
Prison Architect, a gaming crowdfunding success story - Vaskivo
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/10/prison_architect_s_crowdfunding_proves_the_kickstarter_model_for_video_games.single.html
======
the_af
A bit of an off-topic rant, but:

I think the author is wrong to dismiss Ian Bogost's article as "as an
opportunity to ignore gameplay in order to pontificate on race and show off
the Foucault they read in college". The author is probably unfamiliar with
Bogost, and also misunderstands that Bogost's article in The Atlantic about
_Prison Architect_ isn't a game review. I found the analysis of the game and
how it relates to cultural perceptions of imprisonment in America (and the
world, really) very interesting.

It's political and it's about games-as-culture. It's not a shopping
recommendation, and I think this is what the author of TFA misunderstood.

~~~
tailgate
Games are sadly just on the cusp of developing a true arts culture - but we
have yet to move out of the consumer mentality, where the only value of a game
is if you were entertained by it at your most base level. It also doesn't help
that a lot of internet commentators can't distinguish between someone
criticizing something they like and personal attacks.

~~~
Kalium
Games are frequently something that most instances of arts culture struggle
with - commercial. This means that trying to treat games as artistic
artifacts, made of beauty and aesthetics, free of the drudgery of economics,
is a misguided thing at best.

Games are not generally produced as solely artistic works. The economic aspect
is significant. Attempting to discuss and critique games as solely artistic
artifacts means missing one of largest influences on any such artifact. It's
like discussing architecture without admitting that materials and physics and
humans impose limits.

~~~
Chathamization
Not just the economic aspect, but the game aspect. Board games and role-
playing games have been around much longer, and aren't considered art (and
there doesn't seem to be any push for them to be considered as such).

~~~
Vaskivo
[EDIT] Why is my parent being downvoted? It is a legitimate question, and we
should try to answer it.

Yet there are a lot of board and roleplaying games pushing their boundaries
regarding theme and mechanics:

You have boardgames exploring difficult themes (Train[0]) and others being
defined as they are played (Fluxx[1])

On RPGs, You can have rpgs about simple themes as being a housecat (Cat
RPG[2]) or serious one like rape and domestic violence[3]. In terms of
mechanics, there is Dread[4], a horror game that uses a Jenga tower instead of
dice.

There is no push to be considered art, but there are folks doing some really
cool stuff with the medium.

What is happenning with videogames is that there are people who thing
"videogames should grow up" and "stop playing around". That, in my opinion, is
stupid. You don't tell a 15 years kid to "grow up". It will come out
naturally. KLEt games mature on their own.

[0] [http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/06/24/can-you-make-a-
boa...](http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/06/24/can-you-make-a-board-game-
about-the-holocaust-meet-train/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxx)

[2] [http://johnwickpresents.com/product/cat-a-little-game-
about-...](http://johnwickpresents.com/product/cat-a-little-game-about-little-
heroes/)

[3] sorry, the internet failed me :(

[4][https://dreadthegame.wordpress.com/about-dread-the-
game/](https://dreadthegame.wordpress.com/about-dread-the-game/)

~~~
Chathamization
Actually, Train was the first thing that came to my mind when typing that
comment. The fact that we both immediately thought of the same niche game that
apparently has only been played twice without it's creator present suggests
that these things aren't terribly common (that's not to say that these edge
cases aren't interesting). But maybe a die hard board gamer can correct me,
since there tends to be a lot of interesting stuff that goes unnoticed (this
is definitely true for video games, I'd be surprised if it wasn't true for
other games).

The people who seem to be pushing for games to grow up or talking about
Citizen Kane moments (and seemingly forgetting about silent films) seem more
interested in validation than anything else. There have been interesting games
for decades; if they're truly interested in these, all they have to do is play
them.

------
Cthulhu_
19 million? For a game developed by just two guys (iirc) over the span of two
years, that's hitting the jackpot. I'm seeing several projects that make a lot
of money for a little effort - DayZ comes to mind, an early access game that
costs $35 and has sold millions of copies already, but still feels like a
rather bad mod, with little development effort going into it (seemingly).

I'm still on the fence about Star Citizen; the demos they've shown so far are
promising, but I'm going to wait until there's an actual game.

In contrast, there's Elite: Dangerous, which had a successful kickstarter at
about 1.5 million, was built and released, and is still under active
development, with few bugs to speak of (atm, experiences from retail version
over half a year after first release)

~~~
throwaway13337
Don't forget minecraft which finally sold to microsoft for 2b. Developed by
one guy (then he added employees after the game took off).

These are all exceptions to the brutal world of indie game development.

Mostly, these developers don't make anything. They spend months and years in
almost solitude making something no one will play. Games take a huge time
investment to make before anyone is at all interested.

