Kickstarter - You're Doing it Wrong

In a perfect world, Kickstarter would give traditional-style funding a run for its money, resulting in perfect profits for developers and tailor-made games for the fans. However, ours is far from a perfect world, and Kickstarter has a long way to go before it can be considered a viable alternative in games development. I believe there are three big obstacles standing in the way of that: Big Names, Big Ideas and Big Fans.

Let's start with Big Names: I am talking about big, well-established game creators taking to Kickstarter to fund their projects. Tim Schafer, Keiji Inafune, Richard Garriott - these are all people who have used their "star power" to smash Kickstarter records as their legions of fans lined up to throw money at them. I'm of the opinion that these big names should not be allowed on the service at all. Kickstarter should be a place where up-and-commers, looking to break into the industry with an interesting new idea, can float that idea to everyday schmoes like you and me, who then decide if it's something worth backing.

"[Kickstarter] should not be a place for Keiji Inafune to get easy money for another Mega Man game"

It should not be a place for Keiji Inafune to get easy money for another Mega Man game. Keiji Inafune is Keiji fucking Inafune. His Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter raised over half a million dollars in a single day. It hit its funding goal within a week. And no one should have been surprised by this. Wow, you managed to raise a boatload of money for what is essentially an HD remake of a game that has millions of followers and is widely regarded as a cult classic? Well done. The only thing easier would be raising money for an Ocarina of Time remake. People with as much pull as Inafune should not be on Kickstarter. If Inafune can't find someone outside of Kickstarter to back his Mega Man remake then he's doing it wrong.

(Not Mega Man)

Richard Garriott also raised almost $2 million for his Kickstarter project. Do you know what Richard Garriott does in his spare time? He goes to space. The guy who can afford to go to space and has more money than you or I will ever see in our entire lifetimes needs a Kickstarter to raise funds? You've got to be kidding me.

Tim Schafer's Kickstarter tells a similar story, raising an unreal $3 million for something that’s just a concept. People threw money at Broken Age before it even had a God-damn title. You're telling me you had so little faith in finding someone to invest in a Double Fine adventure game that you had to take it to Kickstarter? Bullshit. If your obscure, action-adventure/RTS hybrid that no-one asked for, Brutal Legend, can find funding through official channels, then the adventure game that fans have been begging for since Grim Fandango sure as hell should be able to.

"People threw money at Broken Age before it even had a God-damn title"

Schafer's story also ties in to our next point perfectly: Big Ideas. Schafer asked for $400,00 for what was basically a gleam in his eye. He got eight times that amount. So what does he do? Humbly accept the money and deliver the most awesome game his fans could ask for? No. The guy says that it's still not enough. I'm sorry, but if three million dollars can't make your game, you should not be shilling that game on Kickstarter. Star Citizen has raised $17 million, and Chris Roberts has the nerve to say he avoided the publisher route because he thought it would be too "niche" of a game. Kickstarter is to kickstart projects, not provide an endless stream of money for you to waste on Big Ideas.

Tim Schafer

Big Ideas also refers to the cautionary tales of failed projects. American McGee's failed OZombie Kickstarter is representative of this, something that the developer actually admits himself - These kinds of Big Idea games are simply too big for Kickstarter. I'm also talking about projects that meet their goals, and then don't deliver on the product. Giving money to a project on Kickstarter is essentially an investment with no return - if the Kickstarter succeeds, you will, at most, get your money back, and if it fails, your money’s lost forever. There's no real incentive for fans to back a project on Kickstarter, especially when the Big Names raising millions more than what they ask for are hogging the spotlight.

I'm sure a lot of you are reading this and saying, "But Steven, the biggest draw of Kickstarter is that the fans get to help design the game," to which I retort: "I can think of nothing more horrifying than fans having a say in game design."

Big Fans are probably the worst part about Kickstarter. I'm going to put this out there, and I dare you to disagree with me: most people that post anything on the internet are morons. Don't get me wrong; there is are a lot of fantastic gems hiding out there, great ideas from brilliant people, but the overwhelming majority of it is crap. Don't believe me? Go to YouTube, look through the most recent video uploads. Start from the top and watch every video, start to finish, until you find one that's good. I challenge you to find a single entertaining video before you gouge your eyes out with a rusty spoon.

