Why Kickstarter Matters

This piece was originally posted on IndieRPGs.com. It is reposted here with the author's permission.

Indie Games Blog editor Michael Rose has written an op-ed over on Gamasutra explaining why he “won’t be backing Kickstarters anymore.” His reason: he has experienced his first true case of “Kickstarter remorse” over backing The Banner Saga. He writes:

Now, far be it for me to tell someone that their feelings are illegitimate: emotions are emotions, and there’s no such thing as an illegitimate one. However, if we look at the factual basis Mike Rose offers to justify these feelings, it simply does not hold up under scrutiny.

The Scapegoat Saga

Let’s start here:

Actually, the developers of The Banner Saga said up-front that they would first release a free multiplayer component to the game before developing the single player campaign. I have this fact documented right here on this very site; back in February 2012, the web site for The Banner Saga stated: “free multiplayer combat coming soon.” Their Kickstarter wasn’t launched until March 19, 2012, so it’s not like this notice just suddenly appeared after the campaign was over. Anyone who did even the tiniest bit of research would have seen this. Thus, the assertion that “the team decided to build this free-to-play game due to the huge influx of extra cash that it received during the Kickstarter” is flatly incorrect.

But what about the Kickstarter campaign itself? Does that fail to mention the multiplayer component? Yes, if by “fail to mention” you mean “mention repeatedly.” Here, for instance:

And here:

Or here:

For good measure, multiplayer is also mentioned twice in the rewards sidebar--once for $10 backers and again for $50 backers--and again 4 minutes into the pitch video.

Thus, when Mike Rose claims that he was “coerced” into funding a multiplayer component that he had no interest in, could he perhaps mean that he plunked down money without doing any research whatsoever and is now upset that the developers are doing exactly what they said they would do?

Perhaps that’s being uncharitable. Mr. Rose appears to be upset not merely that Stoic Studio developed a free multiplayer component to the game, but that it spent so long focusing on getting the multiplayer done to the exclusion of single player. After all, the Kickstarter does say that “the single-player campaign is our focus”!

However, again, the developers said that they’d be releasing multiplayer first–and they only just released the multiplayer component last week. In essence, Mike Rose is complaining about delays to the development of the multiplayer component. But Mike Rose says that delays are “fair enough” since those happen to all games, Kickstartered or not. Thus, by Mr. Rose’s own logic, that cannot be a good reason to stop backing Kickstarters.

Further, multiplayer and single player are not mutually exclusive areas of development. By developing multiplayer, Stoic Studio has created a lot of assets, honed a robust combat system, and balanced a wide variety of character classes. Every last one of these things can be used in single player as well. It’s not as though they are now going to scrap their combat engine, character classes, animations, and GUI and start all over again for the single player campaign.

What else? Mr. Rose complains about receiving too many updates from projects he’s backed. However, as he points out, you can easily turn email updates off. That hardly seems like a reason to stop feeling “like I was helping the developer out and keeping their dream alive.”

This leaves us with a single complaint: oversaturation. This, I will concede, is a legitimate issue–but it, too, has nothing to do with Mike Rose’s ultimate point, this sense that Kickstarter is no longer helping out developers and keeping their dreams alive.

Why Kickstarter matters

There are always, always setbacks in developing a game. It’s unavoidable. To create a game is to painstakingly construct something monstrously complex, a creature with thousands of working parts that all have to coordinate flawlessly. If you pledge money to games on Kickstarter because you mistakenly believe that game developers can accurately predict how long enormously complex RPGs will take to develop, then yes: maybe Kickstarter isn’t for you. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t helping out developers by funding their dream games.

Crowdfunding has made a big difference to a lot of indie developers. By the end of August last year, Kickstarter reported that more than $50 million had been pledged to independent games. FTL exists because of Kickstarter. Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams exists because of Kickstarter. Chivalry exists because of Kickstarter. Sequence exists because of Kickstarter. Thirty Flights of Loving exists because of Kickstarter; so do Capsule and Gun Godz. And thanks to peoples’ willingness to give, innumerable others are on the way as well.

I just want to quote Mike Rose one last time:

I keep coming back to that one line because it explains why most of us back Kickstarter projects to begin with; it’s a great summation of the whole purpose of the site. Kickstarter itself says something similar in its FAQ: “Backing a project is more than just giving someone money, it’s supporting their dream to create something that they want to see exist in the world.”

That’s real. I speak from personal experience when I say that, indie or not, you have to have a budget to make a good, commercial quality game. Game development requires competence in nearly every area of creative endeavor: coding, writing, sound, music, art, animation, sometimes even acting and cinematography. If you lack expertise in even one of those areas, then you have to hire someone who does. Hiring people means spending money. Either you spend money on those things, or you release a game that will almost certainly not be taken seriously.

So forget about delays. Forget about the frequent updates (which you can turn off). Forget about the sheer volume of games available to back. When you pitch in to create that budget for a developer, you are making a real difference in that person’s life. You are keeping their dream of making that game alive. That’s something worth doing, and I won’t stand to hear one of the editors of the foremost indie games blog on the net say otherwise.

Author Craig Stern is an indie game developer working on the strategy RPG Telepath Tactics. He runs IndieRPGs.com, and can be found on Twitter.