I'm an armchair theorist on this topic, but I suspect you get more benefit with an event booth, especially if the people that attend the event have already been self-selected into your target demographic. There's just so much more room for engagement in person, as you can answer questions, provide clarification on the spot, and even obtain advice (perhaps some passerby has a cool idea they want to see in your game). This is drastically harder to do with a website.

This is even more important for smaller indie teams where the developers are the ones manning the booths. I'd be way more interested in discussing the product if I knew I were talking to one of the developers. I found this reflected in my behavior at the vendor booths at pycon this year. When a booth was manned by salespeople, I'd just go take their free shirt and if I was interested in the product I'd only ask a few brief questions and leave with a brochure. When the booth was manned by the founders and three-quarters of the dev team, I was more apt to discuss further, asking about their software stack, or their thoughts on competing products, or the future roadmap of the product. This type of perspective a salesperson doesn't have and usually can't officially speak about.

Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#52

Post by theandym »

MrFoof wrote: post #47
forrestthewoods wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a three man team working without any pay. What did you expect the money to go to? Proper salaries and benefits for the team would be a few hundred thousand dollars, not 36k. Spending $6000 on music counts 100% as "to development" and is perfectly reasonable. For PAX if anything they should have spent more money to create a bigger presence.

I'm genuinely curious as to how much music $6000 bought. That can afford quite a decent-length soundtrack. For not-very-well known composers, I've been quoted in the range of $150-250/minute for music. I assume that if I went a bit higher up the chain (small-time, but established) that the price would rise.

As someone who's worked in independent film and has been involved in projects that have spent $10k's and $100k's in music, I dont see this as lavish or irresponsible at all. Musicians are hard workers, and deserve to be paid for their efforts. Just because the developers couldn't hack their way to a great soundtrack and paid for decent/professional work doesn't mean they misappropriated funds. I'd counter that they rightfully spent the money in places that weren't their core competencies.

Edit: I know that film isn't the same as game development, but I feel that the multidisciplinary aspect of game creation incurs costs in a far wider arena than traditional software development.

Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#54

Post by jay_kyburz »

corin_ wrote: post #45
jay_kyburz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Corin, I'd love to hear more about why you think so. I'm always trying to work out how to best spend my marketing money (and energy). Do you have any metrics you can share about how an appearance at a show relate to final game sales? Or even press coverage? For example, if they were to spend that money on banner advertising they could generate say 6-10k clicks through to their website.

Press coverage - not metrics, but I've seen an awful lot of stories come out of events, and most importantly an awful lot of journalists meeting exhibitors, from bloggers to mainstream websites or newspapers. Obviously this doesn't guarantee coverage, but it puts the ball in your hands, once you're stood talking to a journalist while standing over your product it's time to knock it out of the park. I don't really hav…

Last time I did an Adwords Campaign I was paying about 30-50c a click. I'm doing web games at the moment so really don't have any figures for buying adds on mobile.

I have heard anecdotally that a click in a mobile game costs a lot less.

Fully agree that spending a small percentage of your marketing budget on shows is great. And as I said before, they are heaps of fun and a great holiday for the team. You get to rub shoulders with the press and meet other devs.

But, I think somebody else mentioned these guys aren't even paying themselves a salary yet.

Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#55

Post by robomartin »

I don't know these guys. My comment isn't aimed at them at all.

I see a lot of projects on Kickstarter where I find myself immediately questioning the numbers. Having the scars to prove that I've run a business or two I generally have a good sense for costs, process and other elements of typical projects. In so many cases on Kickstarter the numbers are so awfully low that you have to wonder what will happen if the project reaches the stated goal and is funded.

It is very easy to end-up working weeks-upon-weeks for $0.75 per hour and have nothing to show for it but a huge loss at the end of the process.

My recommendation: If you are thinking about posting a project to Kickstarter and don't know much about business (profit, loss, fixed costs, variable costs, development costs, tooling costs, regulatory requirements, etc.) spend a few hundred bucks to get advise from someone who does. I would run your numbers by a CPA and some of the other stuff by, perhaps, an attorney with experience in the field. If it is manufacturing related, there might be regulatory issues (UL, CSA, TUV, CE) that an experienced manufacturing engineer might be able to help you with. Be careful, regulatory testing alone can easily get into the tens of thousands of dollars.

In general, don't post a project to a site like Kickstarter unless and until you have had the financial model for your project verified by those best-qualified to do so.

Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#56

Post by corin_ »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #54
corin_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Press coverage - not metrics, but I've seen an awful lot of stories come out of events, and most importantly an awful lot of journalists meeting exhibitors, from bloggers to mainstream websites or newspapers. Obviously this doesn't guarantee coverage, but it puts the ball in your hands, once you're stood talking to a journalist while standing over your product it's time to knock it out of the park. I don't really hav…

Last time I did an Adwords Campaign I was paying about 30-50c a click. I'm doing web games at the moment so really don't have any figures for buying adds on mobile. I have heard anecdotally that a click in a mobile game costs a lot less. Fully agree that spending a small percentage of your marketing budget on shows is great. And as I said before, they are heaps of fun and a great holiday for the team. You get to rub…

How does that 30-50c look once its turned into sales, as in how many clicks per sale? (Unless you don't directly sell anything).

Anyone who exhibits at an event for fun is a fool, as is anyone who exhibits at an event but doesn't find it fun. In my experience - and maybe this differs in other industries or indeed other parts of the games industry - events couldn't be further from holidays, most event organisers and exhibitors I know, myself included, would tell you they are the most tiring and most stressful times of the year. But for some of us, that's what makes them enjoyable.

Of course there's fun to mix in and around them in ways that being away from the normality of office life let's you have, but it's generally a case of lletting off steam while working crazily hard, not of enjoying a break from working. My last event consisted of 10 days without a break, 10-12 hours minimum, or 15+ during the 4 days of set-up / pack down, but it was still the most fun I've had recently.

Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#57

Post by mlguenther »

Any good accountant will tell you that you don't have to pay tax on money that has not yet been earned. I've seen two of these article for two different game devs, and they both take into account tax, which should not be part of the equation until the game is actually released.

Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#58

Post by sesqu »

elithrar wrote: post #48
patio11 wrote: post #42

Software development on a budget of $30k getting described as lavish. Ahh, gamers, they're so cute. Poorly-informed over-entitled misanthropes, but cute. "You're doing your shoestring budget wrong! You should listen to me! I've never shipped anything longer than a blog comment but my years of experience as a pir^H^H^H consumer mean I really know this job well!" P.S. A business where the successful outcome is the prin…

> Ahh, gamers, they're so cute. Poorly-informed over-entitled misanthropes, but cute. As a gamer, I completely agree with you here. The entitlement has grown rapidly over the past 2-3 years, and in my opinion is only hurting those in the industry looking to be adventurous. Something like Minecraft might be the exception, but look at the shenanigans surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending (which was not as bad as some wo…

The third installment of a series that has received universal critical acclaim and inspired several spinoffs, books and movies is hardly a risk, no matter what ending you put on it.

I have no idea what the meat of the argument was over, but it seems like the fans complained about the ending taking it too safe. I don't see how that supports your argument.

Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#59

Post by gavanwoolery »

$30,000 can take you a long way. I stretched $5000 for 6 months producing a game, living like a peasant (in California, no less). These people just spent their money foolishly on a number of items. Salary is number one, whatever you have left after that can be used for other stuff. Why they did not budget salary first, I have no freaking idea. What is annoying is that it gives Kickstarter projects a bad rep, when there are those (such as myself) looking to use Kickstarter for legitimate/better thought-out purposes.

And for the record, I looked forward to this game in particular, even tried to donate money to them outside of kickstarter...

But please don't get me started on YogVentures (ugh)... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/winterkewlgames/yogventu...

Re: What the hell these game developers did with your kickstarter money

#60

Post by gavanwoolery »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #12
jay_kyburz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the indie games business and I can say they overpaid for everything. 6K for music should be 1-2k at most! Poster Art - What's wrong with those awesome sprites that Kotaku used. Should be 0. IPads? More that one? PAX East? - That's a holiday not a legitimate business expense. This is why they say so many people don't make their money back in the App Store any more. You can't spend indie money like you work for…

"PAX East? - That's a holiday not a legitimate business expense." For a game developer? No, it's a fantastic way to raise the profile of your game. You get the most avid gamers interested in your game (who will spread the word if they like the game) and you get press coverage too. For an exhibitor PAX isn't a 3 day vacation, it's 5 or 6 days of working 12+ hours days, most of them staying chained to their booth in th…

It's hard to make an impression when you have no money left to make a game. Make the game first, and if its good it will market itself. If you have funds left over after the game is finished, THEN you can spend them on extras.
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