Fan feedback

Do you really want these people having their hand in game design - the immature, moronic, racist, sexist assholes who inhabit the likes of Xbox Live and the YouTube comments section? If you're saying, "But Steven, these people would never donate money on Kickstarter," then I would call you a naive fool. Consider, for example, the nasty snare the Skullgirls IndieGoGo campaign hit thanks to “these people.”

Basically, the Skullgirls crowdfunder promised two "Mystery Characters" that all backers would be able to vote on. So what do you think happened when some backers' favorite characters got voted out? That they took it in stride and decided that though their favorite character was no longer in the race, they would keep supporting the developer and its vision anyway? Maybe in the land of sunshine and rainbows, but in the real world they took their ball and went home, demanding refunds when their characters of choice got knocked out of the vote. It got to the point where PayPal froze all of the campaign's funds due to chargebacks.

"Simply put, fans don't know what the fuck they are talking about"

And these are the people that I am supposed to trust with major decisions about game development? No fucking way. The Xbox One, which admittedly didn't have the greatest PR team, tried to do something drastically different and original, but was met with so much hatred and nerdrage that it has since reverted to the exact same thing as the PS4. Even the Kinect, which is one of the only things left that sets it apart from the competition, is still under intense pressure from "fans" to be removed. If you look at the film industry, you’ll see the same effect. Ben Affleck being cast as Batman was met with a wave of internet QQ, despite this actually being a pretty good choice considering Affleck's prior acting and directing accolades, his great love of comic books, and his physical appearance.

Instant nerdrage, just add Twitter

Henry "I invented the weekend" Ford said it best: "If I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said 'a faster horse.'" Simply put, fans don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Yes, listening to fan and player feedback is very important, but being beholden to your fans is a very scary scenario. Call of Duty "fans" sent death threats to developers when they applied minor tweaks to some Black Ops II weapons. Can you imagine a world where such people actually have a hand (however minor) in the development of a video game?

These are the three big problems I have with crowd-funding. I'm sure in time, when Big Name developers stop using it as their personal piggy-bank, Big Ideas make way for Realistic Ideas, and Big Fans learn to stop destroying everything they love, Kickstarter will become a very common alternative path for game development. I don't believe Kickstarter will ever replace traditional publishers, nor do I think it should. It has its place in the games industry, but it is a far cry from the be-all-end-all that people make it out to be. It also somewhat baffles me that we have become such a consumerist society, that people are willing to pay for products that don't even exist yet… perhaps a topic for another post!

Just some food for thought.

-Steven

Author's note: Thanks for reading guys. As always, if you want to tell me I'm a fucking moron please take to the comments section below, any feedback or criticism is welcome.

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OPINION: Are we living in the last console generation?

The original Nintendo was released in America in 1985. The Super Nintendo followed just six years afterward in 1991. The Nintendo 64 released five years later in 1996. There were six years between the Playstation 1 (1994) and Playstation 2 (2000), and the original Xbox (2001) and the Xbox 360 (2005) were separated by just four years. It’s now been almost seven years since the Xbox 360 began the last console generation, and there has been no sign -- short of a few unconfirmed rumours -- of Sony and Microsoft even developing new consoles. Where is the next console generation?

The original Xbox and the Xbox 360 were separated by only four years.

Before we get any further, I’d like to appease all the frothing Nintendo fanboys who are moments away from sending me a strongly worded letter/angry e-mail/death threat. I know the Wii U is set to release this November. However, with graphical capability barely above what current-gen consoles offer, and a launch lineup consisting mostly of ports of current-gen titles, I feel that the Wii U is simply Nintendo finally deciding to join us in the present console generation.

The WiiU's graphical capability is comparable to the current generation

So why are Sony and Microsoft so hesitant to start a new generation? For the answer, you need look no further than their yearly revenue streams. Sony only started making a profit on their latest machine two years ago, and the Xbox 360 was actually sold at a loss for several years before they were able to turn any profit. For either of these companies to even announce a new console now would decimate the relatively small profits they have made. But while Nintendo relies solely on video games as a bread winner, both Sony and Microsoft have alternate sources of revenue. Video games are more of a side job for them, so why even bother making another console when A. It’s so damn expensive, and B. Nintendo and PC platforms like Steam can do it cheaper and better? If they can simply ride the current generation out for five, even ten more years, why not? And why did they even get into video games in the first place if it’s so unprofitable?

