The interesting thing is that the above is how the place I work makes a living. We present investors with the possibility of getting something nice, they give us money. Not sure how Research Institutes work in Germany, but I think it's a similar method, isn't it?
Then again, when a lab fails to deliver time and time again, funding stops, while if the lab does pull through consistently (or half the times), funding will continue. How is that different from Kickstarter?

That's kickstarter described right there. There's a reason why I have only backed a single project so far.

Kickstarter is nothing but empty promises. DF showed up, empty handed, with absolutely no work done to date, and asked for money. Most kickstarters are like that. Not to mention, there already are places where you can get producs and services, and kickstarter is not it. If the entire point of kickstarter was a glorified preorder service, it would be pointless. If you want a product, you don't help a fund a game, you wait until it gets done and you buy it then. Thinking 'I will give them money and surely, they will keep their word and do precisely what they have told us!' is naive at best.

(I think the kickstarter of Tides of Numenera was even worse: with a couple of big names and some nice images look what they got!)

Although failure of kickstarters or disappointment in the results is a sad thing, I think anyone condemning kickstarter for that is missing the point. At least for me, I'm funding those games because I would love to see games/more games of those particular concepts, and kickstarter has certainly shown bigger developers that there are concepts out there that could still pull quite a crowd and really deserve more interest.

This.

As an aside, I backed the game. I knew when I backed it there might be issues. Hey, you pay your money you take your chances.

But (as others have said) I do think we're kinda seeing how the stereotypical attitude of publishers towards the unknown began:

Developer: Hey, we've got this idea for a new game. Take a look.
Publisher: Wow, I like it! It's original, it's a great story, yeah... How much to make it a reality?
Developer: Well, we've crunched some numbers, and we could do it for about $500k.
Publisher: Hmm... Okay, here's a million, just in case. Make it happen.
[eighteen months later]
Developer: Hey, you know that game we were making?
Publisher: Cyrillic Megabiff? Yeah, we can't WAIT to see it!
Developer: Well... we've hit a snag. We need another two million to finish it.
Publisher: Err...

[New pitch meeting]
Developer: Hey, we've got an idea for a new game. Take a look.
Publisher: Hmm... Well, we appreciate the ambition, but in our experience these things are far too expensive to make, and don't make enough back to cover the budget. If you take out features four, six and seven, we might be able to do business.
Developer: But... that would make it just like Paintball 2012!
Publisher: We know. Have you seen the sales figures for that thing? Look, do you want to make the game or not?
Developer: Well...
Publisher: Great! We'll set up a meeting to plan out the next year or so of deadlines. It would be advisable to not miss any.
Developer: But... but that's not our...
Publisher: Excellent. See you tomorrow!

Ah, well.

Knobhead = Dickhead.

Edit: I'm not calling you a dickhead, just explaining what you wanted to know :)


Oh, Herrgott nochmal! Right, kid gloves are coming off.

Look, I'll put it in simple fucking terms for you as you're either too fucking stupid to understand or too fucking indoctrinated to want to.

WHEN YOU HAVE A FIXED BUDGET WITH NO SECURED INCREASES ON THAT BUDGET, YOU DO NOT WORK BEYOND THAT BUDGET. YOU PLAN YOUR PROJECT TO WORK WITHIN THAT BUDGET.

It really isn't a difficult fucking concept. This is a Kickstarter. They have no publisher they can go running to for more money as Double Fine have done in the past. If the money is gone, it's game over. Literally. No game. Finito. Get it into your thick skull.

That is the end of the discussion as far as I'm concerned.

So, he suggests the shape of your head resembles a penis. Perhaps he means you will have a lot of success with the ladies?
Yeah, it would be kind of funny if the DF adventure got its last third more or less cut off and rushed, with DF saying 'we weren't able to secure more funding' :-P

The point of Kickstarter is to help create products. That's what the site is about, how it's defined. It just doesn't guarantee that the product will actually be created. In the case of DF, the product was two-fold, a documentary and a game. The documentary certainly exists and has been / will be delivered. The game will probably be, but that's not 100% guaranteed.

I've backed a lot of Kickstarter projects. Several of them delivered results. Most of them, games in particular, take a lot longer to deliver than originally estimated. It still seems that the developers are working on them though. I haven't backed one which really failed to produce anything, i.e., declared the project is dead or had no more communications -- although sometimes months pass without anything from the devs and I get worried.

Or they put a TV style cliffhanger with the words "To be continued... (when we've got enough money)" :-p

Are you arguing with the fact that developers put more money into their projects than they get on Kickstarter?

I know, but he makes it sound like it's some artist welfare program where it's insane to expact a finished product in the end. Kickstarter is all about being a small-scale investor with no securities. The onl difference between KS and gettign a real investor is that there are no legal consequences if you fail, but that doesn't make you any less of a failure.

Oh come one, this is not a research instutute researching new technology, it's some guys making a video game. more precisely one of the oldest know types of computer games by video game making veterans. If you can't deliver under those circumstances you should just stop making games entirely and get a job doing something useful instead of wasting people's money.

Oh I never said you should be fine with devs not delivering, but DF actually is delivering a product - not quite what they've had in mind at the beginning, but they will deliver. As for quality of the product, well - there's absolutely no way to judge it now, is there?

Edit: Perhaps I should elaborate: You should not be fine with developer not putting your money in the product that you gave him money for. As long as he does and the project fails nevertheless, well... That's tough, but it happens.

No, I'm arguing with this bizarre notion that you and especially Mrstarker seem to be conveying that a developer can somehow put more money into a project that they actually have at their disposal. I'm really not one to suffer fools gladly, especially when people are ignoring fundamental mathematical truths to come to their misguided conclusion.

Once again for the back row who apparently weren't listening: And once again, for clarity: This is not about them using up only the backers' money. It's obvious that every project may overrun, and they may end up digging into other (secured!) sources of funding - either their own assets, or a publisher, or an investor, or a sponsor. Large projects are rarely financed by a single entity. It's the fact that there is a big question mark hanging over whether the KS money + tip jar + DF's own assets are enough to complete the project.

I was pretty sure it wasn't a compliment, but it didn't seem to jive with the rest of his post.

I forget sometimes that knob is more formally recognized in commonwealth nations than in the US.
I'm still pissed off that we didn't get Commander Keen 6, even though it was supposed to be out 20 years ago and they could have easily done it.

Ah, okay, so I just didn't understand what you were saying.

Yes, looks like DF is eating its cash reserves, and that's not a good thing. If that's what you're trying to say, then we can leave it at that, and stop this silly argument which uses a lot of needless and insulting words to state that.