Dizzy is back?

[Gryzor]

So, in the case of the Oliver Twins, this is not kickstarting a product, but a company, right?  Yup. (not talking about Elite because I'm not familiar with the project...)

[Bryce]

Oh my thats so not true. You're not talking two guys coding and two doing a few graphics. I would imagine the offices are £50k a year. Rates similar. Decent artists will get 30-40k a year, coders more so, plus the people that put the levels together and the producer 20-30k. And these wages are actually low by UK industry standards.
Plus run a server, website and have the physical copies produced.
This project will cost probably more than they are asking
I think we have a real issue that we see so many good people producing stuff for gratis because they love it. Great that we get free stuff but it means we never see anything truely professional or new

You can't include all those costs in the funding. They are already a functioning company with premises, a server and all the rest. The Kickstart funds are supposedly for the game, not to pay the running costs of an existing company.

Bryce.

[Trebmint]

So, in the case of the Oliver Twins, this is not kickstarting a product, but a company, right?  Yup. (not talking about Elite because I'm not familiar with the project...)

You can't say that as nobody here knows the financials. But games cost money to develop, and companies exist by paying workers and taxes and having enough money left over. Doesnt look like it will get funding so who cares.
Kickstarter is great though, and potentially there is something that the bit8 community could do with it

[Trebmint]

You can't include all those costs in the funding. They are already a functioning company with premises, a server and all the rest. The Kickstart funds are supposedly for the game, not to pay the running costs of an existing company.

Bryce.

Running costs are the game costs. If Blitz had say 3 games being developed you'd expect each to generate a percentage to cover the expenditure. Plus remember due to taxes, NI and rents etc the cost of employing somebody isnt just what you pay them. The rule of thumb is that if you pay somebody £20k the actual cost of that one person is £40k
Why are people assuming they've asked too much? They can either reskin an existing spectrum game and run it on an emulator for £50 or nextgen it for hundreds of thousands.
Thats the beauty of Kickstarter though... Dizzy dont look likely to get the funding cos its a crap game. But sad truth is even a crap game would cost half a million pounds or more

[Bryce]

I'm not suggesting they are asking for too much. I just think they are the wrong people to be asking. The "starter" in Kickstarter would imply that it's for people trying to start something, not for companies that have a running business.

Bryce.

[Trebmint]

I'm not suggesting they are asking for too much. I just think they are the wrong people to be asking. The "starter" in Kickstarter would imply that it's for people trying to start something, not for companies that have a running business.

Bryce.

Well thats what Kickstarter is, the games companies are using it to try and circumvent publishers. Blitz aren't exactly the first company trying to get and old game refreshed.

[Puresox]

Just saw another Kickstarter  project for 'Sui Generis' which looks superb , they were asking £150,000. I just can't see why 350,000 is needed for this Dizzy project at all.

[Gryzor]

The Twins came out in defense of their project.

They say it'll take "at least" 12 persons for six months (which sounds a bit like bullcrap, I don't think the audio team will be working for as long as the programmers on it, or exclusively), that's over €70.000 per man-year. And for a company that's already in operation (200 people in there). Still doesn't make sense for me.

@Puresox, just checked out Sui Generis, looks just lovely. Thanks for mentioning it.

[beaker]

..that's over €70.000 per man-year.

I don't understand, do developers on the continent get paid less?

[Bryce]

You're not suggesting that the twins would spend the money foolishly are you Gryzor?

http://www.crashonline.org.uk/96/images/olivers.jpg

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

@Beaker: I'll let someone else answer that, but I'm just saying that bankrolling the entire operation of an *existing* company, no less, is a bit weak. The more I look into it the more I'm convinced that they don't really *need* the money (again: they have a team of 200 persons), they're just testing those Kickstarter waters as an alternative.


@Bryce: At that age? Nah.

[beaker]

I'm sorry but we own/owned the same make of car and that's enough to convince me they are 100% correct!  Thanks Bryce, Gryzor was beginning to win me over 

[Gryzor]

Yeah, but you see, you (say you) are 34. So it makes sense. I wouldn't mind one either

[TotO]

Hum... I suggest that funds not only pay the team... 