Despite the PS3's much criticized $599 launch price, it was still sold at a loss

To answer that, we have to wind the clock all the way back to the days of the N64 and the PS1. Back then, consoles were the be-all and end-all of gaming, and huge profit machines. When Nintendo had a bit of a flop with the GameCube in the following generation, Microsoft decided they wanted a piece of the gaming pie and came along to pick up the slack. Then there was the PS2, which was so incredibly successful that it outsold the PS3 for years after its release. It also proved that consoles could capture the elusive ‘casual’ market of gamers with ‘party’ titles like Buzz, SingStar and Guitar Hero, and the following generation was eager to capitalize on this. Look no further than the Wii, which was almost entirely marketed to casual gamers, as well as Microsoft’s Kinect attachment and Sony’s Move controller. Just a few years ago, consoles were top shit, and every man and his dog was lining up to grab the newest Mario or Call of Duty.

The Wii had a strong focus on 'casual' gamers

So what happened? Facebook happened. Or more appropriately, Farmville happened. Companies like Zynga also wanted a piece of the previously ignored ‘casual gamer’ crowd and decided the best way to do it was not to force them into buying a room full of plastic instruments, but rather to give them free games through a platform they already own (the PC) and then sucker them into paying for extra content. Needless to say, they were incredibly successful. Basically, all of the casual gamers suddenly got up and said ‘Hey, why are we buying all these consoles and subscriptions when we can just play games on Facebook for free?’ The rising popularity of smartphones and blockbusters like Angry Birds also contributed to this. Similarly, many ‘enthusiast’ and ‘hardcore’ gamers saw the falling cost of PC hardware and rising prevalence and improvement of PC platforms like Steam as a time to finally join the PC Gaming Master Race.

Farmville took the gaming world by storm

So now we reach the present, with Microsoft and Sony plinking along with their aging hardware, issuing fairly regular console ‘redesigns’ aimed at tricking people into thinking their boxes are newer than they actually are, while much of their user base is slowly getting wise to the fact that a mid-range ~$500 PC will outperform even the elitist of Xbox Elites. Both companies are either losing or barely making money, so why would they bother making a new generation? My prediction is that the PC will once again take the crown as the dominant form of  gaming. This is already starting to happen, with developers like DICE and EPIC putting the PC first and foremost, and with the explosive popularity of recent PC exclusives like Diablo III and DoTA 2. I think that the Wii U still has a place due to its interesting gimmicks that offer a completely different play-style to the PC and because people like having a ‘party console’ that can do local multiplayer, but I feel like there is no room in the gaming world for consoles that essentially function as watered-down PCs

Epic Game's Fortnite is being developed primarily for the PC

If we could wind the clock forward a couple years, who knows what we might find? Maybe Sony and Microsoft will squeeze out another generation, but I really doubt there will be another one after that. The advancements of cloud computing and initiatives such as onlive seem to suggest that in the future, ‘consoles’ will simply be a service that is sold to us directly through our TV’s or PC's, much like a netflix subscription. It’s kind of funny to think that these days, your grandma doesn't know what an Xbox is, but by the time we become grandparents ourselves, our grandkids will be asking us about the funny little boxes we used to have to plug into our TV’s to play games.

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OPINION: Hey, publishers, want people to pirate your game? Impose region restrictions.

In the past year or so, something completely unprecedented in the entire history of PC games has started to become common practice. I'm talking, of course, about region locking. It's made most bizarre by the fact that consoles, the very things that facilitated region locking in the first place, are actually moving away from it, with the PS3 being completely region free and the Xbox 360 having a sizable chunk of its library region free. Both the PS4 and the Xbox One will be completely region free. To understand why it IS happening, we must first understand why it SHOULDN'T be happening.

