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[Makkal]

As reported in Engadget and numerous other gaming sites, Double Fine won't be able to release Broken Age because despite their Kickstarter raising eight times the original amount and spending a year extra on it they don't even have the first half done.

They're going to release it on Steam Early Access (July 2014) so people can pay for the pleasure of playing half a game and doing beta/QA for the company.

Of course, anyone who follows Double Fine and its development policies would see this coming from a mile away, but most Kickstarter backers are in love with the image of studios as noble, creative entities who are oppressed by evil publishers.

Forgive me while I :bitter: but the sooner more backers are burned by their favorite game development studio via Kickstarter, the better.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

What we have here is a failure to plan.

Sadly it's still far too common in the Industry - and everyone turning somersaults about the return of the independent studio and the small team has forgotten what that tends to mean in terms of not handling scheduling and planning properly.

Publishers usually pick up this slack invisibly to the rest of us. I wonder if they'll be able to go BACK to their fans for another cash injection?

[Lyn Farel]

That's the idea behind investment. You never know if it's going to bear its fruit or not.

Publishers can be useful for that purpose, as long as they do not hold 100% of the rights behind a license.

That's like with novels. No sane writer would publish a novel without a publisher.

[Wanoah]

That's like with novels. No sane writer would publish a novel without a publisher.

I think that is something that might be starting to change now that Kindles etc are ubiquitous. 50 Shades of Grey is a case in point.

[Lyn Farel]

My point is that most authors acknowledge by themselves that they actually need their publisher. I only wish the relationships between both in video games were similar.

[Saikoyu]

That's like with novels. No sane writer would publish a novel without a publisher.

I think that is something that might be starting to change now that Kindles etc are ubiquitous. 50 Shades of Grey is a case in point.

50 shades of Grey had a publisher, which doesn't say very nice things about publishers.  And as someone who has lived with an author of various frustration levels for some years, I can say that Kindle and the like don't make it easier to publish something without a publisher.  It just opens the door, and does nothing else.  50 Shades of Grey would never have had the publisity it did if it didn't have a publisher. 

[BloodBird]

Forgive me while I :bitter: but the sooner more backers are burned by their favorite game development studio via Kickstarter, the better.

You will have to explain this one - how would it be GOOD to see more kickstarter using companies fail because of whatever? I would assume we should hope more companies have proper planning/execution/ability to deliver and do. I surely don't want to see a world where all independent companies that make games fail by default and go extinct and only the huge AAA companies remain to push out CoD years releases and so on. That would be BAD.

So how could more failures like this be helpful?

[Morwen Lagann]

I believe Makkal is suggesting that crowdsourced funding is a bad (or at least unreliable) model, and that the faster the 'crowd' has that drilled into their skulls, the better, even if it's through bad experiences like throwing lots of money at a project that never delivers.

Most people tend not to put their hands on a hot stove after the first time they get burned.

Edit: Saw this on Twitter regarding kickstarter and lol'd: https://twitter.com/ForkParker/status/355357614655287297

[Lyn Farel]

Somehow Kickstarter puts players and funders into publishers positions where investing in a project is never guaranteed to bear its fruit. Except they do not have the slightest control over the project.

Between that and almighty publishers, that's two extremes.