It's the starving artist profession of the nerd world.

~~~
gedrap
>>> Mostly, these developers don't make anything. They spend months and years
in almost solitude making something no one will play. Games take a huge time
investment to make before anyone is at all interested. It's the starving
artist profession of the nerd world.

Yeah, the Indiepocalypse.

The thing is, a lot of indie games... simply are not fun to play. And that's
ok, it's hard to make a game which is fun to play. It's fine. [0]

You can treat indie games as a hobby, just have fun, call it 'starving art',
whatever, but don't be shocked that people are not paying money.

On other hand, treat it like a business, with a solid product, market
research, plenty of feedback from the outside (echo chamber is no good for a
product that you are working on for years), marketing plan and some marketing
budget. Even then, you have a chance of failure, where failure is that the
revenue does not cover the costs. However, the odds are more in your favor.

These two extremely distinct segments (hobby v business) are both under the
'indie' label, however, their chances at succeeding are extremely different.

[0] I won't even talk about the platformers (there are dozens, if not
hundreds, of them released every week) and they all are largely the same.

~~~
throwaway13337
It's true that there are two kinds of game development going on. I wouldn't
call the mostly mobile, metrics driven game dev 'indie' but at the same time
that kind of game development has a lot to do with the same business model.

These metrics driven developers risk more cash up front and take less creative
risks. Like a Hollywood movies, they pick a genre that is already successful
and twist it a little. They likely even spend more on marketing than on
production.

Still, even those games (like hollywood movies) remain hit driven so you'd
better have a big budget backer to smooth out the edges.

------
gommm
> while Tim Schafer’s Broken Age ran over budget, needed to be split in half,
> and delivered a disappointing final product.

Speak for yourself, quite a few adventure game fans don't agree with it
delivering a disappointing product. And there are quite a few more success
stories... Broken Sword 5, Tesla Effect, Resonance, Shadowrun Dragonfall, ...

It's true that there are conflicts with Kickstarters due to the fact that most
backers do not really understand how hard it is to estimate Software
Developments (especially in games, refining gameplay and puzzles until it
become fun is by definition not something that can be estimated accurately)
and game developers that suddenly have to take on the role of PR which the
publishers used to do. But overall, there's been more than a few success
stories.

------
ENTP
It's more than just how you play the kickstarter crowd. Introversion have a
knack of writing really playable games. Darwinia was incredible.

~~~
datruth29
Not just playable games, but also games that are different from the usual
stuff you see. Was there any hacking type games like Uplink before
Introversion released it?

~~~
Vaskivo
I agree.

Darwinia was a shooter/strategy game set inside virtual world.

Even Defcon is unconventional. A game about nuclear war and mutual assured
destruction with a retro asthetic.

~~~
gedrap
>>> Even Defcon is unconventional. A game about nuclear war and mutual assured
destruction with a retro asthetic

Don't forget the soundtrack! It added a lot to the game atmosphere :)

~~~
bemmu
Especially the woman in the background who starts to weep as the first
missiles hit their targets.

~~~
gedrap
The weeping woman, the cough. Damn I am so tempted to play it again (does it
make me a heartless psycho?), but I am at work :(

This is a great example of how some well though out details can play a massive
role. Would the game be the same without the soundtrack, with the sounds of
crying and coughing? It still would be a good game but not THAT good.

~~~
kqr
> but I am at work :(

You do realise that you are talking about the game with a work panic button
built in, right?

------
Vaskivo
OP here.

I feel in the last years we're having a resurgence of management/simulation
games.

Just like Will Wright did his own SimCities, SimFarms, SimLifes, etc., new
developers are returning to these themes.

We need more of these freeform interactive management sandboxes. We have
Prision Architect. Rollercoaster Tycoon is coming back. Bring back Theme
hospital and the histrical city-builder! Let's open our arms for new
management games in new unconventional contexts. (Boon Hill is a graveyard
simulator. How cool is that?)

~~~
douche
Game Dev Tycoon is one of my favorites
([http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-
tycoon/](http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/))

Kerbal Space Program also fits into this trend. It's a little interesting that
this is pretty much all indie Steam games - the AAA publishers haven't pivoted
to start chasing this demographic again yet.

~~~
speeder
Except for EA (that bought Maxis) Sim games were never big on AAA market.

For example Roller Coaster Tycoon was created by a single guy, that made the
game in Assembly (yes, almost 100% of RCT1 is ASM), he ended getting
"publishers" in the sense they sold the game for him, but the game is still
his.

------
personjerry
> Crowdfunding has failed to revolutionize video games.

How can he say that? A good 1/3 or so of the new games on Steam are
crowdfunded nowadays. This shows a viable new way to go about funding your
game. That's pretty "revolutionary".

------
wnevets
I've been playing a lot of it the past two weeks. Its very addictive like the
old roller coaster tycoon games.

~~~
chrisper
The new RCT is coming out soon too. I think if you preorder you can play the
beta on October 30.

~~~
talmand
No preorders.

Well, unless you want to, then that's fine.

