
10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Kickstarter - danso
https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/celebrating-10000-funded-games-projects
======
OSButler
Kickstarter still feels like such a grey area to me. Only a few of the games
I've backed ended up in a product that I would've bought, if it was a regular
released game. Nowadays, I prefer waiting until the actual release version is
available and then decide whether to buy it or not, but I'm not funding any
more kickstarter games due to all the bad experiences.

~~~
Semaphor
FWIW, I've had more successes than problems with games. 11 games I'd have
bought anyway [1] (mostly RPGs), 1 failure (The Mandate. Should have known,
overly ambitious) 4 that are way overdue but still active (Star Citizen,
InSomnia, Popup Dungeon and After Reset), 3 that are still in planned
development (Vigilantes, Stygian and D:OS2) and only 2 games I didn't enjoy at
all and normally wouldn't have bought (Jagged Alliance: Flashback, Satelite
Reign)

[1] Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, Pillars of Eternity, Antharion, Balrum,
Torment: Tides of Numenera, Balrum, RimWorld, Lords of Xulima, Blackguards,
Shadowrun: Hongkong

edit: And 100% sucess rate with tabletop/card games

~~~
fapjacks
No, Star Citizen is not "way overdue". You can login and play it, and you've
been able to for years now. That is disingenuous, because it's always been
understood that the game would be under development for some time. As a
November 2012 High Admiral backer, I think things are going extremely well for
Star Citizen. Unlike a lot of other projects on Kickstarter.

~~~
HCIdivision17
I think if we're going to be fair, it's more accurate to say it's totally,
unequivocally overdue. Large chucks are flat out late. But! _That is fine._ We
can forgive a late game if it's good, and it looks to be _awesome_. Optimism
invariably takes over at the start of project, and we all knew it was going to
be a long haul.

And I say that as a person with a few ships awaiting release, too. While I
really want my Carrack, it's far more important that they make it good. The
estimated release times have moved back a few time, but that's the expense of
great work in the rest of the game. Backers seem to largely accept this as the
cost of buying into an in-progress development: priorities must be fluid, and
we have to make do.

The trick to Kickstarter is to only invest what you can lose (like anything!)
and then be patient. Starcitizen is stupendously ambitious, and is going to
cost a fortune to develop. They successfully made the transistion to being
nearly self-sustained, basically using Kickstarter to kickstart their
development process.

~~~
fapjacks
The original goal didn't include any of the massive stretch goals that were
added in as funding ballooned. CR has been completely forthright about the
schedule as the stretch goals have been designed and built. It's not overdue
because _nobody is expecting it to be finished right now_ except Derek Smart,
arguably the world's shittiest game designer. Saying it's "totally,
unequivocally overdue" because we've passed the original planned release date
in November of 2012 on the Kickstarter page is totally, unequivocally
disingenuous.

~~~
aluhut
There was another release date 2016. Passed that too. Now there is this Vulcan
thing. Meanwhile the full game universe is nowhere to be seen. They have now
given up setting a release date at all.

I don't understand where the community gets all that positive vibes from but
I've lost it and yes....I invested too.

~~~
HCIdivision17
I maintain positivity because it's not vaporware, just in feature hell.
There's no silver bullet for that, just metric crap-tonnes of lead bullets, as
they say.

And expectations are everything. I had endless hours of fun with Privateer as
a kid, and had a blast with Freelancer when I was older. That covers a large
chunk of my life, so my patience is tempered, a bit. Eve fills the niche while
I wait, and I'm very excited to see my old memories come back in HD in a new
universe. What's another 5 years out of 25? (And I'm serious - I had _fun_
with Privateer, and in retrospect it was kinda _terrible_! Pushing past the
uncanny valley of VR sim is effort worth waiting for!)

Honestly? Expectations are screwy. Eve has a sophisticated character creation
system, and it's essentially to take a 200x200 pixel picture. Just fantastic,
and almost as useless. But it really makes the game feel bigger and more real.
Eve's taken more than 15 years to get to where it is, and that's sort of where
I hold my standard. Time ain't the barrier to me.

~~~
aluhut
We share our experience in the past but I must disagree on eve. Eves
development is comparable to the one of WoW where it was nice to play in the
early stages and only if you look back now, it looks terrible. Eve grew on
something that was fabulous back then already. I know...I was hooked.

What we have with SC now is the shattered result of all those terrible
management decisions and a CEO who does not take the critics serious (probably
also because of this one popular "critics" criticism). I'm not sure if
anything good can grow from this but I'm pretty sure some huge changes in
management could help out here to at least get a clear and realistic target.

They owe it to the backers even if the loudest of them don't care. This is a
project which will be an example for others. Future will show what kind of
example...

