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Animal Mother posted:I only have about 1500 project video views, so I'm hoping the main problem is my total lack of off-site promotion. Well, yeah, that would be the major issue. Even if your project had a problem, if it had 20000 views instead that would have probably been 200 backers there. When you are some unknown guy working on a niche title you can't expect people to find you just by standing there on Kickstarter. Being this your first project you are probably not going to get much attention from the press, though, especially without much to show. That's another problem of crowd funding ventures. Those small updates you showed, you probably should have had them there right from the start. If you could had pulled a small alpha for people to try that would have been even better. Finally, there's probably another issue: while space games were relatively scarce, lately there's been a truckload of them from the indie side. Kickstarter, Greenlight, there's so many space games simulatenously that I assume people in general are under some fatigue of the genre. Which means it would probably be a good idea to have waited a couple of months or more before starting the Kickstarter. Saoshyant fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 15, 2012 |
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Dec 15, 2012 20:31
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Animal Mother posted:Or just see you promise every imaginable feature you could ever want (Limit Theory) (not jealous) (ok maybe a little). I wouldn't worry too much about Limit Theory. My developer instincts tell me it will fail horribly. The guys is just promising TOO MUCH. Yes, even for the amount of money he got, he's still promising way too much. He'll never accomplish the entirety of his promises. He'll end up releasing a very limited version of what he initially set off to do, and it will be forgotten among the Ad Astras and Evochrons of the space sim world. Then he'll go back to his day job.
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Dec 15, 2012 21:59
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Pochoclo posted:Okay, a new update on the Elite KS. Frontier also let 16 people go yesterday, from what I gather the atmosphere is toxic in there.
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Dec 15, 2012 23:21
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Animal Mother posted:The kickstarter for my space strategy game, Colonia, has 10 days left and looks like it's not going to make it. For anyone who's taken a look and passed on it: Is there not enough detail about the game? Does it just not look fun? Is the market already too saturated? Is the pitch so unprofessional that I look like I can't finish it? I only have about 1500 project video views, so I'm hoping the main problem is my total lack of off-site promotion. But I suspect it's more that I decided "I'm terrible at marketing and talking things up so they sound more exciting, so I won't." At a glance it just looks generic so chances are people aren't even really reading the description.
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Dec 15, 2012 23:29
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ten dollar bitcoin posted:At a glance it just looks generic so chances are people aren't even really reading the description. I feel like the video pacing really hurts it. You should check out the discussion of game trailer pacing that just went on in the Greenlight thread. There's over a minute of mostly just spaceships flying from one side of the screen to the other with music that, while good, is something that I'd play to help fall asleep, rather than something that would get me excited. Glamour shots are cool, but unless your graphics are amazing, showcasing gameplay is better. For instance, it looks like you have a really in-depth combat micromanagement system. Basically, the total opposite of what Endless Space has. But you show that off for a total of, like 10 seconds. I feel like you really could have hyped that up and shown it off a little more. Same thing with the open, no-loading screen system. Could have used a little more focus there, too. Remember, you don't need to go over every feature of the game. Rather than mention everything, it's better to pick and choose the best, most interesting ones, the ones you're most excited about, and hyperfocus on them.
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Dec 15, 2012 23:53
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Admiral H. Curtiss posted:If you're interested in classic video game music: I don't know if anyone here got anything from that summer bundle, but now there's a nubuwo winter bundle of chip tunes and game song remixes, etc.
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Dec 16, 2012 00:06
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Saoshyant posted:Well, yeah, that would be the major issue. Even if your project had a problem, if it had 20000 views instead that would have probably been 200 backers there. Saoshyant posted:Being this your first project you are probably not going to get much attention from the press, though, especially without much to show. That's another problem of crowd funding ventures. Those small updates you showed, you probably should have had them there right from the start. If you could had pulled a small alpha for people to try that would have been even better. Saoshyant posted:Finally, there's probably another issue: while space games were relatively scarce, lately there's been a truckload of them from the indie side.  ten dollar bitcoin posted:At a glance it just looks generic so chances are people aren't even really reading the description. Thanks, both of you. For any programmers starting a game for the first time, everyone is going to tell you: do not build your own game engine from scratch. Listen to them. Please, please listen to them.
