It's a really brave model that's in its infancy so it's bound to have some stumbling blocks.
I'd be interested also in how the ideas of intellectual property and ownership of likenesses will be tackled with the projects that advertise high tier rewards of your voice or likeness in the game. Does that mean forgoing IP rights to your likeness? What if the donator isn't happy with how their avatar can be interacted with or is presented?
Kickstarter is all really enthusiastic. I'm hoping that these projects go well but I'm waiting for someone’s nerdrage to spill over because they donated £10 and didn't get exactly what they wanted. Then the storm will start.
Perhaps that's a social issue and not a development related one. Though when you combine development with social interaction and investment then they are bound to influence each other - for good or bad.
Bluring the lines between customers, investors and fans is going to get sticky.
EA have seen an opportunity to gain customers to their origin platform in a similar way to valve and it’s use of flagship titles being tied to steam and then the integration of the steamworks client and drm. If it was a company other than EA doing this it’d be likely all sunflowers and puppies.
This is why Kickstarter projects have such potential to be a can of worms. What if you donated say £1000 to a project because you spent the better part of your childhood playing an early iteration of the series? Then on release you didn’t get “exactly” what you wanted. As an investor do you have a say? Do majority investors who donated £5000+ have more of a say than minority investors who donated £1-10? Should donators get a return of profits for investing in the development or are Kickstarter projects just charity by another name that will incite nerdrage and entitlement?
Kickstarter is a great faith and goodwill exercise that can potentially cash in on gamers naivety and ill thought out clamouring. It could also be an interesting and potentially fruitful development style that listens to customers desires and works with them to make a product they enjoy but it’s bound to get messy.
Should they have a lengthy outline listing cost breakdowns, distribution channels, support mechanisms, legal requirements, restrictions and caveats as well as a breakdown of game mechanics, system requirements and concepts all before they’ve written a single line of code? It could be argued yes. It would make sense. How many gamers though are going to pay attention to those issues though as opposed to going *throws money at screen* and expect a continuation of a series that they love? Gamers do have themselves to blame to some extent.
@Whitewind617 The valve obsessives will gush now...
They're both online drms, one company got voted worst in the US on an online poll. The other has a legion of obsessives. Both of the services have flaws that need fixing. They're both just a step below Ubi's always on drm.
@bloody-hell So swapping one online drm for another drm?
Encourage the developer to sell through all sorts of platforms be it drm based like origin or the fawned over steam direct from developer or even better a non drm based like gog. How about if there are regional based services - why not sell through them also if the game is localised in that language.
This move saves the developer some distribution costs which will help them. So what if it's an EA service. Steam, Origin, Ubi's always on... they're all as bad as each other.
This of course would require people to pause unconditionally gushing over valve for a while.
The more venues that the titles can be bought from the better. Ideally direct from publisher as well as DRM free platforms like gog. Those that don't mind the DRM can use Origin and Steam.
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