~~~
fapjacks
You've got some kind of axe to grind and it's showing through in every one of
your posts here. You haven't played the game, you have said a bunch of stuff
that are outright lies, and a bunch of other stuff that doesn't reconcile with
reality.

~~~
aluhut
And you are part of the religion. That's why your criticism is pointed and the
critic and your glorification leave the realm of reality. Even now?

------
shados
I've had very mixed results with videogames on kickstarter. One took hundreds
of thousands of dollars and used it on an unrelated game then went belly up.
One is looking great and produced an awesome beta, but it's been years beyond
the target date.

Board games are a totally different story. Kickstarter started the the golden
age of board games. Some of the best board games ever made come from there.
They're almost always successful projects (not always good games, but they
deliver at least). And that's not counting all the cool tabletop stuff like
wyrmwood accessories.

So now I only back board games. And I'm super happy with what I'm getting.

~~~
GlennS
I've had an opposite experience. Most of the video games I've backed have
turned out well, but the only board game I backed was quite meh.

The board game was Mottainai. We did play it a few times, but my girlfriend
found a strategy that works really well but makes the game boring (always just
pray on your turn) on her first try.

Data for video games:

Great: FTL, Torment: Tides of Numenera.

I didn't back the Pen and Paper RPG Numenera which Torment is set in, but it
sounds really good.

Good: Chaos Reborn, Sunless Sea, Dreamfall Chapters, Elite Dangerous, Broken
Sword, Pillars of Eternity

Bad: Godus. He made several of my favourite ever games, but Peter Molyneux is
not getting a pre-order from me again. I can only assume that someone else was
the talent at Bullfrog and Lionhead.

Not finished yet: Battletech, Maia (early access is available and looks good)

Never made: Unwritten. This was a victim of the US medical system. A refund
was offered.

Failed to meet target (therefore payment not taken): Ars Magica Video Game,
The Ship: Full Steam Ahead, Nexus 2.

~~~
M_Grey
The only things I've ever backed are FTL, Torment, Cryamore, and um... SnotBot
(not a game).

I must say, you took a lot of chances that I decided not to, and most of them
turned out pretty well. This reinforces my belief that Kickstarter is really
what you make of it.

~~~
GlennS
In hindsight, I could have bought most of these games for cheaper afterwards,
so they weren't good deals for me personally.

On the other hand, without Kickstarter a lot of those games would not have
been made.

------
danso
Would love to see this broken down into categories, e.g. Table Top vs. Video
Games, and sub-categories, e.g. iOS/Android vs PC/Console.

I've never backed a KS board game, but as an outsider/layperson, that category
sounds like an unmitigated runaway success with huge-money-campaigns [0] like
Kingdom Death ($12M) and Exploding Kittens ($8.7M), and then humble projects
that later became huge, such as Cards Against Humanity ($15K) [1].

But I have backed video games and pay more attention to that category in
general. So while I'm aware of great successes like FTL, Undertale, Shovel
Knight, and Pillars of Eternity, the category of video game projects seems
seems to be much more infused with skepticism and even hostility because of
high profile failures like Mighty No. 9 and Clang [2]. Hell, one of the
earliest high profile KS failure that I remember hearing about was Code Hero
back in 2011 [3]

Obviously, selection/survivor bias is in play here. I read tech blogs so I'll
hear more about video game controversies than those of board games. But I feel
-- as is the case for software development in general -- there are inherent
challenges to video game development that make it seem more risky. Yes, board
games have to deal with hardware-manufacturing issues, but it's hard to
imagine anything like Star Citizen's creep scope happening to a board game
campaign (not that SC is a failure, but its development has definitely evoked
feelings of cynicism).

