OTHER Big Ant Studios Lacrosse - PlayStation3, Xbox360, PC

[BigAntStudios]

Full contact golf?

 

[blockerdave]

Full contact golf?

That was Tiger's speciality, surely? Hole in one... and another one, and another one

 

[mattk]

That was Tiger's speciality, surely? Hole in one... and another one, and another one

Can you play two holes in golf at the same time?

 

[blockerdave]

Can you play two holes in golf at the same time?

depends how well you can handle your club

 

[SpitfiresKent]

It's brutal... I don't think their bravery is at all in question.

I've noticed that no one wears shin guards, not even the goalie.

Ouch.

 

[isrararrafi]

Here's an example of how Kickstarter works:

Creator sets a goal (IE how much they need to make the game).

There are different tiers of donations (for example, ?20 gets you a copy of the game, ?50 gets you that PLUS your face in the game, ?100 gets you those PLUS a custom artbook and soundtrack, ?500 gets you those PLUS a personal video message from the team, ?10,000 and you get to go to dinner with Ross and listed as Exec Producer etc etc)

The campaigns run for 30 days: you pledge your donation and, if at the end of 30 days their target has been met, the money is all taken from donators accounts and delivered to the developer. DONE!

It's fast becoming developer's route of choice: it means you can get all funding up front direct from fans and run the project as you see fit, reporting only to those fans. Plus you retain all the IP.
I reckon about 80% of the projects I see currently are proposing to use Kickstarter (or other crowdfunding sites, but KS is by far the biggest) and a whole new industry has been born in specializing in creating and publicizing these campaigns!

Thank you chief. But i am guessing the developers have to go through some kind of back ground check for their company's validity? Who does that check? How can one know if it is a scam or not?

 

[BigAntStudios]

You can't really, and many are paying to just educate Dev's on just how hard it is to control your own budget.

 

[Chief]

Thank you chief. But i am guessing the developers have to go through some kind of back ground check for their company's validity? Who does that check? How can one know if it is a scam or not?

They have checks and balances in place. But someone with pedigree (IE a whole bunch of games already made) basically sails through that.

I *do* take a slight exception to the language used in the video: calling it a "pre-order" is kinda contrary to the spirit of this. That's why they are called "rewards".
By contributing to a Kickstarter, you don't take the role of "customer": you take the role of "backer". Creative projects are, by their nature, risky: I don't think "pre-order" reflects that.

That said, this is a educated "yes" in terms of trust. They have development pedigree, and they have community pedigree too. The total is inadequate for a cross-platform game and the short turnaround is worrying.
But if you do your diligence (because that's on YOU now, and not a middle-man managing that), they are only asking for HALF the budget required (the rest is covered by personal loans and technology already developed) and their dedication to it is first rate.

Backing stuff on Kickstarter is always a bigger risk, but (although I'd love to have seen either a production plan, or some indication to where the money raised is going) this looks like a lesser risk than most. There's plenty of scams out there. This isn't one of them. I'd still be concerned about the timeframe, and I'd have liked a bigger budget assigned but, overall, this is an impressive campaign from what I've seen.

 

[isrararrafi]

They have checks and balances in place. But someone with pedigree (IE a whole bunch of games already made) basically sails through that.

I *do* take a slight exception to the language used in the video: calling it a "pre-order" is kinda contrary to the spirit of this. That's why they are called "rewards".
By contributing to a Kickstarter, you don't take the role of "customer": you take the role of "backer". Creative projects are, by their nature, risky: I don't think "pre-order" reflects that.

That said, this is a educated "yes" in terms of trust. They have development pedigree, and they have community pedigree too. The total is inadequate for a cross-platform game and the short turnaround is worrying.
But if you do your diligence (because that's on YOU now, and not a middle-man managing that), they are only asking for HALF the budget required (the rest is covered by personal loans and technology already developed) and their dedication to it is first rate.

