You think ED failed Kickstarters? Godus did.

finchywinchy

finchywinchy
Zenith said:
There's a feature on Guardian online about Peter Molyneux getting flak for delays to his KS backed project, Godus.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/peter-molyneux-game-designer-interview-godus

So to those who feel that FDev somehow failed the original backers, take a look at how it COULD have turned out. I'm one KS backer who is content that FDev delivered a majority of what they promised on time.
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I think what this shows more than anything is, possibly, an inherent weakness in the Kickstarter model when it comes to large computer-game projects. It's one thing to sell hype to a publisher - they know the rules of the game and the nature of the risk they're taking. Doing the same thing to your average Joe isn't really fair.
 

CdrTwisted

CdrTwisted
Yes i had Godus on iPhone. It reset progress at least twice, has lots of broken mechanics and bits of it go missing from time to time. Great idea, very poorly executed and thought-through. I didn't back E: D but this is a game that has flaws like every other online game, but is nowhere close to being broken.
 

xyphic

X
Godus was a disaster from start to finish. Offlinegate was nothing compared to what PM did to the Godus backers. We were promised the evolution of the God game genre on the PC, and what we got was another generic F2P mobile game. Along the way was one disaster after another: half the players initially ended up with RSI from the amount of pointless clicking, then they started selling early access on Steam for a fraction of what backers had paid for Alpha/Beta access. When the gem store appeared in the PC client it was obvious where the game was going; it was quickly pulled but the damage was done. Then the biggest problem: the game wasn't actually fun to play. They tore up a lot of the mechanics and started again. They then started to concentrate development on the mobile version (presumably due to the KS funding running out and having to start fulfilling their private backer obligations).

I haven't touched the Steam client in months. Maybe if and when it finally gets finished -- which is looking increasingly unlikely as they've moved a lot of developers onto another game -- I'll come back to it, but until then I've basically written it off as a failed project. I put much less into Godus than I did into ED, but I feel so much more burned by the former.
 

Surly_Badger

Surly_Badger
Godus really doesn't sound very different from Populous!! Other than the name - even the graphics appear to be about on par.

I thought that was a fascinating and soul-baring interview. I +respect for Molyneux for confronting some questions that had to have hurt.
 

Issmir

Issmir
finchywinchy said:
Could I ask...how much of an influence on you was it, in backing Godus, that it was being produced by Peter Molyneux?
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In my case it was a pretty big factor. I played and loved most of bullfrog's games from Populous to Dungeon Keeper (even the instantly forgettable ones like high Octane), and while games like Fable really didn't do it for me I decided to back the game.

And the biggest problem for me wasn't the gems (that got pulled) or the way 22 Cans communicated. It was that the basic mechanics of the game just didn't work. It was a cow clicker.

I'm not sorry I backed it - I knew the risks going in. But I'm sorry that the game I was expecting doesn't seem to have ever been on the cards.

However, a quick reminder to everyone using kickstarter or similar models to fund something - you're not actually investors. You're donators. You're not guaranteed any form of return.
 

Forceflow

F
Godus sure is an epic fail. I don't think that one will ever get anywhere near a real playable and enjoyable game. Only good thing about it was that the steam early access version was fairly cheap, so all in all I am not too mad about it. I did get quite a bit of playtime out of that one and combined with the price it could have been worse.

It does however show the problem with crowdfunded games and I think that hype will soon be over. Godus was a disaster, Elite:Dangerous is still barely a full game (and is missing the offline mode which certainly put off quite some folks) and the more I read about what Chris Roberts plans to include in Star Citizen the more likely I believe that one will be another huge disappointment. And let's face it, once a 70+ million crowdfunding project fails things will get really ugly, international news kind of ugly. (Now before you flame me for not knowing anything about SC, I am an original before kickstarter, two year subscriber and concierge level backer. I've been following the project very closely until recently)
I for one will never join another early access or crowdfunded project again. I've been burned enough. Even though hopefully E:D and SC will end up great games there's too much that went down already for me to trust another developer with my money before I actually know what and when I'll be getting it.
 

xyphic

X
finchywinchy said:
Could I ask...how much of an influence on you was it, in backing Godus, that it was being produced by Peter Molyneux?
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It was definitely an influence. I'd played the Populous games a lot as a kid, and enjoyed the original B&W so when PM declared that he wanted to take it to the next level it was a no brainer. It was only later that I heard some of the horror stories about his previous work and reneging on promises, which came as a bit of a shock. Needless to say, I won't be backing anything else of his again in a hurry (which I suspect is one of the reasons he's doing a lot of PR at the moment, to try to get some of his backers back on side).
 

S'Rau

S
Elder players like me will remember the man from his beginings and his long long track of (good) games but also his long long track of (broken) promises.
TBH i am not surprised at all, people never change and with kickstarter this was bound to happen.
 
