Visual Novel game Kickstarters

[DarkFusion]

Made a topic for this on JAST's forums, but I'm sure everyone here has at least heard of the Kickstarter crowdfunding phenomenon. If not, well here's a good video to explain:

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/crowdfunding

So far I've only been able to find one VN being crowdfunded and it's nearing its end. Here's the link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...?ref=category#

I contributed a bit since I found the premise a bit interesting, but it's your choice if you want to fund it or not.

Still the main purpose for this is basically if there do exist other VN kickstarters then please post them here so we can see if they're worth supporting or not

[dorkatlarge]

The creators of Devil Gene R asked for $10000 in order to fund fully voiced dialogue and opening/ending sequences. Less than $4000 has been pledged with just over a day to go. The creators may have to sell Devil Gene R as an indie game, or drop some multimedia elements. Some low-budget independent games (regardless of genre or style) make money on the merits of their visuals or music, but most live or die on their writing and gameplay.

Would a company or a group be willing use Kickstarter to get funding for localization? That's a good question. The Class of Heroes 2 attempt seems to be a bad precedent. It made $96K, but the goal was $500K. The company behind this effort, Gaijinworks, may have made a lot of mistakes, such as not clarifying for some time whether the funding was only for a physical disc / special edition, or whether an English version of the game was already planned for release on the Playstation Network.

A number of successful Kickstarter video game projects have been created by people who have an established reputation for making quality games. Perhaps a celebrity such as Hideo Kojima or Yuji Naka could succeed... though how many of their games have not been / will not be localized? Some of the other successful people have clearly told the audience what the money will be used for, and why their game will be compelling. If someone wants to localize an untranslated game with Kickstarter, I believe they will have to convince the audience that it will be worth their money.

[Aaeru]

Yeah it's insane. Kickstarter is slowly taking over video gaming and a whole range of other media, from webcomics to podcasts. It is prove that copyright isn't even needed. Creators are creating on the internet through a new business model that isn't based on the selling of copies. In an economy of abundance, copies are overflowing while attention is scarce. Therefore give the content away as a draw of attention to boost your non-free goods.

"Supply is infinite, and price is zero. That does not mean, however, that there's no business. Instead, it just means you need to flip the equation and use the zero to your advantage. Instead of thinking of it as forcing a "price" of zero, you think of it as being a "cost" of zero. Suddenly, you've lowered the cost of making something to nothing -- and you should then try to use as much of it as you can. One simple example of this is to use that item that "costs" zero as a promotional good for something that does not have a zero marginal cost. When you realize how zero factors in, you realize that there's nothing new or radical here at all. It's just coming to terms with the idea that free market economics still works in the face of zero (in fact, it thrives) and there's no reason to put in place government-sanctioned barriers to shape the market. (aka copyright)"

- Mike Masnick, Techdirt CEO

Ten Good Reasons To Buy

yes without copyright we'd see more great projects like this and no one could do anything about it

it's not a VN but i'm half tempted to start one that is if getting five thousand bucks is that easy

also, no one is giving anything away, it's exactly the same as a conventional purchase except (a) you can choose how much you want to pay depending on your reward tier of preference (b) the product doesn't exist yet so you might just lose your money if something goes amiss

[Message]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

it's not a VN but i'm half tempted to start one that is if getting five thousand bucks is that easy

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. 5k is nowhere near enough to produce a high-quality game, even for a VN. A short and enlightening "other side of the story": http://bostinno.com/2012/04/25/kickstarters-dark-side/

Originally Posted by Unregistered

also, no one is giving anything away, it's exactly the same as a conventional purchase except (a) you can choose how much you want to pay depending on your reward tier of preference (b) the product doesn't exist yet so you might just lose your money if something goes amiss

And how would option (b) not be giving money away? The main problem with kickstarter is that it's so enourmously low-threshold that even though the risk of disappointment is relatively great, it quickly feels like a done deal once the funding goal is achieved.

Reputation helps greatly to decrease risk, but work done in the past is much better. Example is the sequel to Titan Quest (*), which is basically already a working game. A goal of 280k for content creation only is far more reasonable than asking 5k for a whole game.

So if I were to use kickstarter for anything, I'd either have a very solid base already finished and ask for a moderate budget, or start a massive ad campaign for a large budget. But I'd do a whole lot of accounting before I'd set the funding goal.


(*) Shameless plug is shameless.

Originally Posted by Message

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. 5k is nowhere near enough to produce a high-quality game, even for a VN. A short and enlightening "other side of the story": http://bostinno.com/2012/04/25/kickstarters-dark-side/

i agree in the event your content is original, but since fuwanovel disavows copyright i assume they would be fully supportive were i to rip the graphics for my VN masterpiece from flyable heart, the music from rance, and use kickstarter mostly to pay for the snacks i would consume while putting it all together

Originally Posted by Message

And how would option (b) not be giving money away?

aaeru stated "Therefore give the content away as a draw of attention to boost your non-free goods", i was replying to that

[Serke]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/e...campaigns-are-

Great article.