Kickstarter? It could help.

DivineBlood

Im sure BG2 EE will turn out great, however i believe that if you guys ran a kickstarter campaign you could gain alot more needed funds to make it even more epic. Thoughts?

Magnus_Grelich

Isn't kickstarter usually for stupid or lazy people who have crap ideas?:D

SamuelVarg

Magnus_Grelich said:

Isn't kickstarter usually for stupid or lazy people who have crap ideas?:D

No.

Lemernis

Beamdog already has a contract with multiple partners.

Magnus_Grelich

To clarify my previous post, from what I have heard of kickstarter, there seem to be a lot of terrible projects on there. Some of these bad projects actually get people's money.

I took that as a reflection of the sort of people who usually donate money for projects. If something good, like BG2 - EE went to kickstarter, I'd be worried not many people would donate, preferring instead to fund something absurd.

Drugar

@Magnus_Grelich
Considering that Project: Eternity, Shadowrun Returns, Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2 were all funded on Kickstarter, it's really not all bad. Just like with any community site, there's good and bad things. For example, Deviantart has some of the best art in the world, but it also has a picture of an apple as 'art' or a 6 year old's crappy pencil drawing.

IRT Topic
I seem to recall a post from Trent Oster months ago, replying to this same question. It basicly came down to "We talked it over with our partners (Atari, Wizards, Bioware) and they said no. So it's a no. Maybe for BG3."

ajwz

Kickstarter is a means to an end, not an end in itself. No point if you already have the resources available.
@Magnus_Grelich is pretty much right.

A lot of kickstarter projects will not end well.

Magnus_Grelich

By no means am I clairvoyant, I could be wrong and a lot of people would donate for this, which is ok in my book. More money certainly helps BG2. Still, when I think of kickstarter, I think about Mike Judge's 'Idiocracy'.:D

Kaltzor

Magnus_Grelich said:

Isn't kickstarter usually for stupid or lazy people who have crap ideas?:D

Usually yes, but there's a few good ones there... Sometimes they get buried below the bad ones so nobody really finds them.

But mostly what it is for is when you want to do something big, you can get everything you need to do it except the resources, so try to see if you can get people interested enough that they would pay for the making of the product.

IkMarc

Having just studied venture financing for half a year I must definitely say kickstarter is not the appropriate form of funding. Throwing money at it is likely also a bad idea, you need to keep these kind of projects hungry and you don't want fastfood EA type of products. In my opinion financing by stable and trustworthy partners is most appropriate for this kind of venture. Those partners can offer them just enough financing, pressure them into deadlines and keep their financial targets sharp while also offering their network and professional expertise.

Cheesebelly

FTL was also funded through Kickstarter, released and was an acclaimed success. We can't deny that either, can we?

FinneousPJ

FTL?

Illustair

Speaking of kickstarter. Here's a great campaign that should make it - Jagged Alliance.

Trivia: Minsc is said to be heavily inspired by one of JA's famous mercenaries, Ivan.
Reception: Jagged Alliance 2 received high scores from many reviewers.The game was praised for its non-linear gameplay, freedom of action and variety of tactics, mercenary character traits, story-telling and role-playing, detailed world, challenging opponents and excellent audio.

That's how good the original game was. And this is the only chance we can ever have something like that again. Only 34 hours left and they're $50k short. Please support or spread the word. The developer, Full Control, seem to really know what they're doing...even Sir-Tech (company responsible for original JA) and InXile (company for the upcoming Torment) announced their support. They somehow remind me of Overhaul - a small but dedicated company composed of talented individuals who knows how to listen to what the people want.

---> Anyway, just to stay true to the topic. That just shows that not all kickstarter games are bad.

ajwz

Cheesebelly said:

FTL was also funded through Kickstarter, released and was an acclaimed success. We can't deny that either, can we?

No. Not everything funded through kickstarter will be a scam.
Probably all the games mentioned in this thread will be a big success.

