Gauddlike Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Getting a slot in PC Gamer and a few sites like RPS to mention the IGG page would be useful. Get writing and someone is likely to get it mentioned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorlom Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I think it's a terrible idea, first of all it's not likely to generate that much traffic anyway since people would be spreading links to the other site and also it would give a very bad image of the game when it's such an obvious ploy to advertise... Also it's likely to get rejected or removed anyway... It's a good thought but realistically it's not good to do I would say...I don't see why kickstarter would help their competing site by doing anything that would generate traffic for them unless they are insanely nice people and at the end of the day this comes down to money really, it couldn't hurt to ask but not likely to go through I would say It's just stupid that it needs a US citizen really but there's not much to do about it, unless WE generate massive amount of traffic to the indiegogo page then I'm doubting it will get any large amount pledged to it and there needs to be some kind of plan if it fails so this doesn't end up ruining/hurting the project. Slippery slope this! It was a thought and it seems its not good enough ^^ I'm satisfied with haveing discussed it at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Da-Fort Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I don't think I've pledged on Kickstarter before. I'm guessing that if Amazon is their main payment venue that Paypal is unavailable? Sadly I do not have access to anything other than Paypal so even if Kickstarter was available I would not be able to plegde. I do understand that KS has a lot more traffic and credibility. IGG seems like a decent alternative and I would be more than willing to drop another 20 euros when it goes up. Hell, I'd even mention it several times during my Lets Play of Earth 2150 and a new version of Xenonauts or some other random game I decide to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 I don't think setting up an associated but not real Kickstarter page would be a good idea. It'd make us look unprofessional. I think the key would be getting the message out to all the gaming sites so people are aware of it. Most of the attention projects get comes from gaming press coverage rather than people floating around on Kickstarter looking for something to donate to, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorlom Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 (edited) I wasn't talking about associated =P It was meant as a fanmade thing without your involvement Chris. That beeing said it has already been agreed that it's not a good idea. The trouble and potential bad press would (despite not beeing affiliated) would outweigh the benefits. I didn't hat too much hope in the idea and I'm dropping it now. Edited March 29, 2012 by Gorlom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cattletech Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I do believe using KickStarter has much added value. Don't give up on it too soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cane Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Just because Fargo and Shafer did it doesn't mean xenonauts can. A lot of kickstarters don't meat the goals and while I can't say for certain if xenonauts would or not I'm just not sure it's the right way. Sure if there is no other options go on but I would look to solve the money problems in other ways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zecknaal Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Have you guys considered participating in Brain Fargo's "Kick It Forward" campaign? He seems really genuinely excited about crowd-sourced funding, so I don't think it would be a problem that you don't have a Kickstarter account. It might be a good way to generate some publicity. As of now, there are only 17 other projects listed on that website, so it makes you one of a small group of websites people will see every time they view the list of Kick It Forward projects. Presumably you would also stand out as one of the very few high dollar projects on that list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilrathi Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Just because Fargo and Shafer did it doesn't mean xenonauts can. A lot of kickstarters don't meat the goals and while I can't say for certain if xenonauts would or not I'm just not sure it's the right way. Sure if there is no other options go on but I would look to solve the money problems in other ways. True, though it's interesting to note that it's definitely a hot means of raising funds lately (as the FTL and Banner Sage examples show). The article at http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/29/kickstarter-shares-the-effects-of-its-blockbuster-season/ makes some interesting points: "There are a ton of details at Kickstarter’s blog post, but the gist is this: the two biggest projects lately, Double Fine Adventure and Order of the Stick, brought in millions of dollars themselves, but have also produced a halo of funding where there was very little before. In the gaming category, for instance, only one project had reached $100,000 in funding before last month. Since then nine have. And in webcomics, where the Order of the Stick book was categorized, the number of pledges per week, on average, has doubled. They’re not