Being an Australian, this is a very common sight on the Steam Store

Let's travel back in time to when personal consoles were first starting to gain popularity. Back then, people had those big ugly blocks that our parents called 'analogue TVs' or just 'TVs'. Analogue TVs were split into two major broadcasting encodings: PAL, which is used in Australia and Western Europe, and NTSC which is used in America. There was also NTSC-J for Japan. Basically, all of these encodings have slight differences, such as an increased or decreased frame rate, which meant that creating a 'one-size-fits-all' game for all of them was impossible. Every game had to be modified for its respective region, and thus, 'region locks' were born.

But back here in the present, the majority of people serious about gaming have upgraded to a digital, High Definition TV. In fact, some countries such as Japan, have already completely switched over to digital, meaning you can't even get a signal on a standard analogue TV. Accordingly, there is no legitimate reason for developers to impose region locks on games in this day and age. 

 
So if there is no legitimate reason for region locking, then why are games, and specifically PC games that were never even affected by the reasons behind the original region locks, increasingly being shipped with locks? There are two reasons, and they are both shady, business centric, and all-around dick moves from publishers and developers (probably more so the publishers).

The first reason is to enforce region pricing. 

I'm an Australian. That means we get fucked over on the price of video games for some arbitrary reason. For perspective? The Australian dollar is more or less equal to the American dollar these days, yet our games are almost comically overpriced. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which costs $89.99 in Australia is a whopping 77% cheaper in the US, where it retails for $19.99. Before the days of region locking, frugal gamers could utilize grey-import sites such as Play-Asia and Green Man Gaming in order to do what should be a god-given right on a system as free as the PC: find the best deal. With a lot of games these days, it's now impossible to do a grey import, as copies sold in specific regions will only work on a machine with an IP address in that region. 

Average new release price in the US: $39-49. In Australia? $90-$120

Let me give you an example. Last year, I purchased RAGE. As you know, I currently live in Japan, where the PC gaming scene is... minimal. At best. As such, I would be hard-pressed to find a copy of the game at retail. So, I did what I have done countless times before when trying to find cheap games and directed my web browser to www.play-asia.com. I purchased the 'Asian Version' of the game. I figured that Japan, being a country populated mostly by Asians, as well as being in Asia geographically, was a sure fit for the 'Asian' region of the game. Unfortunately, id's description of Asia includes only Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, the Philippines and South Korea. Pretty much every Asian country EXCEPT Japan. Consequently, I had a copy of RAGE sitting in my hand that I had paid for in full, that I could not play because my computer was telling id Software's servers that I was Japanese.

My RAGE experience...

The second shady reason behind region locking is to avoid hurting the publisher’s relationship with retail stores. 

I know it's inconceivable for all of us gaming enthusiasts, who purchase the majority of our games as either direct downloads or from internet import sites, but a sizable majority of our more casual brethren still buy their games from brick and mortar stores like EB and JB Hi-Fi. Thus, in order to not give grey importers or direct downloaders an 'unfair' advantage over shoppers at the brick and mortar stores, game releases are locked to whenever retail copies arrive in that region's stores. To quote the immortal Penny Arcade, 'We're slowing down every car just so we don't hurt a horse’s feelings'

You know what? Fuck horses

I’ve clashed with this second kind of region-locking twice: first with Skyrim, then with Borderlands 2. Both times I have bought the game via Steam (in the case of Skyrim, I actually prepurchased the game from the Australian Steam store while in Australia), yet because the little boxes hadn't moved around in Japan, I was unable to play said games. They were fully pre-loaded, sitting on my Steam account, yet I was being told 'No. You can't play these games, even though all of your friends are playing them. You have to wait like all the other good little Japanese children'. The case of Borderlands is particularly significant, as it is billed as a co-op game. What good is playing a co-op game a good month after all of my friends back in Australia have finished it?

So what can I, and many others, do, when faced with these situations? The first answer is to use a VPN to 'trick' steam into thinking you are in a different country. The only problem is this potentially risks having your entire steam account banned, as using a VPN to 'disguise' your location for any reason is technically against the steam subscriber agreement (You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account.) So what does that leave us? Piracy. Yarrrrr!

Steve and stevesgameblog in no way, shape or form endorses or promotes internet piracy.