Backing stuff on Kickstarter is always a bigger risk, but (although I'd love to have seen either a production plan, or some indication to where the money raised is going) this looks like a lesser risk than most. There's plenty of scams out there. This isn't one of them. I'd still be concerned about the timeframe, and I'd have liked a bigger budget assigned but, overall, this is an impressive campaign from what I've seen.

oh no I am not doubting this project. I am doubting about 1000s of other kickstarter projects I hear about every other day on engadget and cnet sites. some of those projects seem very cool. So was wondering how to contribute and the risks associated with these.

 

[BigAntStudios]

They have checks and balances in place. But someone with pedigree (IE a whole bunch of games already made) basically sails through that.

I *do* take a slight exception to the language used in the video: calling it a "pre-order" is kinda contrary to the spirit of this. That's why they are called "rewards".
By contributing to a Kickstarter, you don't take the role of "customer": you take the role of "backer". Creative projects are, by their nature, risky: I don't think "pre-order" reflects that.

That said, this is a educated "yes" in terms of trust. They have development pedigree, and they have community pedigree too. The total is inadequate for a cross-platform game and the short turnaround is worrying.
But if you do your diligence (because that's on YOU now, and not a middle-man managing that), they are only asking for HALF the budget required (the rest is covered by personal loans and technology already developed) and their dedication to it is first rate.

Backing stuff on Kickstarter is always a bigger risk, but (although I'd love to have seen either a production plan, or some indication to where the money raised is going) this looks like a lesser risk than most. There's plenty of scams out there. This isn't one of them. I'd still be concerned about the timeframe, and I'd have liked a bigger budget assigned but, overall, this is an impressive campaign from what I've seen.

Pre-order, reward, whatever you want to call it, you get the game once it's been developed, I don't see the issue.

The total budget is many times the Kickstarter amount being sought, the timeline is longer than the time left to finish the project as the project is already in development and of course relies on technology already created.

 

[Chief]

Pre-order, reward, whatever you want to call it, you get the game once it's been developed, I don't see the issue.

I see what you're saying, but Kickstarter themselves were, at one point, desperate to stress it:
"It's hard to know how many people feel like they're shopping at a store when they're backing projects on Kickstarter, but we want to make sure that it's no one."

Largely, I guess, to re-enforce the fact that they themselves are merely managing the funding and are not at all responsible for delivery of the product. But I think also to make people think about how creative projects work: a pre-order can usually be cancelled at any point if things change later on, but with Kickstarter once you're in, you're in.

Additionally, I just prefer the language of being a "backer" of a project and being "rewarded" with something if and when it comes to fruition, rather than being a "customer" and having an order fulfilled.
It's language more befitting to this sort of community driven funding and a lot more fun.

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The total budget is many times the Kickstarter amount being sought, the timeline is longer than the time left to finish the project as the project is already in development and of course relies on technology already created.

Then my diligence was a fail. I derived all that from things stated by the project creator.

 

[BigAntStudios]

Back/reward - Support/Preorder, I still don't see the big deal, splitting hairs I think.

Perhaps the nature of our project is not typical, it is likely that the majority of the funding is not from the Kickstarter.


PS: People do treat the "reward" as a right and are pissed if they don't get it.

 

[MattW]

I derived all that from things stated by the project creator.

He mentioned in a facebook Q&A that he's taking a personal loan out for more than the kickstarter amount to help fund it, so that would put the budget to at least half a million, more if Big Ant are putting in as well.

 

[Chief]

He mentioned in a facebook Q&A that he's taking a personal loan out for more than the kickstarter amount to help fund it, so that would put the budget to at least half a million, more if Big Ant are putting in as well.

Yeah, he said the total budget of the project was "more than half a million", so I assumed that all told that it was somewhere between $500k and $700k. There was no suggestion otherwise that actually what I was funding was PART of a project, was my point.

 

[BigAntStudios]

He's being pretty open about it in the Q&A and you would have to be pretty na?ve to think you could get a title like this developed for $210,000

Really can't see the issues that are being driven at....