How Kickstarter Could Ruin Video Games

Until relatively recently, Kickstarter.com was unbeknownst to the majority of the gaming world. Sure it had funded a few projects here and there but ever since Tim Schafer and Double Fine decided to use the website to help fund an upcoming project, Kickstarter has become more and more popular with smaller developers looking to fund their games. And now it has the potential to ruin the gaming industry.

[NYC_Gamer]

Greedy publishers ruin the game industry with lack of taking chance/blocking new fresh creative ideas....Indie studios are now on KS because of that reason...

[Majin-vegeta]

^^^This bub+

[Eades]

We're not seeing tiny indy studios have great success on Kickstarter. It's the already well established publishers, like Double Fine, who shouldn't need to use KS at all but are raising millions and millions of dollars past their donation goals (which they shouldn't need in the first place).

[Mythicninja]

Stopped reading when the guy said that they are no longer are accountable to the consumer. If they ever want another kickstarter again, or future business you better believe they are accountable

[Fatty]

"On paper, Kickstarter seems like a great idea, but so does communism"

So witty! He should write for the Internet!

"Upon the game’s release that game is going to sell relatively few copies as everyone who is interested will already own the game. Essentially a developer already knows how many copies they are going to sell as they have already sold them."

I help run a small business and I can say with certainty that I would love to know how well a product will initially sell, as well as getting the money for it up front to then pay for production and distribution. The fact that they can get an immediate revenue stream has to be reassuring; rather than blowing a lot of resources on a project that ends up getting no marketing support and thus doesn't sell well, they have cash up front and a known sales level.

I don't see how this makes them unaccountable to gamers, either. If a company releases a sub-par product using Kickstarter funds, they'll never be able to use that tactic again, and even more likely won't get any major publishers to help them out.

The major publishers are already unaccountable to gamers, because as long as they make their sales off of 1) games that change little from year-to-year, 2) overpriced DLC, 3) online passes, the stockholders are happy. Who cares about the cash machines... sorry, customers, in that situation?

The Kickstarter system is going to get a lot of games that otherwise wouldn't have a chance to be published, and while there's bound to be some stinkers, I think it's going to result in much more interesting products and more choices for gamers.

[Fatty]

Also, "If we want to preserve the industry developers need to stick to the traditional method of developing a game and then attempting to sell it at a profit."

Given how many gamers hate the direction EA, Activision, Capcom, and other major publishers have taken the industry, treating customers as cash machines, I don't think many want to keep the system preserved in its current form.