One of the best explanations for piracy I have heard is that it becomes prevalent when the pirates offer a better service than the publishers. Let's look at Russia and Eastern Europe. Piracy is so incredibly rampant there, not because Russians are dirty thieves, but because most publishers neglect the region entirely. Games are released months late, if at all and face numerous region restrictions. I complained about Japan's version of borderlands releasing a month late, but the Russian version released ONLY in Russian (screw you, Estonians!) and was only able to be played with other people in Russia. In Russia, the only way to play a majority of games on release date with the full set of features is to pirate them. That's the pirate providing a better service than the publisher.

Region locks and intrusive DRM, as well as the 'always-online' requirement of many of these modern games can also be bypassed by pirating. Pirating a game gives you a much better quality-of-life than actually buying it. In fact, as was especially frustrating in the case of RAGE, I was actively punished for purchasing a legit copy. Thus, as more and more games become region locked, you can expect piracy rates to increase accordingly. If you think that's scary, it's now time to have a look at the 'how,' as in, how all this PC region locking is possible in the first place, and how it implicates the unlikely villain in this picture.

Borderlands 2 is a game that's built around co-op. Region locks can unintentionally remove this feature

Did you manage to guess the villain already? 

I actually dropped his name a couple of times: Steam. Yes, Steam -- the platform beloved by pretty much every PC gamer out there for its ease of use, support of indie developers,  great customer support and of course, the delicious holiday sales -- is the reason why modern PC games can be region locked. Steam has become so popular that it essentially has a monopoly on PC game digital downloads. While it seems like a perfect company, ANY kind of monopoly is a very bad thing, and the increasing prevalence of region locking is the first sign of this. It's gotten to the point where even if you buy a game retail, you still have to activate it on Steam.  This means that you effectively have to be 'always online' to play your games, and publishers can use this requirement to constantly check your IP address and block you from playing their games. While this hasn’t happened in any Valve-produced game, the fact that Valve actually allows publishers to do this is a sign that Valve is willing to look the other way with Publishers trying to exploit gamers.

Scumbag Steam

So, as you can see, this is a very real problem that is bound to especially affect those in markets such as Australia and South East Asia. What can we do about it? I might be crucified for saying this, but maybe Origin isn't such a bad idea after all. While we are happy and content to have our entire game libraries all in one place, Steam continuing its monopoly unchallenged is only going to give rise to more shady business practices. The lack of competition may also slow down its drive to improve itself at the rate it is now. Origin is far from perfect, but given time I actually hope it grows to become just as big as Steam. If you still have hatred for Origin, try using alternatives such as gamefly, gamer's gate and especially good old games.

And all you big name publishers out there, next time you cry foul of PC gamers and their rampant piracy ruining your bottom line, maybe you should think about actually offering a service that is at least comparable to what is being offered by the pirates themselves?

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OPINION: (Video) What's wrong with Diablo III?

Like thousands of other gamers, Diablo III was one of my most highly anticipated titles of all time. Now that it's been floating about for a few months, lets take a look back on why it's not as great as it could be.

TRANSCRIPT:

What's wrong with Diablo III?

Hey guys, Steve here and today i'm going to talk a little bit about Diablo III. Diablo II was a game that was very near and dear to me, so I didn't want to rush into any harsh judgements on its sequel, and have people accuse me of looking back on D2 with 'rose tinted glasses'. Well now, D3 has been out for a good few months, and i've had more than enough time to get a feel of it, and more importantly, figure out, at least in my opinion, what's wrong with it.

By the way, what you are seeing in the background is a speed run of Act I inferno on my wizard. A link to his build is in the description, I've got pretty average gear at around 40k life and 22k damage. This is what I have found to be the most efficient way to farm Act I. Please enjoy.

Now I'm going to discuss a few things in this video but it all pretty much ties back into my one main point: Blizzard are treating Diablo III like it is World of Warcraft. While WoW certainly borrowed more than a few assests from Diablo II, it was still at its core a completely different game. After all, one was an MMO and the other was an action RPG.  I want to start by saying that the core game, the engine behind Diablo III, is fantastic. The skill and rune system is a thing of genius and it really, really captures the Diablo vibe. The game is fun to play.