[0]
[https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=12...](https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=12&sort=most_funded&seed=2484017&page=1)

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxtemkin/cards-
against...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxtemkin/cards-against-
humanity)

[2]
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang)

[3] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primerist/code-hero-
a-g...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primerist/code-hero-a-game-that-
teaches-you-to-make-games-he)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> I've never backed a KS board game, but as an outsider/layperson, that
> category sounds like an unmitigated runaway success

As someone with some direct experience with kickstarted board games, a few are
smashing successes and quite a lot are, in terms of play, nothing special. I
personally wouldn't want to back a campaign, because the odds are overwhelming
that the final product wouldn't be something I'd really want to own.

There are enthusiasts who take the opposite approach -- they back everything
because sometimes you get a real gem.

~~~
danso
The appeal of board games (obviously, other than their entertainment value) is
that they promise something of physical permanence and portability. When they
manage to deliver, even if the quality isn't great (compared to professional
products), you at least have a physical memento/token/souvenir.

But when software delivers a piece of crap, you end up with much less. Some of
the successful iOS games I've backed from small devs don't even work anymore
because they eventually stop keeping up with changes to iOS.

~~~
Larrikin
A working app that stops working sounds like an ecosystem problem.

~~~
ReverseCold
Eventually you need to get rid of old things for whatever reason and embrace
new things, Apple just does this a lot faster than others, and it's definitely
a good thing.

~~~
smt88
Not everyone thinks it's good. I have some fantastic games from my childhood
20 years ago that work flawlessly on Windows 10. I really value that.

~~~
ghaff
You have a lot more flexibility in general with desktop OSs, especially when
you consider VMs and the like. And even with Windows it's not _that_
straightforward. A couple of weeks ago I spent some time getting old games and
mods running on a new Windows 10 system. It involved a lot of patches and
otherwise fiddling around--and these were popular games with a large community
still involved with them.

------
bdcravens
How many of those 10,000 projects failed to launch?

~~~
Simon321
None, that's what the word 'successfully' means.

~~~
bdcravens
"successfully" isn't the word in contention here. Many projects on Kickstarter
fund but fail to launch. From the article: "10,000 Games projects have been
successfully funded on Kickstarter."

Here's an older list of games that successfully funded but didn't launch:
[http://kotaku.com/12-successful-kickstarters-that-never-
deli...](http://kotaku.com/12-successful-kickstarters-that-never-
delivered-1687019268)

So successfully funding doesn't mean successful launch.

------
overcast
I REALLY need to stop backing projects. It's almost getting ridiculous how
many board games are coming my way this year. Kingdom Death was craziness.

~~~
teej
This seems like the perfect opportunity to ask: do you have any
recommendations of board games for a couple that loves them?

~~~
Clanan
Not the parent but I'll chime in. It really depends on the type of games you
enjoy. Mechanic-heavy ("eurogames") vs. more themed ("ameritrash"),
cooperative, competitive, etc. BoardGameGeek is a great site for reference.

Off the top of my head, my wife and I enjoy: Ticket to Ride, Splendor,
Ascension, Lost Cities, Settlers of Catan, Elder Sign.

~~~
jashper
Check out 7 Wonders Duel (the 1v1 version) ; my girlfriend and I play it all
the time, it's surprisingly well-balanced

~~~
acomjean
I'll second 7 Wonders Duel as a good two player.

Other 2 players we like Patchwork and 7 Tiny Epic Gallaxies

------
JoeDaDude
The board game industry, being a niche market, has long used pledge programs
in which consumers commit to buy a game before it is manufactured. Kickstarter
has taken over a lot of this, so some fraction of the Kickstarter games were
made by established game publishers rather than individuals or new
enterpreneurs.

~~~
1123581321
I don't think many pre-existing board game pledge programs moved to
Kickstarter, though am happy to be corrected.

The most prominent pledge system is GMT's and it is still thriving. Most non-
Hasbro/AEG/Asmodee board game publishers are smaller than GMT.

~~~
JoeDaDude
Good observation, so perhaps it is better to say that there are some
established publishers use Kickstarter as a de-facto pledge program. Granted,
these publishers are not the major players like GMT or Decision Games. Some
smaller players that do rely on Kickstarer are Mayday Games [1], Worthington
Games [2], and Queen Games [3].

[1]
[https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/maydaygames/created](https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/maydaygames/created)

[2]
[https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1456271622/created](https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1456271622/created)

[3]
[https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1016374822/created](https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/1016374822/created)

------
lcw
I wonder why EA, Blizzard or the likes hasn't set up a site where you can vote
on idea's for games like Lego Ideas has done for making lego sets. That's
basically what's happening here except people are putting their money where
their mouth is. It's like crowd sourcing idea, and they could probably make
more desirable games. That said the companies would charge a premium and know
they would get it.

