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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

#61

Post by ricardobeat »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #59

$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 the…

What's your opinion of YogVentures?

I have a suspicion that developing an open-world game not based on voxels is a very challenging thing, but then I don't work in game dev.

edit: should've read the full description.

Are the interpolated lines also used for collision/physics?

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

#62

Post by teamonkey »

mlguenther wrote: post #57

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.

Kickstarter funds count as earnings.

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

#63

Post by jay_kyburz »

OK, I had another thought on this topic, another perspective as to whether this money was well spent.

When you win Kickstarter and get 20-30k as an indie dev, that money is yours. It's in the bank. You're expected to spend it to make sure the game is as good as it can possibly be, sure, but it's now your money to _risk_.

I balk at spending 6K on music, because to me that sound like taking 6k out of my family's bank account, going down to the casino and betting it all on black.

But in reality, that's what I do every day. I sit down at my computer and I bet 1 days salary I can earn it back selling my game directly to players.

My games only have a budget of around 100k each. Most of that my salary. Would 6k on music make 6k more over the life of the game? I don't know? Perhaps. Perhaps I should grow some balls and spend and extra 6K of my family's money on music for my next game as see what happens.

Those risks, those bets, are a lot easier to make when they are somebody else's money. When you have an investor willing to share risks, or a publisher who will own the game when it's done anyhow.

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

#64

Post by jay_kyburz »

corin_ wrote: post #56
jay_kyburz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

"How does that 30-50c look once its turned into sales"

Haha, my conversion ratio is not quite there yet, that's why I'm not yet retired.

Once my 50c click pays 55c in sales I'll roll every sale into more ads and be as big as Zynga in no time.

I'm not crazy far off though, last time I had a run at it I made about 85c to the dollar.

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

#65

Post by mlguenther »

teamonkey wrote: post #62
mlguenther wrote: post #57

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.

Kickstarter funds count as earnings.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong, any basic accounting knowledge (I am a CPA) will tell you that income can be recognized when EARNED, not when received. This is something the IRS agrees with.

Kickstarter funds have not been earned until the product is delivered

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

#66

Post by epaik »

ricardobeat wrote: post #61
gavanwoolery wrote: post #59

$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 the…

What's your opinion of YogVentures? I have a suspicion that developing an open-world game not based on voxels is a very challenging thing, but then I don't work in game dev. edit : should've read the full description. Are the interpolated lines also used for collision/physics?

Just wanted to clarify, they are actually using voxels.

The technique used to achieve a smooth voxel world is called Marching Cubes. Although the voxels are cube in nature, the marching cubes algorithm smooths out the appearance of these cubes depending on their proximity to other cubes. This allows for a smooth world, while allowing for dynamic manipulation of the environment.

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

#67

Post by [deleted] »

epaik wrote: post #66
ricardobeat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your opinion of YogVentures? I have a suspicion that developing an open-world game not based on voxels is a very challenging thing, but then I don't work in game dev. edit : should've read the full description. Are the interpolated lines also used for collision/physics?

Just wanted to clarify, they are actually using voxels. The technique used to achieve a smooth voxel world is called Marching Cubes. Although the voxels are cube in nature, the marching cubes algorithm smooths out the appearance of these cubes depending on their proximity to other cubes. This allows for a smooth world, while allowing for dynamic manipulation of the environment.

[deleted]

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

#68

Post by corin_ »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #64
corin_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

"How does that 30-50c look once its turned into sales" Haha, my conversion ratio is not quite there yet, that's why I'm not yet retired. Once my 50c click pays 55c in sales I'll roll every sale into more ads and be as big as Zynga in no time. I'm not crazy far off though, last time I had a run at it I made about 85c to the dollar.

I don't know what sort of marketing budget you have, but if/when it has a little leeway, try some more targeted advertising rather than AdWords. I'd love to tell you that I could provide it, but the audience I have are PC gamers and I don't honestly think you'd see great results with us, but there will be sites out there that will give you a worse CPC but a better CPA than Google can.

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

#69

Post by danilocampos »

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 Mass Effect 3 ending was shit. Not artistic, not creative. Shit. A piece of storytelling so completely divorced from the previous narrative tapestry as to make even professors of English literature wince with disappointment. Its only explanations are rushed development or a lapse in creative oversight.

On top of being shit, it was not at all what was described by the project leads in interviews or in advertising. Game consumers are "entitled" to receive what is advertised – return policies don't let them vote with their dollars once a deception is unmasked.

You sound like you're parroting the narrative of an industry-captured press, rather than detailing first-hand knowledge of the situation.

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

#70

Post by gavanwoolery »

ricardobeat wrote: post #61
gavanwoolery wrote: post #59

$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 the…

What's your opinion of YogVentures? I have a suspicion that developing an open-world game not based on voxels is a very challenging thing, but then I don't work in game dev. edit : should've read the full description. Are the interpolated lines also used for collision/physics?

My opinion is that it is kind of a scam. If they can pull it off, I would love to be proven wrong. But so far all they have is a no-name development team that does not even have a website, and it looks like they just used a prefab engine like Unity to produce their demo video.

I've developed with voxels for over 10 years...Marching cubes is nothing new (in fact, I "invented" it on my own without knowing that the algorithm existed) - and how they model the world is the least of their concerns. Making an open world game of any sort is very challenging, and no one has done it that successfully to date (even Minecraft is still more of just a sandbox than a game, although I respect it nonetheless). Not that I would recommend against developing this type of game, it just probably not the first type of thing you want to tackle without sufficient experience (I should know, I've scrapped over 8 engines working on open world games).

Again, I have nothing against the YogCast people, but if they fail miserably it makes raising money for other Kickstarter projects more difficult.

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