Some more little projects as PierSolar HD only need 139K€ as exemple.
Pier Solar HD an RPG for XBOX360, PC, Mac, Linux & Dreamcast by WaterMelon Co. -

How to pay a Team, fees and items with that
It's realy few for a 1 year work. (delivered in December 2013)

[ivarf]

Now I wonder if a Fluff Kickstarter project would get near to the £27.50 needed to fund it haha

Try it, you might get surprised! (and do let us know on this board if you are doing it...)
Another cool project could be a Roland-game for the plus. As Roland changed his appearance in each game, a Fluff-game camouflaging as Roland would work

[TFM]

While all Roland games are really crappy, The Fluff game is very wonderfull. They shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence

Back to KickTopic, ehm Kickstarter... all the money is needed for the parties, just scroll down and read 

[EgoTrip]

@Bryce: At that age? Nah.

Ever heard of a mid life crisis?

[TFM]

Haha, that's just a week. Enjoy ;-)

[STE86]

I think the problem people have with this is basically that using Kickstarter to attempt to circumvent using a publisher to fund a game (by a trading sw house) exposes the following:

That when a publisher funds a sw house 350k for a team to produce a game they would expect some kind of financial return on their investment.
however by using "people" funding, a sw house would (if it happens) get to produce a game for "free" without any real risk or return on anyone's investment. it's just pure profit.

which I have to say I (and it looks like quite a few others) find a touch cynical and just "not cricket"

Steve

edit and i also apply this to David Braben's very mercenary attempt to fund Elite update, which he has had 25 YEARS to do something decent with and failed very time doing it.

[Trebmint]

I think the problem people have with this is basically that using Kickstarter to attempt to circumvent using a publisher to fund a game (by a trading sw house) exposes the following:

That when a publisher funds a sw house 350k for a team to produce a game they would expect some kind of financial return on their investment.
however by using "people" funding, a sw house would (if it happens) get to produce a game for "free" without any real risk or return on anyone's investment. it's just pure profit.

which I have to say I (and it looks like quite a few others) find a touch cynical and just "not cricket"

Steve

edit and i also apply this to David Braben's very mercenary attempt to fund Elite update, which he has had 25 YEARS to do something decent with and failed very time doing it.

Erm thats not how it works. As far as I see it either the Publisher pays you, or the Public on kickstarter pay you. either way you've been paid, so kickstarter is effectively the publishers in that respect.
However once the game is finished the bad thing about Kickstarter from the Developers view is you have to pay for all the TShirts, books, Printing, Server, physical copies of the games, website etc.... but you own the IP and any sales are your profit, whereas the publisher keeps those normally (though royalty schemes do kick in for big sellers).
I really dont see what the issue is... Ok I must admit if Blitz are saying that only 6 staff are working on dizzy for 12 months for £350k... Well thats too much. For me kickstarter should be based on how much do I need to get to a finished game. After that I can sell it and make profit. Profit should not be factored into Kickstarter project itself.
I do wonder however if we could as a community CPC, Speccy and C64 use kickstarter to create a software developer for quality original new games???

[khisanth]

Often these companies claim that kickstarter is also about gauging interest in a project to see if its worth doing or not.  David Braben is asking for loads to do Elite Dangerous and they are a bigish developer so they DO have the funds already for it.

I see a lot of really dodgy kickstarters, usually just people begging for money so you can pay for them to have a good time or do something they enjoy and all you get is thanks!  I dont mind if its to help fund the creation of something and you get something pretty cool in return, anything else is just a con.

[ivarf]

While all Roland games are really crappy, The Fluff game is very wonderfull. They shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence  

Consider when they were released and for which machines to gauge the different brands importance. If Fluff had been a major GX4000 title released early in the platforms life it would have been more important. But the whole CPC+/GX4000 thing flopped.

[Gryzor]

So, with four days to go, they have gathered GBP 25.000 of the 350.000 they asked for. Too bad for the retro scene if you ask me. What an ill-designed endeavor...

[khisanth]

Seems that having no game to show really hurts this kind of thing. also being so close to christmas doesnt help.

Kickstarters like this are great but I dont like how it gets your hopes up and then dashes them when you see the funding isnt there. Maybe we should leave these old favourites in the past and enjoy them as they are. Leave any new ones to homebrew guys to make themselves.

Elite Dangerous is just asking for too much money.

[Puresox]

I think having a more realistic goal, would have been in order.Which they will possibly do in future?