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[Destructoid] Publishers accused of trying to exploit Kickstarter

post #1 of 39
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Quote:
If a known developer is using Kickstarter to fund its next game, be careful -- the money might end up getting used to ostensibly give a major publisher a new game for free. Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart has revealed that publishers tried to use his company for that very purpose.

"We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter,"
he revealed on his team's own KS page. "I said to them 'So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don't get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits.'

"They said, 'Yes'
."


Source



OMG , the nerve of some people . mad.gif I am so glad we have KS to get rid of greedy publishers .


On other news : project eternity reached its stretch goal of 1.6 m .biggrin.gif
    
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post #2 of 39

That is rude as all gets out.

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post #3 of 39
That's pretty low. However I can see this posing a massive legal issue if it ever came to light that they did this. I'm gonna take a stab and say this was a EA/Activision thing, cause they seem to enjoy seeing how "low" they can go to make more $
post #4 of 39
I am almost shocked that greed desires to conquer the world.
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post #5 of 39
There's a different side to this.

It's basically saying "show us that there is a market, and we'll help you do the rest". A publisher does far more than simply stamp their name on it and take a share of the profits. Access to the publisher's resources (veteran test teams, veteran developer advisers, a massive marketing team, ect) can do wonders for a game, and that's not even going into a publisher putting additional money past kickstarter. Day Z has a million players without any marketing. Think of what it could have done with television commercials and publisher-managed servers.

If you've never watched it, watch this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/innovation

Kickstarter can be the bridge between developers wanting to take risks and publishers not wanting to let them. 10,000 people @ $10 each is far more convincing that a game has potential than 50,000 signatures on a no-cost petition.

You can call it rude or unadulterated greed, but reverse the scenario- A developer pitches a risky game to a publisher, publisher says raise X amount via crowdsourcing for the game, and we'll foot the rest of the bill.

Still rude and greedy? Without extending the offer and showing that the publisher would be open to such a proposition, games that might make it via this scenario would be shut down at the developer level because they'd never even pitch it, knowing that it'd get shut down for the standard style agreement, and this offer would never be made.

There's 2 sides to every coin...
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post #6 of 39
Witcher sold 1.5 million copies without needing TV advertisements or a huge publisher supporting them, proving that good products sell themselves.
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post #7 of 39
Wasn't there a thread awhile back about EA saying how they plan to support kickstarter? I wonder who made the call....rolleyes.gif

Quote:
Originally Posted by -Apocalypse- View Post

Day Z has a million players without any marketing. Think of what it could have done with television commercials and publisher-managed servers.


Isn't that the siren's call that has turned gaming into the publisher dominated industry it is. The allure of a blockbuster game is strong. "Work for us and your game will be the next Modern Warfare"

Trouble is that isn't what happened to most of them.
Edited by erunion - 9/20/12 at 12:38am
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post #8 of 39
I don't think these publishers understand how Kickstarter works. If someone can raise the money to fund their game why the hell would they then sign over that game to a publisher?

I can see some instances where it might make sense, you get access to the publisher's marketing muscle and you could expand the scope of the game with more publisher money but I just don't see a lot of developers able to host successful Kickstarter campaigns who would be willing to sign over their IP.
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post #9 of 39
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liranan View Post

Witcher sold 1.5 million copies without needing TV advertisements or a huge publisher supporting them, proving that good products sell themselves.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104526-Medal-of-Honor-Sales-Are-Not-Amazing
The failure of a game that was Medal of Honor (the 2010 one) sold 1.5 million in 5 days.

A decent amount of media coverage could have pushed Witcher into the AAA blockbuster range. As is, if you go to a LAN of casual/social gamers, you'll get somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 that haven't even heard of The Witcher.

Good products might sell themselves, but advertising sells them better.

I mean seriously, 1.5M PC sales is comparable to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone's PC version...
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post #10 of 39
Quote:
Originally Posted by erunion View Post

Isn't that the siren's call that has turned gaming into the publisher dominated industry it is. The allure of a blockbuster game is strong. "Work for us and your game will be the next Modern Warfare"
Trouble is that isn't what happened to most of them.
Not via kickstarter.

Currently developers present an idea, and for all but the strongest of developers, before they get a check to start making the game, a team of financial "experts" go over the game and make it "viable". With kickstarter, even the weaker devs have some support saying this is the game people want. Watch the video I linked, it's quite insightful on the innovation vs safety concept.
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