However, once you get past the numbingly easy normal mode and move into nightmare, hell, and eventually inferno, WoW's influence really starts to bleed through. First, let's look at items. Items in Diablo III are boring. While Diablo II certainly had its own share of 'junk' affixes (I'm sure we all remember light radius) the majority of the really cool affixes in Diablo III are ignored in favour of the WoW style primary stat + vitality + a stat unique to that gear slot. Gloves, for example, are almost completely worthless if they don't have a primary stat, vitality, crit damage and crit chance. Having 'best' affix combinations is both boring and frustrating. It doesn't help that items have a chance to roll multiple primary stats, which essentially just take up an affix slot.

Diablo II had some crazy on hit affixes that had huge proc rates. In D3 on the other hand, we have 1.5% chance to stun. 1.5%. What the heck is that? I mean, on WoW boss fights that last up to ten minutes, I'm sure 1.5% is a pretty big rate, but most D3 battles, as you can see from the footage playing, are lucky to last more than a minute. Legendaries are underwhelming, with standard blue magic weapons being better than most legendary weapons, and Legendary item set bonuses being  terrible. The Tal Rasha set in Diablo II gave THIRTEEN additional bonuses to offense, defence, and utility. In Diablo III? Plus 3% to fire, lightning and cold damage...

Now let's have a look at the game's post-release support. Blizzard are famous for offering a tremendous amount of post-release support for their games with patches containing game balances and additional content. One of the very first patches to Diablo III nerfed the amount of gold dropped by pots. Additional patches have systematically nerfed several viable farming spots, class ability combinations deemed too overpowered, repair costs and item affixes that they felt people were stacking due to their usefulness. These sound like reasonable patches... for an MMO. Why, for example, are farming locations being nerfed? Diablo III is essentially a SINGLE PLAYER GAME as the current end-game grind actually punishes you for playing in a group. It's simply much faster and more efficient to farm by yourself. It's not exceptionally difficult to beat the end boss, so there is no competition to gear up and beat the hardest challenges. There's also no PvP as of yet, so they don't have to worry about people getting a leg up by farming particularly good locations. So, why does it matter if some guy wants to spend the majority of his play time smashing pots in a crypt? Who cares if someone finds a wizard skill combination that works really well? Jay Wilson has actually gone back on two key quotes with this post-patch support. The first one was 'We don't mind if people find things that feel like they broke the game' and the second is 'you can find the best item in the game out of a pot'. It feels too much like Blizzard is telling us, 'you can only have fun the way we want you to have fun'

My final gripe brings us back to what I am doing in this video: farming act 1. My character is progressed well into act III and to be honest, I could probably finish the game if I really wanted to. So why am I farming act 1 over and over instead of actually trying to progress? There were two major post patch changes that brought us here. The first was the insane tripling of repair costs for level sixty gear. The second was the changing of drop rates so that the best items have a chance to drop in act 1. Sure, the drop chance in act 1 is much smaller than it is in act 2 or 3, but i can run through act 1 in a fraction of the time that act 2 or 3 takes me, with very minimal risk of dying. When I am playing act 3, if I die more than four or five times, I have actually lost gold on that run. It costs me gold to just try and progress in the game. Can you see what is wrong with this?Anyway, all of this ties back into my original argument of Blizzard trying to balance this game like it's world of warcraft. The reason for this is obvious: they want players to use the auction house. This is a no-no. While the auction house is a nice little feature to have, it shouldn't be so integral to the game. It's completely against the Diablo mythos.


Jerry Holkins of Penny-arcade summed it up best - Diablo is a piñata. You can always go to the store and buy candy, but the whole fun of the piñata is hitting it and getting the candy from inside. My solution? They should completely reverse their philosophy on nerfs. When an item, or a farming location, or a stat is deemed too overpowered, don't nerf it, buff something else. The attack speed nerf could have been easily taken care of by offering buffs to crit damage and crit chance. Farming jars for gold could have been fixed by upping the drop rate of gold on monsters. Until Blizzard stop trying to balance the game around possible abuse of the Auction house, I don't really see this game ever measuring up to the glory and longevity of Diablo II.