Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO

(edit) Pathenon failed terribly at their KS so tis not really relevant unless they do new one. Sorry for edits but hit post by accident.

Kickstarter could be greatly improved with introduction of a few simple ideas:

For Companies/Groups/Projects NEW to Kickstarter:

(1) Limit raising of KS funds to 1 Year of operations.
(2) a) Require detailed business plan and b) project management/delivery plan
(3) Confidence Tiers for Donations. Give % vs Hold % for potential refund

1. Zero confidence: 0-5% Give 95-100% Hold
2. moderate: 50% Give - 50% Hold
   
3. high: 80% Give - 20% Hold

After delivery on stated goals, donator can decide to get refund for held % or donate rest.

For Projects unwilling/unable to meet the above standards in (2), limit KS goal to $100 K, with a Confidence Tier of 1) so 95% $ is refuned if they do not shape up and deliver. If they meet their goals to everyones satisfaction, get $100k, and can fundraise second KS with a higher minimum Confidence Tier available to donators.

At very basic level at least users have chance to evaluate the Plan (2) and value the return themselves.
KS team has to budget more wisely and be more conservative/realistic instead of an open ended money grabbing scam.

A dribble donation option could be added. After 4/8/12 months you can have evaluations of deliverables (ie some prototype stages) and people can support or withdraw remaining % of donation.

For example, given this option a user may donate $100 with a 25% give ratio over 4 evaluation periods in a year.

25$ given to KS team
After 4 months an evaluation is held.

• a) donators have chance to give $25 more for another 4 months, with KS holding outstanding $50,

or

• b) refund $75 immediately.

After 8 months second evaluation held. $50 already given to KS Project.

• a) donators have chance to give $25 more for 4 more months with KS holding outstanding $25

or

• b) refund $50 immediately.

etc

If KS is worried about loosing low level entry projects, implement this system for higher tier fundraising goals, $100k+ $500K+ $1Mil + etc and tweak percentages available depending on how well the Project progresses every year.

Daidraco said:

Something like that seems pretty obvious. So I suspect its something else thats keeping them from doing so.

Click to expand...

What keeps KS from reforming? It would cut into easy profits, they are raking it in now so why bother? Suckers are throwing money at em so who cares? Easy money for now! Weeeee

At the core KS is a great idea that could provide an extremely valuable service to Startups with great ideas, bypassing the overly onerous business financing sector. However at present the KS system is scammy as hell and for the most part a rip off for any potential donoers/investors. I hope the present Kickstarter incarnation dies a hot and horribly fiery death. It is just a no strings attached, no holds barred wild west scamfest without any expectations or pressure on the panhandlers. Noob gamers throwing money at noob devs who "have a dream" ugh. Result is a collosal waste of money work and potential. Waste for all except for the KS company who gets a juicy cut regardless, and of course the devs screwing around playing startup without spending 5 minutes thought let alone research into a realistic business or development plan.

Hopefully all the naive donating noobs throwing money at KS will eventually realize they're being had and there will be some pressure for more improved and robust Kickstarter competition. The quicker this present system crashes the better. There are many easy things to do to tweak and clean up the process. Things that might actually help it grow, scale up and in the long term provide beefier, more sustainable profits from gamers with spare $$, but with a lot less risk, chaff and bullshit for everyone. For a start:

1) Raise the bar of entry to KS: force people to learn and work a little first before giving them money and projects will be more focused.
2) Tie some more conditional strings to the donations in the process

Two easy things and you are already going in a good direction towards more sustainable profits.

It would be nice to have some more "decent" competition to choose from. Indie gaming (as well as other projects like Pantheon) could benefit greatly from a refined Kickstarter system. Raising the entry bar to be more realistic with a few more investor strings has the potential to help many more startup projects succeed. Heady startups need pressure to help reign in those dreamy visions, pressure towards better reasearch, planning and preparation before spending (or basically stealing) other peoples' money without a second thought.

"I know how to code sum, Weeee we got cash, lets just wing it!!!"
80s were cool, you could code shit in a few weeks and call it a game! But software and game development has grown up, market has matured.

Weed out these noobs and boobs and more games will get better funded to completion. All the creative fringe games will have a better chance of being completed, polished and getting to market. Many will fail still, but some will succeed and provide more variety. Nice side effect of more kickstarters finishing games will be an increase of capable developers in stronger indie studios that might actually compete effectively with the shitty big name corporate studios.