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Dec 16, 2012 00:07
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Shalinor posted:Uh, yeah, that would basically guarantee that the project will fail. You didn't contact press at all? Like, even a tiny bit? XboxPants posted:I feel like the video pacing really hurts it ... mostly just spaceships flying from one side of the screen to the other ... fall asleep.. e: Haha, I've posted the better part of a page of postmortem for a project that's nominally still active. 
go for a stroll fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 02:01
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Animal Mother posted:Nope. I knew literally nothing about how this works and thought games journalists had enough time to spend a ton of it looking for new stuff, and that it was somehow rude to essentially ask for coverage. Yeah, I know. You'll probably fail, do a better video, wait a few months, then launch again - and then everyone will be amazed to hear about this cool new RTS that's a decent ways into production. Only with some pre-existing fans from the last Kickstarter to get the initial word out (you'll message them via the failed Kickstarter when the new one goes up), and the benefit of having learned about PR. Second attempts at Kickstarters, historically, have solid odds of success. Only reason we didn't do it with Gravitaz was we were basically already out of money / the project was dead stop if it failed. Well, that, and our #1 issue - too high a funding target - our designer couldn't bend on, due a higher cost of living.
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Dec 16, 2012 02:51
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How many space 4X RTS combination games are out there nowadays? It's a small niche but I would think you'd have pretty good odds at getting a lot of those people after SOTS2 was such a turd.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:03
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Thinking of starting a new kickstarter for crowd-sourced Pitch-Forks and Torches; gonna make a killing off of these Code-Hero backer.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:32
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With as many goons as there are doing game Kickstarters at this point, maybe we should put a link The Big List of Indie Game Marketing or another similar resource. A bunch of people have put together some good guides this year, and that site I posted has a pretty drat good list of them. Ben Kuchera's talk (first link) and "Indie PR on Shoestring" (fourth link) are both great links. Regardless, check out that link, Animal Mother, and read as many of those as you can. Another great resource is Kickstarter post-mortems. You can get some fantastic advice from them. This one by Stoic, the group behind The Banner Saga, is very good: http://www.gamesbrief.com/2012/07/kickstarter-after-the-kick-but-before-the-start/ XboxPants fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 03:33
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Dean of Swing posted:Thinking of starting a new kickstarter for crowd-sourced Pitch-Forks and Torches; gonna make a killing off of these Code-Hero backer. No joke I can envision this being pretty successful. The biggest difficulty is shipping flammable material, particularly internationally.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:42
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Pretty sure Fedex will do it domestically, at least. They've got containers rated for some seriously wacky substances.
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Dec 16, 2012 09:39
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Shalinor posted:I think the big thing indie teams need to do, mostly, is to realize that running a kickstarter should be your full-time job for that month. There won't be time to do much meaningful dev work for whoever does it. So you don't need an indie PR person, necessarily, so much as you need to be willing to give up that month of work. This bit of wisdom could probably be extrapolated to indie game devs even outside of KS pushes -- if it is at all possible, you should be organizing your daily schedule to put on your marketing/PR hat as much as you can without distracting from your other duties. Figure out how to do dev blogging in a way that provides something fun to read for the public while using time that you would have needed for organization/planning anyhow. If your process supports it, take advantage of the fact that indies are allowed a more transparent dev process to give yourself more free PR. The press and public both love this kind of stuff, take Wolfire with their frequent alpha updates for Overgrowth as a prime directive of sorts. Take the Dead State team as an example of indies who are failing at this miserably. I love that project and want it to succeed, but you cannot just lurk around your forums giving occasional replies while allowing your project's main homepage to stagnate for months on end. They could easily have taken some of the really great, detailed, intimate knowledge they've shared on their forums and created some sort of frontpage dev blog with minimal effort. Even their Kickstarter updates have been really underwhelming, mostly paraphrased as "well we aren't working yet, but, uh, you know, organizing stuff! Look at this model we made!" It's kind of depressing to see them take the wave of enthusiasm they were riding from a successful KS and just completely squander it in the worst way possible. speng31b fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 18:16
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octoroon posted:Take the Dead State team as an example of indies who are failing at this miserably. I love that project and want it to succeed, but you cannot just lurk around your forums giving occasional replies while allowing your project's main homepage to stagnate for months on end. They could easily have taken some of the really great, detailed, intimate knowledge they've shared on their forums and created some sort of frontpage dev blog with minimal effort. Even their Kickstarter updates have been really underwhelming, mostly paraphrased as "well we aren't working yet, but, uh, you know, organizing stuff! Look at this model we made!" It's kind of depressing to see them take the wave of enthusiasm they were riding from a successful KS and just completely squander it in the worst way possible. Well, they released big updates for backers on Kickstarter in September, October and November - the last one on Nov 20. They could be posting more and they definitely shouldn't be locking those posts for backers-only, but it doesn't really bug me.