~~~
chadgeidel
Probably because of intellectual property reasons. If someone suggests an idea
it requires a lot of legal wrangling to get the rights to produce it. Once you
start going down that road, then you have to justify budgets, ROI,
compensation, etc. Additionally, if any game is made that even remotely
resembles any part of the proposal, that opens up the potential for a lawsuit.

It's basically the same reason that authors won't read your unpublished book
and screenwriters won't read your unpublished screenplay.

~~~
chii
EA could've simply make you agree to sign over all rights prior to
adding/voting for said idea.

The real problem with such a system is really just the vast majority of ideas
are crap. But even the good ideas are difficult to execute - i m sure they
aren't low on ideas, but execution prowess.

------
SpikeDad
When Kickstarter was allowed to become an advertising platform for future
product development it failed. Sorry but I'm not dropping a dime with some
well established company looking to have free money printed for them to
eliminate their risk and transfer it to regular folks.

When Kickstarter starts taking responsibility for failed projects with at
least some funds being returned, especially their 10% fee then I'll perhaps
consider it again.

Their logo should be someone shrugging their shoulders - that about their
typical response when there's a problem.

------
LeoNatan25
The more interesting statistic is of such and such "released" games, how many
of those have fulfilled the satisfaction of supporters.

With traditional mainstream "AAA" titles coming out in such buggy and
disappointing states, this could be a differentiation. The problem is, I think
KickStarter-backed game development has been even worse for the most part.

------
frik
Is there a top 100 list ordered by metacritics score or some other currated
top 100 list of those Kickstarter funded games?

Beside Wasteland 2 and some adventures from former Lucasart developers I don't
know any of the KS games.

~~~
on_and_off
FTL, Rimworld, the Banner Saga, Hyper Light Drifter, Shovel Knight, SuperHot :
there are many great (and original) games that have been funded through
kickstarter.

------
elif
Kickstarter made possible my favorite game, which is innovating and responding
to players in a way I never thought was possible when I first funded it.

By not needing a publisher, investors, deadlines, etc. They have been
liberated, and it's so exciting to have no idea where the game is going next.

Something about monthly sprints with fixed monthly releases, and completely
public bug tracking/standup notes/public discussion forums makes for a really
refreshing player experience that goes way beyond the game itself.

------
synicalx
I'll start backing things again when the products I back actually start to
ship/get finished. Hell I'll settle for some sort of guarantee that they'll
ship what they promised ON TIME, and if they don't I get my money back.

Until then, I'll stick to buying things that actually exist.

------
jokoon
I wonder if people would be interested in an open source, open world,
multiplayer 3d engine. Not something too fancy though, just the bare minimal.

I guess it's not interesting... Or maybe some game developers would fund such
engine?

~~~
tmsbrg
Without the multiplayer there's OpenMW:
[https://openmw.org/en/](https://openmw.org/en/)

Without the open world there's DarkPlaces (based on Quake), with games like
Xonotic:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xonotic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xonotic)

Both are really good considering it's hard to make something like this tbh.
Not sure if there's anything good that has all 4 of those things, though ;).
People often underestimate just how much work game engines are. And also how
useless they are without an actual game on them.

~~~
cyphar
> Without the multiplayer there's OpenMW:
> [https://openmw.org/en/](https://openmw.org/en/)

From what I understand there are rumours that multiplayer is something they
plan to develop after their 1.0 (feature-parity with the original Morrowind
engine). There are already people making patchsets that add some form of
multiplayer support.

------
Pica_soO
I wonder, if you can by the stretch goal complexity ahead of time, how
endangered a kickstarter project is to die of scope-creep.

------
Grue3
And how many successfully completed? 100?

------
abiox
i wonder what percentage of these game kickstarters actually resulted in a
respectable finished product.