just staying in the original category, either: 22% of each group of original backers have been busy in other categories, backing nearly 2000 projects with over $1m all told. Many of the backers were on Kickstarter for the first time to back the big projects, and these big names on the marquee ended up working as advertisements for the site itself as well." There's something to be said for riding the wave while you can, and if a "smaller" game like FTL can reach $182k funded without the benefit of a game that's as far along as Xenonauts is or the easier-to-sell link with X-Com, I'd think that the recent success of videogames bodes well for Xenonauts. That last paragraph quoted makes an interesting case for the network effects of big projects on feeding people to other projects on Kickstarter, but if we all put effort into mentioning the Xenonauts campaign in the comments for other similar projects on Kickstarter (like on the FTL and Banner Saga comment sections), I think we can capture some of that buzz, too. I like the idea of crowdsourcing funding of games and, while I'm not sure it's definitely a "wave of the future" thing, it certainly seems to be the buzz-y idea for now, and I'm glad to see Xenonauts is jumping aboard (and will be among the first to back it as soon as the project goes up!). -Kilrathi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorlom Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 Hmm just noticed a Swedish guy by the name of Mattias Carlström has a project named "Warbarons" on Kickstarter, and there doesn't seem to be any American in his team.. I wonder how he did it? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1499327409/warbarons-a-classic-turn-based-strategy-game?ref=search Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenospotter Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Thanks to Tim 'KGB' Sowden who helped out with setting up an account for us (only US based people can run kickstarter campaigns for now) From Mattias Carlstrom's user page:http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1499327409 If anyone on the Xenonauts team has someone like that they can set an arrangement with, then they should do it. They've probably already thought of that, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean-Luc Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 Heh, I just came to post this. ^^^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted March 31, 2012 Author Share Posted March 31, 2012 I emailed Brian Fargo asking if he'd be willing to set up a Kickstarter on our behalf if we joined his Kick It Forward pledge, and he didn't bother replying. Yeah, it's frustrating not being able to find a reputable organisation who is willing to help us out because I do think Kickstarter would be a lot better than IGG - but if we're stuck with IGG, we're stuck with it. I'm still reluctant to trust a random individual I've never met with what may potentially be upwards of $100,000! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggarius Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 I get where you're coming from on there Chris. Though, I wonder with everything going on if Brian Fargo has had a chance to check through his email let alone seen yours out of who knows how many emails he's received. Here's hoping he ends up seeing and responding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The New Romance Posted March 31, 2012 Share Posted March 31, 2012 As Ziggarius said, Brian Fargo might be in quite a hurry these days. I'd give him another day or two to get this sorted Also, Indiegogo wouldn't be that bad after all, I mean even if the funding levels stay within its current frame, 10,000 or 12,000 $ wouldn't be half bad either way. Might not be what everyone is wishing for, but it still is some serious money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean-Luc Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 (edited) Yeah, Fargo's probably neck-deep in dev muck. I wonder if a news outlet like Kotaku or RPS might be willing to pick up on this. It'd be great publicity (for both them and X-nauts) and they could get a special thank you in the credits or even the opening splash screen. They could also get first dibs on any preview material though this would all need to be based on trust which can get awkward. There's a number of options one might come up with here but it's difficult to gauge how effective any of them would be and one can't waste too much time on vain pursuits. I dunno. Maybe ask 2K/Firaxis. Edited April 1, 2012 by Jean-Luc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raidsoft Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Can't do anything but second what's been said, he probably haven't seen it so don't assume he has read it and didn't even bother getting back to you. I would probably recommend more direct approaches, phone calls for example, try to get in touch with people around him and possibly having them either point you to who to talk to or have them make sure he knows you are trying to contact him. He's a very popular man and probably busy as hell so don't give up until you've gotten some kind of response or solved it in another way. I also think that that "kick it forward" thing is a great idea for the game industry and solves a lot of problems with developers basically being slaves to publishers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyllan Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 ok chris .......exactly how much money do you need to raise? and what happens to the investors? because there are some people here interested in investing......so how much to get the "right" x com clone.....15k 100k.....? