Massive Chalice

[toxicitizen]

Double Fine have started a kickstarter for a new PC strategy game called Massive Chalice. 

 

They had me at turn-based.

[Mr. GOH!]

Fuck yes. FFT + XCOM + motherfucking CRUSADER KINGS = throwing a hundy at Double Fine.

[Waldorf and Statler]

GOH I'M JIZZING EVERYWHERE. HELP ME CLEAN IT UP.

[UnstableArk]

This will certainly make my Fire Emblem withdrawal easier.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

I might be slightly more enticed if they didn't resort to name dropping. Still, I'll keep an eye on it. Double Fine's games have been sorely overrated in my opinion, but they might manage something entertaining if they can live up to all the pomp of this one.

[Mal]

Double Fine's games are pretty solid and creative but yeah, overrated/overhyped. Now since they mentioned GoT... I'll be disappointed if I can't keep the bloodline pure, expand it to the whole kingdom and win.

[Mister Jack]

Think I might donate to this.  I want to see what their stretch goals are first, though.

[Luftwaffles]

This is cool and all, but I feel like Double Fine shouldn't quite be asking for this given the success of Broken Age. Why not just wait until Broken Age is released and use the loads of cash they've raked in from that to fund this? I know nothing of their financial situation, but from an outsider (and one without much money to toss into these things), it seems like they shouldn't have much trouble funding this, as I know they'll at least make profit on their documentary and Broken Age. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say Double Fine don't have a great track record as compared to many of the other other game kickstarters I can think of, but I as a consumer feel slightly burnt out at this point and feel like they're in a good enough place to not need to do this anymore. 

[Mister Jack]

Well it said in the video that Broken Age only makes up one-third of their workforce.

[Luftwaffles]

I know. I watched it. 

 

Maybe I'm just feeling burnt out on the whole Kickstarter thing, I don't know. 

[Waldorf and Statler]

Why would a developer fund a game with their own money if given the chance to do otherwise though? Most of their in-house games tend to be published by somebody, unless they're really small. I've seen that complaint being thrown around but still it surprises me. Profit should be used to keep them working and well-fed, if people want to pre-buy the game that's their business.

[Mr. GOH!]

As a consumer, I'd rather game companies come to gamers to pitch their games, to be answerable only to us for the quality of their games because we funded their development, rather than being beholden to publishers who only look at a projected future profit. Publishers don't innovate; they push out safe game after safe game. Kickstarter is an excellent vehicle to get funding for games that big publishers won't fund.

Edited May 31, 2013 by Mr. GOH!

[deanb]

There's nothing stopping a kickstartered game getting further external publisher investment.

Wally would be the one more dead on. If you can get your game primarily funded by Kickstarter folks, and be beholden to no one (backers ain't making Schafer n co sign contracts for this, unlike what a publisher would), then of course that's a route to go.

 

Of course they'd likely never be able to make a Brutal Legend 2 or anything on par through Kickstarter. And given Double Fines reputation with publishers (hence part of reason going through KS) I've a feeling they might never see that kind of project again. Though I guess Schafer might be using Kickstarter to force him and his team to learn to stay in budget, thus making them more appealing to publishers again for larger projects that'd make use of whole team. I dunno, long term on this is hard to see. DF jump all over the place in terms of scope of games, and KS is still very early stages to be a solid continuation of funding, compared to the decades old publishers.

[Mr. GOH!]

I imagine that any Kickstarter not explicit about seeking publisher involvement would only get involved with publishers to port and publish the Kickstartered game on console, That is, they'd use the publisher as purely a distribution aid. That's fine, and it wouldn't involve the publisher having veto power over a game's development.

 

Otherwise, I imagine that publishers aren't too keen on sinking money into games which have already been bought and paid for by fans; the publisher wouldn't see any money from sales to backers.

[deanb]

Backers aren't the only sales a game would see. From a publishers viewpoint it'd be matching dollar for dollar on a game idea with an already established fanbase and marketing, and half the budget covered up front (so less risk for them than accepting a pitch directly). For the developers it means being able to double their kickstarter income and make twice the game purely kickstarting would allow for. I swear there was a game last year that did exactly this, looking for $1million altogether, but as long as they could get $500K from KS then it'd show idea as viable and they'd get the other half from a publisher/investor.

 

There's nothing stopping a KS project going via a publisher, or even a publisher giving KS a shot themselves. There's also nothing that'd make publisher involvement with a KS project have it go any worse or any better than if a developer was left entirely to thier own devices. Plenty of failed Kickstarters out there.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

 

I imagine that publishers aren't too keen on sinking money into games which have already been bought and paid for by fans

 

You know, you don't have to buy the game to Kickstart something. This whole "Kickstarter as a pre-order" mentality isn't the point of Kickstarter.

[Waldorf and Statler]

you don't technically have to think of it that way, especially if you're spending more to get extra goodies, but I'd argue a lot of people do see it as a pre-order.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I was talking the other way around. You can also spend less than the cost of the game.

[Waldorf and Statler]

True. Probably cheaper. I feel that by 2014 when this game releases my interest will go down till trailers/release hype starts. Like with Banner Saga, though I still want that.

[toxicitizen]

So, this was inevitably going to get funded, but things have slowed down considerably. Only two weeks left and it still hasn't broken one million. Wonder if it has anything to do with DF running a second campaign before their first game is released or simply because there's simply not as much interest in this kind of game? Probably a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B...

[Mister Jack]

Or it could be because there are no stretch goals on their kickstarter page.

[Waldorf and Statler]

I think it has more to do with them stating over and over again they were aiming for the bare minimum, not to mention the reasons you mentioned but more importantly the amount of Kickstarter projects there are now.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I disagree. Stretch goals keep people interested. It keeps people writing articles about it. Those stretch goals means hitting higher amounts of money, which brings about more press, it's a big cycle and plenty of projects have died after having great openings because they don't know how to keep that momentum going.

[toxicitizen]

Don't most projects only add stretch goals later on, though?

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

They'll add stretch goals before they meet their initial goal. Some (actually, i would say many for these big-name games) have them from the start.