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eza

E
finchywinchy said:
Could I ask...how much of an influence on you was it, in backing Godus, that it was being produced by Peter Molyneux?
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I backed Godus on Kickstarter, and the fact it was Molyneux behind it made me think twice about it, but I thought "how hard can it be to remake Populous?"
How wrong I was...


Other Kickstarter projects I have backed:

Spacechem limited edition physical copy - no problems. the game was already out and finished. this was just a bonus.

Project TAKEDOWN - massive disappointment. played the beta, thought it had decent moving and shooting mechanics, and couldn't wait for them to finish the game and then release it. was amazed to see them launch the exact same beta code as a full release a month later. none of the kickstarters' bug reports had been looked into. game sank without trace.

ED - got access at gamma level, still having fun with it. hopeful for future development.

Star Citizen - arena commander is pretty. am still optimistic for the game's release.

Limit Theory - my best investment. the monthly dev update videos (until recently now updates have slowed) have made me feel I've already got my money's worth, and the game just keeps looking better and better.

Carmageddon Reincarnation - decent remake of carmageddon. hardly the deepest game in the world, but fun in short bursts.
 

mistohise

mistohise
Tbh I suspect anyone who has already written off elite wouldn't have the attention span to enjoy it no matter what the ultimate level of functionality is.
It's still very early days and functionality is continually being added on.
I backed and installed godus hoping it would be populous reborn, but it wasn't, it was something I found very difficult to relate in any way to the originals. The experience with ED has been entirely different - IMO they delivered a game that is very faithful to the core of what elite used to be, modernised for today's graphics and such. There is lament over the depth of missions and multi player, but we know that both of those elements are being worked on, and both already equal or exceed the original premis.
There's no comparison.
 

Obsidian Ant

Obsidian Ant
People cite a lot of Kickstarter failures, and I personally am no fan of what has been going on with Godus.

That said, there have been some very good Kickstarter games.

Divinity: Original Sin - Many websites, call this the best game of 2014
Wasteland 2 - One of my favs.
Broken Age - (Ok, it was split into two parts and there was some controversy, but it's a quality story presented in a quality way. A very nice game all in all).
Planetary Annihilation - Again some controversy, but still a good game was delivered.
Shadowrun Returns

Pillars of Eternity is on the way in a few weeks, and I fully expect that to be a good release too.

So there have been some very nice releases that it is unlikely we would have got without crowd funding.

But that said, too many developers have failed to deliver, Godus is a high profile example. I have backed 53 projects on Kickstarter and only 2 of them (Divinity and Wasteland 2) are in what I would call a finished condition that matches the original pitch. (Yes I also backed Elite on Kickstarter). So it's a shame that this will all have a negative impact on crowd funding. Hopefully the few developers that worked well with the system will be able to continue using it in one form or another.
 

Goilveig

Goilveig
I think Kickstarter just makes it obvious to backers what is already obvious to most people in the software industry: the software industry really sucks at coming up with accurate timelines and budgets. The larger the project, the larger the uncertainty in the time estimates. Even if you break down and try to estimate all the subtasks, there's such variability particularly around bugs and requirement changes. A bug could be trivial to fix or it could need a major rewrite of the code. Likewise, a requirements change could be very simple or very hard.

As an example from my own work, I had to make what would seem like a trivial change to how a toolbar worked. If I'd made one particular implementation decision three months earlier, it would have been a five minute change, but it turned out to take about seven hours to do and troubleshoot because I hadn't made that decision at the time, since I didn't know it would be necessary down the road. Rewriting portions of the code, identifying the new bugs that came up, and squelching them took almost a whole day.
 

kilvenny

kilvenny
The problem with Kickstarters is there are no milestones for the project. What should happen is that the money should be released in stages rather than all at the start forcing the developer to meet those milestones. If the milestone is not met to the satisfaction of the backers then the project can stop at that point. Instead what happens is you get the money and its down to KS team to project manage. Unless you have a mature/experienced team with good project management you get scope creep and delays. Every KS I have followed Limit Theory/ED/SC/Godus all exhibit delays.
 

Hadron-Higgs-Boson

Hadron-Higgs-Boson
I dont think you can fairly put ED and Godus into the same sentance, I think ED has a huge 'gap' to make up but its not even remotely like the train wreck molyneux presided over (again!)
 

vjek

V
kilvenny said:
The problem with Kickstarters is there are no milestones for the project. What should happen is that the money should be released in stages rather than all at the start forcing the developer to meet those milestones. If the milestone is not met to the satisfaction of the backers then the project can stop at that point. Instead what happens is you get the money and its down to KS team to project manage. Unless you have a mature/experienced team with good project management you get scope creep and delays. Every KS I have followed Limit Theory/ED/SC/Godus all exhibit delays.
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Great idea, and yeah, limit theory has gone off the rails entirely, this year. Lots of promise originally, now, very disconcerting.

Love the milestone reached / money released idea. I would even support a "majority vote by early backers" type of situation, to release further funding, so you have to please the crowd to get to move on.
 
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