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Dec 16, 2012 18:27
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Megazver posted:Well, they released big updates for backers on Kickstarter in September, October and November - the last one on Nov 20. They could be posting more and they definitely shouldn't be locking those posts for backers-only, but it doesn't really bug me. It's nice that they're posting KS updates occasionally, which is pretty much the bare minimum obligation to backers who gave you a third of a million dollars to keep working on your game. My objection to their style is more based on how they have handled their community outside of KS. As a whole I thought their KS was fairly well-run and nothing spectacular one way or another. The KS updates have some fairly meaty details, but they are for backers only -- if you aren't a backer, their Google footprint will lead you to a homepage that shows a 5-month update gap right at the top. Indie games can't afford to do poo poo like that. Updates on your dev process are free PR, not closely-guarded state secrets. I've been following them for a long time before Kickstarter was even a glimmer on their horizon, and they have been guilty of operating like this the whole time. It's... really not good. speng31b fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 18:30
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The Men Of War team put up a crowd funding thing for their new game, but for some reason it isn't actually on kickstarter and there is like 0 information on it. Men Of War was excellent though! http://www.digitalmindsoft.eu/products/call-to-arms
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Dec 16, 2012 22:25
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Davincie posted:The Men Of War team put up a crowd funding thing for their new game, but for some reason it isn't actually on kickstarter and there is like 0 information on it. Men Of War was excellent though! They're not American, presumably.
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Dec 16, 2012 22:29
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Davincie posted:for some reason it isn't actually on kickstarter I assume because they are neither American or British. Their goal is small, but without some serious word out they are most likely going to fail.
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Dec 16, 2012 22:30
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Yeah they're a German company I believe. I think they do have a chance though, their games have a pretty good following. Anecdotal I know but I believe they/their games are also pretty big in Russia as well. (Their publisher is a Russian company). I do hope they make the money but I must admit it's odd that they're going down the crowdfunding route. Even if they don't make whatever goals they have I'm sure it'll get made considering they have a good track record of success in making very fun and engaging games. Basically Men of War: Assault Squad is pretty much my favourite RTS game of all time.
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Dec 16, 2012 22:35
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They are German but develop the series together with an Ukrainian company. They are big enough that they should be able to have a guy open an American account though, I've seen smaller European companies do it (my tiny rear end country has 3 kickstarters running right now concurrently). edit: Actually I asked them on their facebook. They said they are planning on using kickstarter further on in development.
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Dec 16, 2012 22:37
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octoroon posted:Dead State stuff I sadly missed their Kickstarter but have been keeping tabs on the game for 2 years or so now and their total lack of any news or even a one line status update bugs me, too.
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Dec 16, 2012 23:12
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Wow, interesting to see Digitalmindsoft crowdfunding their next game. Men of Wawr has always been a real niche thing so maybe this is just a way to get that sweet fan cash without having a lot of their profits waylaid by 1C Publishing; they're going with a different publisher this time, "Lace Mamba Global," whoever the heck they are.
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Dec 16, 2012 23:15
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So it looks like Dizzy Returns doesn't look like it's going to make it, unless there's a massive influx of pledges over the next 4 days. Hoping there's a last minute surge (Although that's probably unlikely), I loved Dizzy back in the day and the style that they're going for just looks wonderful.
