Should we Kickstart the Past?

[MephistoZX]

Jason, try Nier if you have a PS3/360. You'll either love it or hate it. Action RPG.

It's as close as I've found to the Quintet games on SNES in the feeling you get while playing it and the "soul" of the game. Plus, the soundtrack is top 5 all time (I do not say that lightly).

But, I agree, there are few newer games that give me the feeling a had when I was younger. I've tried most of these newer JRPGs and I just can't stand the characters or the voice actions or the dialogue or all of it. It's just...blech. There are a few exemptions, but most are really, really bad. Platformers, hey, at least there's still Nintendo making good Mario and DK games. Most action games are all spectacle, no substance. I tried Hyrule Warriors earlier this year, and it was incredibly repetitive. It's tough to find games that still appeal to me or give a feeling older games do.

As for Shenmue, I don't necessarily have a problem with gauging interest if that's the last step between some older ideas coming back and the production of those ideas. I have no interest in Shenmue 3, but it's good for fans of the series to get a finale they've been waiting for. I think consumers can relegate the market for Kickstarter pretty well. For the example of Shenmue, it got like 3.2 in two days for the hardcore fans to buy in if they really wanted it. Since then, it's been slowing down to a crawl for the funds backing. That says to me, the market for these "rebooted" games slowly weeds out after time, the only reason this was hit so hard was because Sony had it at their conference and gave it the "hype" factor. I think people will slowly burn out on the concept of Kickstarter other than the hardcore, and if that's enough to get the developers to start production and test the market, so be it.

[Jason]

I don't have either of those consoles... the only game that's existed that had made me seriously consider getting one is the Fist Of The North Star game.

I love me some Fist Of The North Star.

[JadePharaoh]

I'm sure most of us saw it coming a mile away, but Inafune has formally announced he's opening not one, but two Kickstarters for his  Megaman Legends-style spinoff, Red Ash. One for the game itself and another for an anime based on it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mig...ble-legend

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mig...y-studio4c

Mighty #9 still isn't even out yet and Inafune's Kickstarting a spinoff already. Again, I question developers' over-reliance on Kickstarter panhandling anymore. Lab Zero, the good folks who brought us Skullgirls, also just recently announced a new IP, an action/RPG called Indivisible. But with it came the announcement of an IndieGoGo campaign to fund it coming later this year. I'm thrilled to see a brand new game from Lab Zero; as excellent as Skullgirls was I have no doubt Indivisible will be amazing as well. But I did also question their reliance on crowdfunding as well. Well, they responded to me, and here's what they had to say:

"Publishers are TERRIFIED right now because they don't know what will sell and games are very expensive to make.

We wanted to avoid crowdfunding again, but this deal is potentially very good for us if we succeed. FAR better than a traditional publishing deal would be."

Maybe they're on to something. I figured developers were resorting to crowdfunding because they had no faith in their product, but perhaps it is the publishers instead that are overly paranoid and only funding those projects they feel are a sure bet. Maybe game publishers are going the way of the dodo and developers approaching their fans directly to invest in their new product is the way of the future? Or at least put smaller developers on even footing with the big AAA publishers like Konami and Capcom. Guess I'll just have to see...

[Jason]

If games were that expensive to make, every joe schmo with a little coding know how wouldn't be releasing the latest rendition of flappy birds for your android and ios devices.

As for publishers being scared to make games... the wiiu has nearly 100 games made just for it, and that's far and above what the PS4 and XB1 have on their own systems. Not to mention the arcade and homebrew stuff.

Publishers aren't scared to release a game, and games aren't that expensive to make. The problem is the games the publishers think we want are very expensive and they're scared that they'll flop because the usually do. They make the games we don't want... that cost a ton of money... that no one buys.

We don't all want Uncharted 8 or whatever that's got super realistic graphics and spendy voice acting and loads of cinema style action/quick time events. Sure those are good and fun... but we also like Katamari and Mario and Mega Man and old school RPGs and RTSs and FPSs that are actually fun...

If publishers want us to pay for the games we want to play, they need to make the games we want to play and stop churning out Gears of Halo 5: Madden 2016 Edition with Dead Or Alive DLC.

[Ragnatz]

Unless you are working alone, games definitely ARE expensive to make - assuming you're paying people what they are worth.

[Jason]

Hammerwatch = Not Expensive

Starcraft II = Expensive

Every game =/= Starcraft II

Every game =/= Hammerwatch


I don't disagree that there are games out there that cost a lot of money to make, but not every game does. I'd go on to say that majority, slim though it may be, are relatively inexpensive to produce, however producers tend to expect blockbuster sales from non-blockbuster games.

So instead of making a great game that may not cost a lot, but will sell well, some developers would rather avoid the risk of having a good selling game... and I cannot fault them for that... but they're risking alienating the largest group of people that would pay their games.

In terms of percentage the kickstarter donators are a smaller group that the rest of us that would get the game after the fact. The more groups go to the crowd funding method, the more they're going to lose out on that with not only folks like Jade and I but with the funders themselves eventually.

You can only donate so much so often before you realize that you're getting taken for a ride in the long run. Sure the product may come out and it may be great... but that's hardly the standard for kick starter projects.