to people saying "oh but its in the ToS, they are responsible if they don't deliver"

Can Kickstarter refund the money if a project is unable to fulfill?

No. Kickstarter doesn't issue refunds, as transactions are between backers and the creator. In fact, Kickstarter never has the funds at all. When a project is successfully funded, money is transferred directly from backers' credit cards to the project creator's Amazon Payments account. It's up to the creator to issue a refund, which they can do through their Amazon Payments account. (Like PayPal, Amazon Payments allows refunds for 60 days from the date of charge. After 60 days, creators cannot reverse the same charge to backers' credit cards, so to issue refunds they'll need to initiate a new transaction to send money via Amazon Payments or PayPal, send backers a check, or use another method. Our support team has guided creators in how to issue refunds like these before.)

In other words, good luck getting your money back.  Want to take the project creator to court?  Fine, hire a lawyer to get back your 50 bucks.

I understand what you are saying.  And when you mention Curt Schilling, it shows why exactly we need something like kickstarter.

No one in the right mind will take risk if they have to not only risk their own money but loan money.  Those major studio and game company have their advantage because they are publicly traded company, they get fund through their stock holder.

Now when you mention Curt Schilling and see what happened to him, you can't stop and wonder why be so stupid and take those risk. 

Now, I don't like kickstarter, and I do felt it is kind of a scam.  But when you have to actually spend 3million of your own money and "loan a lot more money" to make a mmorg, will you do it yourself?  I mean you already have to risk your own money.  If things go bad you not only loss everything, you still have so much loan you need to repay.

Kickstarter is a brilliant way to get your game get funded, at least nowadays. There is trust in the developers that they deliver the expected. The developers develop with the money of their audience. There is no one in between who doesn't care about the game, only about the money. But I think kickstarter is far form risk free for the developers, especially those with big names. If these developers can't deliver, or deliver something that is "unplayable", their names are burned for a long time. So, if they want to stay in business, it is in their very interest to deliver quite a polished game. It is not about anger a publisher, it is about losing reputation. The kickstarter hype will cool down when the first projects do not meet the expectations of their backers. But I do not think that CU is one of those projects

Sounds like a big scam to me.

Kickstarting a mmo... goodluck with that one.

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by craftseeker

Originally posted by strangiato2112

A big name in the industry wanting to make a successor to one of the insutry's big names...and he is resorting to public funding?

It doesn't compute.  If he wanted to make a low budget MMO he should have no problem securing funding, and the freedom to make the game he wanted to make.

But instead he is choosing to take advantage of the public, using the Camelot name to secure free capital he doesnt need to pay back.  The whole thing seems off to me.

Just consider: If you use borrowed money, you have incentive to succeed.  If you use free money, then it doesnt matter, you dont have to pay anyone back.

Kickstarter for a startup company of unknown developers is one thing.  For a big name person developing a big name game though...It doesnt add up.

Of course it adds up.

What it adds up to is his inablity to raise venture capital for this proposal.  The capital market, which is more than a little tight at the moment, did not like the ratio between risk and gain.  They do not expect the game to make a huge amount of profit and see some risk (maybe a little maybe a lot) of loosing money on the deal.  Result not enough investors.

Therefore kickstarter or nothing.

So investors dont have confidence in Mark.  Why should consumers then?

If he isnt competent to secure funding for a project like this, he almost certainly isnt competent enough to run a team to develop this.

Hmm you think maybe Mark does not have confidence in publishers ?

I think thats more to the point here. If CU kickstarter fails then Mark will know that the interest in his vision of CU is not what the public wants. If it is sucessful, then he has the go ahead from the playerbase to proceed with his vision of a game he wants to make, not what some PR firm tells some publisher they feel he should make. 

Going forward, in the future i think Kickstarter MMOs should be the litmus test for a developer going forward with new game ideas.

On a side note, Kickstarter will allow game innovation to flourish, and no longer stagnate on the back burners of publishing houses who refuse to attempt new ideas. My personal opinion is that the age of WoW clones is coming to an end finally.

Starts to think they should have named it Scam Starter. If the game flops what do they care? They already have your money. They have no investers wanting captial gain pushing them to get stuff fixed in a timely manner, so in this case they can keep delaying and give up the project completely.

Just need lax investors that  don't try to change a game or push for the release too soon.

Yea I'll be heaps out of pocket if it fails, might have to switch to using 95% petroleum for my car instead of premium to help recoups the huge losses.

Why a kickstarter? Well, like with all equity raising for an investment, it's got to do with whom you want to be held accountable to.

MJ has decided that he wants to be held accountable to the players who will play and support the game, and not some obscure (or non obscure) investor who will start dictating how the game should evolve to secure his investment.

The approach MJ has chosen is the right one imho, and I think that if the gamers trully want to experience alternate-gameplay MMOs that's the only way to achieve it.

Originally posted by Voiidiin

Hmm you think maybe Mark does not have confidence in publishers ?

On a side note, Kickstarter will allow game innovation to flourish, and no longer stagnate on the back burners of publishing houses who refuse to attempt new ideas. My personal opinion is that the age of WoW clones is coming to an end finally.