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Dec 17, 2012 01:22
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Haha, that wouldn't be a last minute surge. More like a flood with 325,000 pounds to go.
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Dec 17, 2012 01:27
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Wow, interesting to see Digitalmindsoft crowdfunding their next game. Men of Wawr has always been a real niche thing so maybe this is just a way to get that sweet fan cash without having a lot of their profits waylaid by 1C Publishing; they're going with a different publisher this time, "Lace Mamba Global," whoever the heck they are. Commandos, Soldiers: Heroes Of World War II, Faces of War/Outfront II, Close Combat, Sudden Strike, War Commander, Men of War. Each of those games (while great) adds to the niche (without defining it). I'm assuming they'll get funded. Doubly as fast if they have a KickStarter up soon. Personally, I'm waiting till I round up some cash to become a Sergeant First Class (and in the mean time quietly watching whether or not the strategy of the game is as robust as they say it is).
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Dec 17, 2012 06:48
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Ulgress posted:Commandos, Soldiers: Heroes Of World War II, Faces of War/Outfront II, Close Combat, Sudden Strike, War Commander, Men of War. I'm glad you're sanguine about their prospects - I guess this kind of game is popular enough to keep the Close Combat franchise alive even though it the graphics haven't been updated substantially since Hammurabi was telling us what to do with thieves. I'm an eternal pessimist so I'm not so sure, but I'm right there with you in hoping this is a success.
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Dec 17, 2012 07:06
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Pochoclo posted:Okay, a new update on the Elite KS. So the one thing that set Frontier apart from its contemporaries won't be there upon release. Brilliant. I still sort of want it to succeed, if only because this is the closest to non-vapourware Elite 4 has been in years.
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Dec 17, 2012 07:49
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TychoCelchuuu posted:Can I get a link to War Commander? I've never hard of it, but if it's anything like the rest of the genre I'm interested. So I went on a search, and my first words were "Oh, what the hell" when the google results came up. I'm currently very annoyed by this company that has taken over the name, and search results after buying the old domain and trademark rights for what I think was one of the greats in the genre (regardless of the bad reception it got, it made for some fun multiplayer battles). And they bloody made a military Starcraft knockoff on Facebook. The full name of the game was "WarCommander: D-Day June 6th 1944". There's a couple of copies kicking here and here. The most detailed description I found was here.
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Dec 17, 2012 08:44
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Ulgress posted:So I went on a search, and my first words were "Oh, what the hell" when the google results came up. I'm currently very annoyed by this company that has taken over the name, and search results after buying the old domain and trademark rights for what I think was one of the greats in the genre (regardless of the bad reception it got, it made for some fun multiplayer battles). And they bloody made a military Starcraft knockoff on Facebook. Meanwhile the Call to Arms crowdfunding thing grows at a glacial pace. 3 backers!
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Dec 17, 2012 09:21
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XboxPants posted:I feel like the video pacing really hurts it. You should check out the discussion of game trailer pacing that just went on in the Greenlight thread. There's over a minute of mostly just spaceships flying from one side of the screen to the other with music that, while good, is something that I'd play to help fall asleep, rather than something that would get me excited. Glamour shots are cool, but unless your graphics are amazing, showcasing gameplay is better. This is pretty much what I was going to say. I'm not a 4X fan, but even if I was, I wouldn't have stuck around long enough to see you show anything off. Honestly, most people aren't going to sit through more than maybe 10-15 seconds of a video if you haven't hooked them by that point. If you're lucky, they might skim your page if you haven't grabbed them by then, but odds are way better they'll just leave. With people who are looking at Kickstarter projects, odds are good that they're not as interested in cutscenes as they are in actual gameplay (they're actively looking at games to fund, not movies), so that's probably what's going to get them to stick around for a bit. What I would say you need in a good video is something new/interesting/awesome/whatever right out of the gate followed up by some footage that lets people know why your project is special and what sets it apart from every other game in its genre. Then, after you've given people an idea of why they should care, you can step in and make your case (possibly interspersing with more footage when appropriate so people have incentive to watch the whole thing). Look at it this way. Even people who are actively scouring Kickstarter for new projects to back are going to have dozens or hundreds of potentially interesting-sounding projects at any given time. There's just no time to sit through everybody's videos and read everybody's pages. It sucks, but you do need to spend some time selling your idea to people. A good video can definitely help your project, but an uninteresting video can drive people away. All this is also true of the actual text of your page, but people like shiny moving pictures, so that's where they're going to want to go first. If they get to your writeup, you have a bit more leeway, but you'll still want to summarize what sets your game apart at the start and then dig into it further along with easy-to-navigate sections and such so people can read the bits they're most interested in first and branch out from there. AntiPseudonym posted:So it looks like Dizzy Returns doesn't look like it's going to make it, unless there's a massive influx of pledges over the next 4 days. Yeah, as fun as Dizzy is, they don't have nearly the kind of name recognition these days that could pull off funding an actual professional budget for a game through Kickstarter.
