Comments on: Will Kickstarter usher in the age of boutique gaming?

By: Tipa

Tipa — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:02 +0000

It just leads back to the post. No real use for it…

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:04:36 +0000

What’s that QR code for ? Can you please explain? Kind regards, Like your site.

By: Tipa

Tipa — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 11:52:02 +0000

When you hit that kind of money, you’re talking more about assets than anything else. Rights to use a specific game engine. Voice overs. Huge, huge worlds. Recognizable songs. With a low budget, you don’t get any of that. You might have all the gameplay, but none of the extras.

Look at SWTOR. By committing themselves to voiceovers in multiple languages for every piece of content, they have tied themselves to having the most expensive content in the industry. Yet this is what people want from a Bioware game — so they have to pay that money to give fans what they want.

By: bhagpuss

bhagpuss — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 09:45:35 +0000

The question I’d ask is do the $20 million games need to cost $20 million? From a consumer’s perspective, are games utterly different from movies or music?

A summer blockbuster movie could cost $100m -$200m. An arthouse, festival favorite could cost $1-$2m (or a lot less). Madonna’s new album costs I don’t know how many million dollars, an indie-folk critical success costs, what, a thousandth of that?

The difference is the cost of the tools and the willingness of the creators to work for love, pride or vision. Changes in technology put film and music-making in the hands of the creators at a tiny fraction of the previous industry cost. Has a similar change not yet filtered through into games technology? If it hasn’t, will it?

By: Tipa

Tipa — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:54:55 +0000

I really think the scope for these games is going to be very well-defined. And the games themselves will be smaller than people expect. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; gamers today are far less patient than gamers of twenty years ago.

By: pasmith

pasmith — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 04:22:31 +0000

I wonder how much of Brutal Legends’s $20 million went to licensing and paying talent? How much does Ozzie Osborne get paid to have his voice and likeness in a game?

Still, the point is well taken. I think that’s why so many of the Kickstarter projects we’re seeing are 2D or 2.5D… the assets are just a lot cheaper to produce and the engine is no doubt easier to build.

By: Wilhelm Arcturus

Wilhelm Arcturus — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 02:38:55 +0000

It will be interesting to see what happens when the first few of these games come out… or don’t come out. Rare, after all, is the tale of a project that comes in on time or under budget. Will people feel proud to have been a part of making it happen or disappointed with the end result?

I suspect that we are seeing a rush of enthusiasm due to the novelty. It will be a fad with a few big successes… like Facebook games or iOS games… and then settle down to a sustainable pace, where the few who can draw attention and execute will be able to pull it off.