How much money do you think I-Novae Studios should ask for their Battlescape Kickstarter?
Please justify the budget you are suggesting.
critic
How much money do you think I-Novae Studios should ask for their Battlescape Kickstarter?
Please justify the budget you are suggesting.
critic
I don’t think we know enough about IB to make that kind of suggestion.
We know the team, around 5 people, 2 engine devs, PR guy, general artist, general researcher.
Maybe I’m mistaken, but let us assume a 5 man volunteer team, with one of them being from Unreal (Keith Newton).
So how much cash is that worth?
Nope. THEY know the team. THEY know the full game’s scope. THEY know the costs that will be involved.
Random people making guesses won’t help anyone.
But if you want a number, I remember them talking about something like 500 thousand for the minimum goal. Give or take 200k, depending on what they end up deciding is the minimum gameplay the game needs.
Currently we’re planning on launching the Kickstarter for ~$500k. That is still subject to change.
On the old board there was a list (subject to change) that had several levels for the Kickstarter.
As were only two quarters (or so) away… could we have a new and improved one?
At this point I doubt I will remember the word I’m looking for, maybe ever, you just have to know what I mean.
I don’t believe that was an official stretch goal list, it was more of a community “wish list”. We don’t plan to publish the minimum funded game features & stretch goals prior to the actual launch of the crowd funding campaign.
I’ve probably mentioned it before, and this might not be the most appropriate place to reiterate it, but let me remind you (the developers) that HD Interactive/Most Wanted Entertainment tried to raise $650,000 for Nexus 2 and accrued only about $160,000 in pledges.
The failure was due in large part, in my opinion, to a lack of community exposure and press coverage. Obviously the point of Battlescape is to generate widespread interest, but I feel a lot more is required, from all of us as a community as well.
Yes, I backed that project, I really wanted Nexus 2
We have a budget for I:B that will dictate our eventual crowd funding goal. It would be disingenuous to go with a lower goal in fear of not meeting our min required amount based on past KickStarter failures. We do have someone working on expanding our exposure/presence on many fronts, and yes word of mouth from the community will also play an important role.
The Kickstarter video was a severe failure. They waited far too much time before talking about the game itself and what it was about ; it was hard to grasp what the game was about if you didn’t have played, let alone known the first game, and they waited until near the end of the video to show actual graphics (the at the time 6 years old but still great-looking tech demo). Almost nothing about how it plays, what the story is about, what the universe feels like…
All in all, it seemed to be addressed to fans of the first game, and was very weak for those who weren’t. With a better video, they may very well have succeeded.
If you want to look at a good Kickstarter video, Limit Theory is one of the best examples IIRC. It begins with an atmospheric trailer with what’s probably in-game footage, some music and some catch phrases to hook you up in the first crucial 10-30s, then it switches to Josh explaining what the game is about, how it will play, what he already did and will do in the future, why he is making it like that, sprinkled with more in-game footage so your attention isn’t washed away by all the talk…
I’m certain this is an important part of LT’s success.
With all the Kickstarter successes, failures, advices and analysis that are all over the web, I’m pretty sure they will do at least a decent job with their campaign and their video.
Hats off to you Keith for committing to a approximate budget.
Since you are feeling so friendly and helpful, could you in any way indicate when the KS will start. I think you are about a year off from the old forum commitments (no insult intended).
No insult taken, you are correct we were originally trying to launch it last summer but some things took longer to wrap up than we had originally anticipated (per usual :). At the moment we’re trying to launch in time for GDC. We’re also working on releasing a “we’re sorry for the delay” present in time for Christmas =)
I like the sound of that. I also like the sound of the ~500k target. It sounds manageable providing - as has been mentioned - you can put together a good video that grabs people, as well as massively increase publicity. I have no doubt the community will play their part, but the news that I:B is in the works needs to flood the internet on all the popular sites if possible.
But it sounds like you have that covered. [quote=“INovaeGene, post:10, topic:82”]
We do have someone working on expanding our exposure/presence on many fronts
[/quote]
ok. … Now on to the next question as soon as i can think of in
In my humble opinion, it would be a really good thing to have a transparent budget ready before KS.
My tally so far is as follows. A professional like a programmer or a specialist can earn anywhere from $25k to $75k annually. When it comes to KS, the trend seems to be that project leaders just want enough money to buy the tools needed and to cover living expenses, that is how much they want their games made.
So 5 devs at $25k = $125k for one year of dev.
That’s just not going to happen.
Either backers trust the team to properly budget and deliver, or they do not pledge. That’s crowd funding in a nutshell, like it or not. Too much transparency is a bad thing IMO, and can derail the project quite quickly, as of course, the internet is full of financial experts…
I was not asking for your opinion, nor was I saying that it must happen. I’m offering my advice and nothing else, it is up to you to decide what to do with it. Just don’t get all aggressive for nothing.
People are not idiots whitedwarf.
I think an established team can get away with not telling backers how the money will be spent. A team that consists of amateurs and individuals unproven at running a game studio will be more successful if they can give some idea of how the money will be spent.
It doesn’t have to be a full budget, but it should give an idea of what sort of money will be needed for salaries, how much for equipment and premises and how much for other business expenses. If you don’t show that you’ve even thought about such things then the kind of people that can back your project with large sums are going to be wary.
This doesn’t have to be provided now, but there does need to be a section of the Kickstarter pitch that tells potential backers how you’re planning to spend the money.
PS. Don’t forget to deduct tax when you do this
PPS. A hypothetical rough budget for Battlescape:
Requested amount $500k
After tax, fees and fulfilling rewards: approx. $400k
2x full time salaries @ $50k: $100k
Contracted art & sound: $200k
Business expenses (premises, marketing, legal, equipment & software licenses): $100k
@cybercritic I think $25k is too low to allocate for a per person salary cost. That might be a minimum living expense but it wouldn’t cover income tax, healthcare and a host of other overheads that game developers have the right to expect.
Yeah, this will might be part of the campaign, However I don’t think it will go into as much detail as some people would want. I don’t even think it will be broken down as fine as art/engineering/salaries etc. It may just be what is required for I:B game development and business/PR/administrative. We’re certainly not going to put out a pre-KS budget for public review/discussion.
EDIT: iirc, KS requires you to give a risk assessment of your team/project. I know we planned to do this anyways.
So 2014 it is. I-It’s not as if I’ve been keeping money away for over a year for the kickstarter or anything.