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Dec 17, 2012 09:52
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There are only 4 days left on this and the moment has really built the last few days. It looks really good for those of you who like realistic, post-apocalyptic style settings. There are even several videos demonstrating working tech and I just had to pledge. http://kck.st/T6e8lz It's called Forsaken Fortress - the survival RPG and I saw someone refer to it as Sims meets a zombie game, though I think that is too simple of an explanation.
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Dec 17, 2012 15:56
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I look and I see two signs that the developers might be able to combine an engine and art assets into some sort of a game, but are most likely incapable of making it a good one. First, a real-time stat-based combat system with firearms and indirect control of other party members simply cannot not be wonky poo poo. Second, when I look at the character screen and I see a stat system with 0-999 as a range. Yeesh. PS I am more mega than you.
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Dec 17, 2012 16:08
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Their 'digital painter' needs to lay off the depth of field and bloom, seriously. I want to poke fun at the Poser-perfect bombshells they've got as feature characters there, but that fruit's hanging low enough to trip over.
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Dec 17, 2012 18:40
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Animal Mother posted:Nope. I knew literally nothing about how this works and thought games journalists had enough time to spend a ton of it looking for new stuff, and that it was somehow rude to essentially ask for coverage. Yeah, I know. I work for a newspaper/website, not a video game publication/site, so you should probably take my advice with a grain of salt. That said, at least in the news, reporters LOVE being contacted about potential stories. If we're not interested we get to ignore them, and at worst we lose a couple minutes to a phone call or e-mail. If we are interested? You just saved us a bunch of time digging through boring ideas and trying to get in touch with people who may or may not ever call back. You're not going to magically get front page coverage on every major site, but your chances of at least a mention or quick article will probably go up exponentially if you make it obvious to a reporter you're available and excited to talk about your game. It saves us time, and generally someone invested enough to contact you is is a better interviewee than someone you need to hunt down. It appeals to laziness and good journalism simultaneously.
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Dec 17, 2012 20:21
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Bieeardo posted:Their 'digital painter' needs to lay off the depth of field and bloom, seriously. I want to poke fun at the Poser-perfect bombshells they've got as feature characters there, but that fruit's hanging low enough to trip over. Yeah, I was intrigued by a post apocalyptic strategy game like that, but was instantly turned off by Supermodel Fortress Manager. It just screams "don't give us money, we're sheltered nerds". Sounds harsh maybe, but atmosphere and style is a huge part of post apocalyptic media for me.
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Dec 17, 2012 22:26
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Locus posted:Yeah, I was intrigued by a post apocalyptic strategy game like that, but was instantly turned off by Supermodel Fortress Manager. It just screams "don't give us money, we're sheltered nerds". Judging by the Nexus pages for Fallout 3/New Vegas, apparently a lot of people think that's what people will look like in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
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Dec 17, 2012 23:26
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The FAQ at the bottom actually acknowledges that and says they'll be getting a less pretty setting-appropriate redesign when they hit proper character art development.
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Dec 17, 2012 23:53
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Lore actually made it to Forbes.
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