We’re all here cheering you on Keith! #youarenotalone
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Haha thanks, we appreciate it =).
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You have to keep in mind that a the lack of a 3rd programmer also means that we’re spending money at a lower rate than anticipated. So in terms of budget it doesn’t affect our ability to produce the game, it simply makes it take longer ( which explains part of the delays we’ve suffered already ).
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A productive death march though, yes!
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…yeah and we were nagging em for years to launch KS 
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Also, a little shift with regards to how the development phase is promoted. I wrote some ideas in this thread here if they are of any use. I hope so. And I’m happy to help.
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Well, considering SC’s never ending delays and NMS’s fall from grace, I think Battlescape was lucky regarding the Kickstarter. Look at DU’s attempt to raise 500,000 pounds - it’s only been a few days but it’s the initial weekend that sees a good bulk of support; it’s a bit early and still 31 days to go but don’t see how they can raise that much, even with 31 days left. I think supporters are tired of not getting what was advertised and it will be much harder to raise money on Kickstarters for future startup companies.
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Would it be any help to advertise the position on forums? Or would the work involved in hiring a “low paid” job like this be too time consuming?
So be it, to be honest. I know crowdfunded teams like this one for IN:B may frown at my statement but I think that pre-orders, pledges and crowdfunds should be the product of a track record and not just faith and hype. If a dev team has a solid track record of delivery that is properly communicated at the Kickstarter time that should generate a corresponding amount of crowdfunded pledges.
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How can that be done for a new company?
It just cant. At least not in the same scale and without a very solid, realistic, scrutinized and auditable business plan. A completely new team with no track record can not expect to get funds out of thin air or to the same scale of a team with already a demonstrable track record. But that is life across all industries, not just game development.
But isn’t that the point of crowdfunding?
Established businesses, or new ones with an exceedingly good business plan, may go to investors to get money. In this case, it might be a publisher that can fund the development in return for a share of the profits and rights to the game. This then leads to the high-end titles and big-money games that we know, but that doesn’t necessarily make them good.
Crowdfunding allows people to pitch an idea. Any idea. From the consumer’s point of view, there’s no business decisions involved, or thoughts of return on investment (apart from tier rewards). It is purely about liking an idea, putting some money into it and watching it get made.
This is what I-Novae have done - they pitched a good idea, got some money and are now building that idea. Crowdfunding gives the public control over what they would like to have, instead of some big company creating something then having to shove tons of marketing down our throats to convince us we want it.
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But isn’t that the point of crowdfunding?
What is? Faith and hype? Lack of demonstrable evidence showing if a given pitch deliverer competence and real capabilities are enough to do what he or she promises?
Absolutely not, imho. But be my guest.
Track record, in the other hand, can be established based on relevant previous work by the team or individually by each team member. Personally, I have learnt my lesson with Star Citizen and a couple others. The jury on IN:B is still out there.
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Track record isnt everything. Having worked at a game company before arent a guarantee that their game will be great, as a team with no track record isnt sure to fail. Mentioning the track record also contributes to the hype thing you criticized, which is why I preferred the way Flavien and Keith did it: Not mentiioning anything about their previous work. The kickstarter was about their game, not about them. If you try to sell a game solely based on a person, you get godus.
If it is of any help though, your concerns were already discussed in great length during the kickstarter (I am getting a really bad case of flashback reading the current discussion)
Nothing is really a guarantee, I agree. But some things are less a guarantee than others. As I said, if you just want to go based on gut feeling be my guest.
I do hope they really communicate well but I was a bit miffed that JC would recently promote DU on Gamespot with a laptop - rendering and lag was so horrendous it left a very bad impression. In fact it’s decisions like that which reveal a lot. That said, I am not a big believer in not giving people a chance simply because they haven’t the experience; What’s more how are people going to get experience if they are disqualified for not having it. So I have to differ on that point but admit it would be more comforting if Devs had a track record. Although Chris Roberts has experience and is mucking it up royally.
It is not just a gut feeling for quite a few people here. Many of us have been following the development of the tech closely for a very long time, during which we got to know the devs, which is, to many people, more valuable than a check-list.
At the moment I trust inovae more to deliver their game, than I trust CR to deliver SC. Which is why I backed I:B instead of SC. Instead, I will buy SC once it is released. IF it is ever released.
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I’ve always thought crowdfunding is similar (in a loose sense) to venture capital investment.
You speculate on an idea (in this case, for a game rather than for a business) and offer it an “investment” in the hope that the idea succeeds and you get a return on your investment (in this case, tier rewards). You expect the recipient of your investment to act in good faith, but there’s never any guarantee they’ll succeed.
In this case, INovae got the minimum investment they requested, and now they’re trying their damned hardest to make that idea succeed.
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I think you should divest yourself of such notions because Kickstarter is simply a means of pre-ordering products. There is no investment here. It’s a great model, but it’s not an investment. Not even in guarded terms where we put lots of words in quotes.
I’m interested to see where the pre-order model goes. Tesla just Kickstarted its latest model car, which is pretty awesome. I wonder if that will generalize into Nike saying “We want to build this innovative shoe. If you want one, pony up $50 now and another $X when the shoes are ready to go.” Or they have an entire line of shoes, and people can pick the one they want. It would apply to pretty much any product that requires a non-trivial amount of infrastructure to build but whose popularity isn’t guaranteed, somewhere between custom products and mass production. So instead of doing surveys and such, then building the product and hoping, they just ask people: do you want to buy this product we have in mind?
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That’s not really true though. Preorders tend to be for products that are already funded to completion. That’s very much not the case for many (probably most) KS campaigns.
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