And raising development money has nothing to do with a publisher.  If Mark wants to self-publish, thats just extra capital to raise.

People are donating to kickstarter without even understanding some basic concepts.

There are 3 basic options for publishing.  Option 1 is what ArenaNet, Mtyhic, Bioware, etc do:  have your parent company publish.  Obviously for a startup company this isnt an option, and this is the one that people hate because this is the case where you have the least freedom.

Option 2 is to strike a deal with someone to publish for you.  the most recent example of this is ArcheAge having Trion publish.  Usually a company will have near complete creative control with this set up, they just lose some of the revenue to the publisher.

Option 3 is to self publish.  Trion and Funcom are two examples.

With or without kickstarter, Mark needs a publishing option.  With or without kickstarter, he would choose 2 or 3, and both options leave him in control.

As for the whole WoW clone thing, last year saw TERA, GW2 and TSW release.  All significantly different than WoW.  The biggest MMO franchise is getting a sandbox.  We have MMOFPSs and a MMORTS in development.  And there have been a few sandboxes over the last few years, but they all have one thing in common:  they suck.  Kickstarter isnt going to solve shitty programming. 

Originally posted by Galadourn

 

MJ has decided that he wants to be held accountable to the players who will play and support the game, 

 

Kickstarter you are held accountable to no one.

It's not the programming, most fail by design.

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by Galadourn

 

MJ has decided that he wants to be held accountable to the players who will play and support the game, 

 

Kickstarter you are held accountable to no one.

 

I'm not referring to legal accountability, I'm referring to design decisions.

Originally posted by Galadourn

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by Galadourn

 

MJ has decided that he wants to be held accountable to the players who will play and support the game, 

 

Kickstarter you are held accountable to no one.

 

I'm not referring to legal accountability, I'm referring to design decisions.

Still not seeing the accountability.  Its not like the money can be pulled back.

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Trion was able to get MAJOR funding for a startup company.  

They were making a themepark, PVE-centered cookie cutter fantasy MMO - a "WoW killer" if you like. Of course they were able to get MAJOR funding for that.

CU is supposed to be a PvP-centered, niche MMO. Why would any publisher want to touch that when they don't even try for a multi-million ROI?

I'm going to back up CU if they will have something solid to show when the campaign launches. Not going to support ideas only, because ideas I can make myself.

Originally posted by strangiato2112

 

Originally posted by Voiidiin

Hmm you think maybe Mark does not have confidence in publishers ?

On a side note, Kickstarter will allow game innovation to flourish, and no longer stagnate on the back burners of publishing houses who refuse to attempt new ideas. My personal opinion is that the age of WoW clones is coming to an end finally.

And raising development money has nothing to do with a publisher.  If Mark wants to self-publish, thats just extra capital to raise.

People are donating to kickstarter without even understanding some basic concepts.

There are 3 basic options for publishing.  Option 1 is what ArenaNet, Mtyhic, Bioware, etc do:  have your parent company publish.  Obviously for a startup company this isnt an option, and this is the one that people hate because this is the case where you have the least freedom.

Option 2 is to strike a deal with someone to publish for you.  the most recent example of this is ArcheAge having Trion publish.  Usually a company will have near complete creative control with this set up, they just lose some of the revenue to the publisher.

Option 3 is to self publish.  Trion and Funcom are two examples.

With or without kickstarter, Mark needs a publishing option.  With or without kickstarter, he would choose 2 or 3, and both options leave him in control.

As for the whole WoW clone thing, last year saw TERA, GW2 and TSW release.  All significantly different than WoW.  The biggest MMO franchise is getting a sandbox.  We have MMOFPSs and a MMORTS in development.  And there have been a few sandboxes over the last few years, but they all have one thing in common:  they suck.  Kickstarter isnt going to solve shitty programming. 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I'm totally clueless on the financial aspect of mmorpg.  Can you explain me the option 2 and 3 example?

Trion is a western publisher of Archage.  But they don't fund the game at all.  All they do is take a completed game, maybe do some translation and sell it to the western audience. 

And isn't funcom a public trading company? They get most of their fund through the public people buying shares of the company. 

So I'm not sure how the case of Camelot Unchain is related to those example.

And I don't understand how company raise funds for their game.  Do they "loan" money, or do they find "partner/shareholder" for it.

Since you sound like an expert in this topic, can you explain?

I read through the whole thread now and I realize most of you guys don't understand the difference between an investment and a loan.

I think that's enough to end this discussion, until you guys do a little reading and learn the difference.

Originally posted by DarkLordIxor

Just need lax investors that  don't try to change a game or push for the release too soon.

Yeah about that...

Good luck.

Originally posted by tom_gore

 

CU is supposed to be a PvP-centered, niche MMO. Why would any publisher want to touch that when they don't even try for a multi-million ROI?

 

 

Because the investment is significantly smaller, DAoC has a great reputation, and PvP-centric MMOs done right can lead to success (EvE).  there is definitely a demand for a DAoC successor.