The problem is, a lot of games won't. It doesn't even need to be malicious or intended as a scam for the project to fail - game development can fail for a lot of reasons.
There are literally thousands of kickstarter running now, but for all the publicity and investment, only a *tiny* percentage of the projects have been completed yet, and of those that have, we have already seen plenty of failures or half finished efforts.

Bercon

Looking at the Kickstarter project I've supported: Project Eternity, Torment: Tides of Numenera and Divinity: Original Sin. How many games like these have you seen coming out lately? I haven't found any. Obviously the traditional funding models aren't perfect and they don't serve every customers needs. Kickstarter has its place, but it would stupid to assume every project will be success. That is not the case with traditional models either, or why is it that you mentioned EA, because it is as traditional as it gets?

JuliusBorisov

I'm sure about the Beamdog's quality. The success they'll have with two Enhanced Editions will give enough resources to develop the BGNext. They already have a very talented crew, cooperate with the modding community and have an open discussion with fans. They won't need this Kickstarter thing. In my mind it can even distract their attention and money. I believe this brilliant team can make it on their own. Leave the Kickstarter to teams that only find their way in this industry.

DivineBlood

Baldur's Gate is a world renown game. Once people with half a brain saw it on kick-starter and watched the video, it would/could be a great success.

I understand beamdog is funded through other contracts. However as i don't have the contract in front of me, im not sure as to weather or not they could run a separated kick-starter for additional funds to make it super epic.

zur312

they can't make super epic bg2 because they are not making new bg2 only bg2:EE

the_spyder

I think, had they not gotten the contract and funding from Bio/Atari, that kickstarter might have been a perfectly viable platform. However, they did. And from what Trent has said, I get the feeling that the decision isn't fully Beamdog's (which makes perfect sense).

As for the detractors regarding Kickstarter, I think the success or failure of any given venture has nothing to do with Kickstarter itself and everything to do with the concept, design and execution of the idea. Sure there have been some failures, but there have also been successes. Evidence suggests that Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, Xenonauts and others are going to be quite good.

Sure there are dumb ideas out there. And sure people will sometimes fund dumb ideas. But we have clearly seen people funding good ideas as well. Don't discount a project merely based on how they choose to get funding. Be smart and rate it based on the project itself.

IkMarc

the_spyder said:

I think, had they not gotten the contract and funding from Bio/Atari, that kickstarter might have been a perfectly viable platform. However, they did. And from what Trent has said, I get the feeling that the decision isn't fully Beamdog's (which makes perfect sense).

As for the detractors regarding Kickstarter, I think the success or failure of any given venture has nothing to do with Kickstarter itself and everything to do with the concept, design and execution of the idea. Sure there have been some failures, but there have also been successes. Evidence suggests that Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, Xenonauts and others are going to be quite good.

Sure there are dumb ideas out there. And sure people will sometimes fund dumb ideas. But we have clearly seen people funding good ideas as well. Don't discount a project merely based on how they choose to get funding. Be smart and rate it based on the project itself.

No they would have failed with Kickstarter, since they wouldn't have had the ability to acquire the licenses and wouldn't have been provided with the same platform, expertise, connections and credibility.

Success or failure of a venture very much has to do with the type of financing, since the added value of financiers largely comes from other assets they provide such as the ones I mentioned. It is very common that they help out with the strategy, marketing, administration, offer consulting or even take an active position in the startup. There is a great variation between financiers towards the additional expertise they offer, the amount and type of monitoring they apply and the type of firms they back up.

Kickstarter just offers some finances based on neither substantial quantitative nor qualitative information.

TJ_Hooker

the_spyder said:

As for the detractors regarding Kickstarter, I think the success or failure of any given venture has nothing to do with Kickstarter itself and everything to do with the concept, design and execution of the idea.

I don't know, I think a number of the recent kickstarter successes relied on name and brand recognition as much or more than they relied on their vision of the game itself.