OTHER Big Ant Studios Lacrosse - PlayStation3, Xbox360, PC

[BigAntStudios]

yeah, way better than we do for sure

Plus I can vouch that he is for real, as in he means business, dreaming big - that's why we are working with him.

 

[BRAB]

Do you think that the kickstarter will hit it's target Ross? Do you know if anything is in the works to further boost it's awareness?

 

[BigAntStudios]

It's going to be tough but if anyone can push through the current lull it will be Carlo.

 

[blockerdave]

from what I have seen, he needs a couple of corporates to take a punt on the big pledge for the advertising and it will ramp it up. sounds like he's on that, judging from the comments.

i'd be surprised if they don't. even a niche sport in America is still a huge market, dollars-wise, and lacrosse is an affluent sport. what is it he's asking, ?10k for stadium advertising? be hugely surprised if a lacrosse equipment manufacturer wasn't interested in a nibble at that.

 

[BigAntStudios]

What it will show if it doesn't make is the true value of 230k+ likes on the Lacrosse page.

He should make it though, he's a fighter for sure

 

[isrararrafi]

Would have been surprised if the pledges didn't slow down like it did now. I am sure it will get another huge push by the end of the month when the deadline gets very close. Even people who already donated will donate even more to cross that threshold.

 

[Chief]

Would have been surprised if the pledges didn't slow down like it did now. I am sure it will get another huge push by the end of the month when the deadline gets very close. Even people who already donated will donate even more to cross that threshold.

That's usually how it works: most of the pledges are made at the beginning or the end of the project and it goes very quiet in the middle. If you can hit 50% by half-way, that's usually a good indication that you will be successful.
It usually picks right up when people can see the end in sight, and especially if it looks like it's getting close to funded.

I'm not sure if corporate entities would fund stuff on Kickstarter: those deals would almost certainly be made offline normally. Will be interesting to see if they go for that.

 

[blockerdave]

I'm not sure if corporate entities would fund stuff on Kickstarter: those deals would almost certainly be made offline normally. Will be interesting to see if they go for that.

Do you think it's a "waste" then having the more expensive, advertising themed rewards? I thought - and this is based on basically zero knowledge - these must be specifically geared at corporates. Even if I had 10k to drop on a lacrosse game, having "blockerdave - hey ladies" on the advertising in the stadiums is of limited use to me. But having "blockerdave's lacrosse sticks, Chicago" all over the stadiums would seem a pretty cheap deal... Though not really as I actually make gloves and am based out of Buffalo.

 

[MattW]

I imagine with something like Kickstarter a company would be pledging mostly in return for the goodwill among a really Lacrosse mad fan base.

With other games I was under the impression the advertisers included in the games were doing it on a mostly in kind basis - promoting officially licensed kit items and the realism that creates is of a benefit to the game as much as it is to the licensor, so I doubt many companies are paying to get their brand in on that basis alone.

Obviously adboards as live paid advertising like in a lot of racing games is the more lucrative approach.

 

[Chief]

Do you think it's a "waste" then having the more expensive, advertising themed rewards? I thought - and this is based on basically zero knowledge - these must be specifically geared at corporates. Even if I had 10k to drop on a lacrosse game, having "blockerdave - hey ladies" on the advertising in the stadiums is of limited use to me. But having "blockerdave's lacrosse sticks, Chicago" all over the stadiums would seem a pretty cheap deal... Though not really as I actually make gloves and am based out of Buffalo.

It won't be a waste if people sign up! However, past experience tells me that $10k is a lot of money to pay to advertise in a videogame. It's a really hard thing to measure success, and most companies are pretty risk averse at the moment. In addition, they normally think their product highly superior to yours: In the overwhelming majority of cases it would be the other way around, the dev paying to feature a company in the game...

Those big rewards are very tough to judge. Most of the time I'm advising clients to use these for an *experience* that normal money just can't buy. In fact, that applies throughout the rewards. For example: The "be in the game" rewards would have been more appealing if the editor (where you can simply do it yourself once the game comes out) was not there.
This ties in to my whole Kickstarter vs Pre-Order thing: If your "rewards" encourage people think that it's just a pre-order, then they are more likely to wait and pre-order later! By having "pledges" and "rewards" I think you make clearer that they CANNOT afford NOT to pledge, or the game will not get made.

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I imagine with something like Kickstarter a company would be pledging mostly in return for the goodwill among a really Lacrosse mad fan base.

With other games I was under the impression the advertisers included in the games were doing it on a mostly in kind basis - promoting officially licensed kit items and the realism that creates is of a benefit to the game as much as it is to the licensor, so I doubt many companies are paying to get their brand in on that basis alone.

Obviously adboards as live paid advertising like in a lot of racing games is the more lucrative approach.

Adboards like that are more popular because it's generally cheaper (because you can pull it almost immediately at any point!) and provide metrics: they are very cleverly tracked so that you can target particular demographics, you can see how many times a particular ad has been seen etc. This makes companies more comfortable than a all-inclusive deal.

 

[blockerdave]

cheers chief, that's a really interesting perspective, and tells me lot of stuff i didn't know - thanks.

by waste, i meant more that if they have factored selling say 2 of the biggest rewards into the target they set, not selling them leaves a huge gap to fill - it's a lot of console rewards to sell at $45 to hit 20k. with kickstarter being "all or nothing" i'd rather set the target lower and go after potential big investors "off line". simply because if you look at all the bigger rewards showing none sold, it doesn't make the campaign look as positive.

however, the issue of who is benefitting most, the developer or the kit licensor and so who should pay, that's something i hadn't thought of. personally, and i don't know how typical i am, but as anyone has seen with my disdain for Mike Fegan's relentless "over 200 kit items" spiel, it makes not a jot of difference to me. I do want real player names/faces, and approximately right kit colours etc. (knowing they will change patterns all the time i don't care much about that) but whether they have a "real" gray nicholls bat or addidas boots? literally couldn't care less.

i agree 100% about the idea that the reards should go beyond just what you "could" buy at any time. it's probably the weakest part of the offering in this one. that being said, it's hard to think of what you could offer for $45 that wouldn't take up more time than it's worth.

 

[BigAntStudios]

The slight difference is that you can make yourself later, which may be downloaded, but the reward is that your likeness ships with the game to everyone.

 

[Chief]

The slight difference is that you can make yourself later, which may be downloaded, but the reward is that your likeness ships with the game to everyone.

Good point. Interesting to see that's a very popular option. Some of that could be down to the fact that people want/can afford to donate more than the lower prices. Not sure how compelling being in the shipped game is: especially given that you have to create it yourself anyway.
If applied to Cricket, how many people here would pay $20 extra to have their CA player included in the shipped game? I mainly ask these questions as I have a couple of games which are just working on their rewards schemes.

Digital rewards are obviously great: whilst physical rewards have more impact, they are a logistical nightmare and the funds required to fulfill them makes the target total so much bigger. (The bigger nightmare is when people forget to factor these in at all, and run out of money!)

 

[MattW]

If applied to Cricket, how many people here would pay $20 extra to have their CA player included in the shipped game?

I'd certainly have paid that to get my rather obscure last name into the commentary, which is imo the more important part of the $45 pledge level for this game.

Perhaps if your last name is Tindoolka or something else very common it's not going to be that popular, but for a lot of us, it's a really nice touch.

 

[Chief]

I'd certainly have paid that to get my rather obscure last name into the commentary, which is imo the more important part of the $45 pledge level for this game.

Perhaps if your last name is Tindoolka or something else very common it's not going to be that popular, but for a lot of us, it's a really nice touch.

That's an excellent point. Especially important are the bits that you can ONLY get in the game through reward.