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gauddlike Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Maybe ask 2K/Firaxis. Now that's an idea I like! Would be worth a laugh at any rate, even if it was almost certainly doomed to failure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 I'd expect a lot more than just RPS to pick up on this - if we couple this with the press preview build I'd expect some pretty heavy coverage from a lot of sites. That's why I don't think IndieGoGo would be a disaster, but Kickstarter would just be easier for the more undecided people. A lot of the reason that Xenonauts doesn't get THAT much coverage is because I've not been willing to send out press builds thus far because we're a closed single-player game rather than open-ended games like Minecraft and Terraria etc which can be previewed very early in development. I'm fairly certain we can burst out of our niche pretty convincingly once we're ready to show the game off. Maybe I'll send Brian a twitter message about it, see if I can hook his attention that way. Cyllan, I'm not really sure how much we need. The great thing about the Kickstarter is that it's not really raising investment as such - it's a way to raise the profile of the game and convince more people to pre-order the game (the majority of the funding will come from people pledging in the $20-$30 range in exchange for a pre-order, I think). That means we don't really have to give the investors anything - it's just increasing our sales, which is far more appealing from a business point of view. Except we'll then spend those sales on making the game better. If we make the press preview build pretty good I honestly don't see why we couldn't raise $50,000 to $100,000 based on what other similar projects are raising. I think it'd be much better to crowdsource that than to get it from a single investor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean-Luc Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 (edited) I'd expect a lot more than just RPS to pick up on this - if we couple this with the press preview build I'd expect some pretty heavy coverage from a lot of sites. I meant for them to setup your KS account like you wanted Fargo to do (hence the rest of my post). The whole press/preview thing goes without saying (afaik). Edited April 2, 2012 by Jean-Luc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilrathi Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Chris, Just thinking out loud here, but what about setting up a U.S. company (which can be done pretty cheaply/easily) and having the bank account in its name? You might need a U.S. citizen to help out with it to keep Amazon happy but I would think that you could have a "Xenonauts LLC" bank account that would list you or someone from Goldhawk as a signatory, either individually or maybe alongside the U.S. person - but in any case, that would give you control over the funds once they're in the bank account since the money would be deposited into that account and need you to sign off in order for it to be spent. Obviously, you'd need to look into the tax/accounting implications of this, but typically LLCs (limited liability companies) aren't taxed themselves but just subject to the individual taxes applicable to the members, which you'll likely have to address one way or another anyway. -Kilrathi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 The US company wouldn't help (and can't be set up that quickly either), as I'd still need a US-based person to do the Kickstarter. That just puts me back to square 1 unfortunately. @Jean-Luc - RPS are British as well, I'm afraid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorlom Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 The great thing about the Kickstarter is that it's not really raising investment as such - it's a way to raise the profile of the game and convince more people to pre-order the game (the majority of the funding will come from people pledging in the $20-$30 range in exchange for a pre-order, I think). That means we don't really have to give the investors anything - it's just increasing our sales, which is far more appealing from a business point of view. Except we'll then spend those sales on making the game better. Are you sure about that Chris? A few of the projects I've looked at seems to have had the raised funds divided by the number of contributers to be a tier or 2 above just preordering the game. I'm most probably missunderstanding you but I'm just confirming that you intend to include higher tier rewards =P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The New Romance Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I read an article on the most profitable Kickstarter pledge tiers the other day, must've been in RPS' Sunday Papers (no, I just checked, it wasn't). Someone did the maths: the #1 chosen tiers were in fact those in the 15 to 30 $ range, but the money came from the 50 - 100 $ - fewer people selected them, but not proportionally fewer people, so that they all in all generated more money. Sucks that I can't find the article again, was quite interesting. EDIT: Ah-ha! There we go http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/trends-in-pricing-and-duration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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