Is Kickstarter bad for games?

Not everyone likes kickstarter.  I do...  But then my day job is in financial services, so the complaints about kickstarter are peanuts in comparison.  Rab Florence's great blog THIS FUCKING AMUESMENT ARCADE makes a few points about why kickstarter is bad.  We've taken a look at the good stuff.  Let's look at the bad.

Most of this post was written in the voice of Mike Rugnetta... [insert link to future PBS Idea Channel episode].  There may or may not be a little man crush involved.

Event: Smart Money in Gaming

A current and future look at monetization strategies in Retail, Mobile and Social Gaming

Last night I went over to the Microsoft NERD center (still love that) and hung out with Dave Bisceglia (from Tap Lab) who was a panel member for the event.  It was moderated by Marco Mereu (uCool), and included  Jeff Goodsill (Stomp Games), Chris Rigopolous (Harmonix), and Layne Ainsworth (TapJoy).  As the name implies they talked about making money with games, and I soaked in as much information as possible.  I went with a burning desire to find out if anyone is monetizing HTML5 games on the web or mobile and how they are doing it.

Equity Crowd Funding in 2014?

The game design industry won't see Equity Crowd Funding until 2014...  At the earliest.  Crowdfunding.org projects a best case time frame for the 10 steps between where we are today and active Equity Crowd Funding in the U.S.  This is, however, the federal government we're taking about here.

There is a reason that is good, and a reason that is bad.  On one hand the timing gives another year of practice making, and studying donation based crowd funding.  In general that practice should be very helpful for anyone who wants to be good at Equity Crowd Funding later.

The bad news is that is an awfully long time in the market.  The excitement over crowd funding could be well over by then.  Interest could be less, and dollar amounts could be smaller.  People could be used to being sold idea's instead of products, and maybe even bored with it.

What do you think of Equity Crowd Funding?  Tell me in the comments below.

1 Big red flag that your project won't succeed.

Shadowrun Returns has announced that they are pushing back the release date to expand the scope of the game...  The delay is not the issue. The expanding scope, however, is a big red flag.  Expanding scope is the bane of all projects and the death of first projects.

I still have high hopes for seeing Shadowrun goodness.  These guys are professionals.  However if you are on your first project, don't let the scope creep.  Read more about their development process on their blog.

Kinda regret not getting a Doc Wagon card.

Watch out Sweden, here comes Finland.

Some of the most exciting game development communities are growing in places that are not the U.S.  I'm not aware of the game development community in Stockholm Sweden before Mojang hit the map, but I can definitely see them becoming the center of Swedish gaming in the future.  But watch out Sweden, here comes Finland.  What is the game development environment like in your corner of the world?  Are you getting a chapter of the IGDA?

Start-up Definitions

Your last vocabulary assignment was about Crowd Funding definitions. Now lets discuss a couple commonly misused words from the classic investment world.  And that really means that I've used these words incorrectly.  They means something specific.  By the way, these are not dictionary definitions...  But rather experiential definitions.

A very short post about F2P

Read Daniel Cook's post about the "Free 2 Play" misnomer. My thinking has been along the lines of GAAS, but the question is: will creating the kind of hobby/service Daniel talks about require procedural generated content?   Minecraft is obviously a hobby and a GAAS (with a single payment).  An MMO like World of Warcraft is obviously a service.  However, Mojang got lucky and MMO's are very expensive to make.  What is the minimum viable content volume for GAAS?  And how do small game companies put out the content needed to be a service?

Or is my basic assumption, that GAAS means content updates, faulty?

Can a small company crank out enough, say puzzle games, to form a service?  Would it have to be some kind of open world?  At what point is there a critical mass of games to move from a 'Fremium'/'Free to play' model to a service model?  It would be interesting to find out.