Kickstarter Worries

Kickstarter is a funding initative, that enables smaller less well known companies to gather funding for their projects. Kickstarter states:

Our Simple Formula

Kickstarter is a new form of commerce and patronage. In our world, the best way to inspire support is to offer people great rewards. Everyone loves limited editions, one-of-a-kinds, and fun experiences (parties, screenings, balloon rides!). Spend some time brainstorming your rewards and people will respond. No one needs another coffee mug.

Why is Kickstarter funding all-or-nothing?

On Kickstarter, a project must reach its funding goal before time runs out or no money changes hands. Why? It protects everyone involved. This way, no one is expected to develop a project with an insufficient budget, which sucks. Remember you set your own funding goal, so aim to raise the minimum amount you'll need to create your vision. Projects can always raise more than their goal, and often do.

What Kickstarter is trying to do is laudable, but there are pitfalls for gamers and developers alike. Recently I read an article outlining some of these pitfalls. No one really knows or understands how the Kickstarter experiment will go, but even as we hope for great things we need to be cognizant of the road bumps. The link to the article is below.

Kickstarter

To Great An Expectation

There’s the new title chugging its way through alpha testing, called City of Steam. It’s supposed to be really good; I’ve heard from more than one source that it’s going well at least. It’s a browser title though, and for me after I hear browser, it’s blah, blah, blah, bu-blah. Browser, for me, is a very short step up from mobile in my mind. There’s another title called Sevencore, last year I was kind of psyched about this game, a F2P title coming out from a small developer. I remember thinking this game looked interesting, but I haven't played a F2P title since before TOR dropped, which is odd because they have been at times all I've played. An interesting and potentially devastating development from all the new AAA games going F2P, where does that leave smaller more niche developers?

When Less is More

The Secret World is a small game. I’m sorry but it is, when held up against The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2, it’s found wanting with regards to square mileage. However, what Secret World does have packs a punch far beyond its relative size. Like Mike Tyson in the heavy weight division, it is a game that is not to be dismissed. If Secret World has impressed me at all, and it has in many categories; it has impressed me in its ability to do a lot with very little. It packs a wallop of a punch emotionally, not the least because its simplicity in execution refuses to drown out the good stuff. 

The Rise of DRM

Blizzard got hacked the other week; it joins the long list of companies hit by what is becoming the new crime wave of the century. The dictionary says that piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at land, sea, or air; or now the World Wide Web. Some gamers and journalists like to imply that piracy and hacking are a mostly trumped up idea by some vast conspiracy of game companies.

The Best of the Best II

The best cult favorites, the shows that never were; the best television shows to ever grace your television that no one ever watched (in no particular order):

Were the Reapers Evil?

Author’s Note: In honor of the Leviathan DLC coming out soon, in which it is likely we will learn more about the history of the Reapers and their inception; I thought it would be interesting to ponder whether or not the Reapers should be called evil.

Can an honest man be evil? Must the actions of a man motived by a selfless good be condemned as evil? If a man believes that murdering a hundred will save the lives of a million is he evil? Is evil in the intention or the action or must it always be both? In Mass Effect 3, the Reapers were brought into being to save the galaxy from an unending cycle of death. Rather than let the cycle of war between synthetic and organic continue to an inevitable end the A.I. Construct decided to commit genocide only on the higher species in the galaxy thereby letting the lesser species grow. But in doing so the A.I. stopped one cycle of destruction and started another.

The Best of the Best I

Best TV Shows Since the Turn of the Century

(in no particular order)

Torn Asunder

The Old Republic sounded the gong when it went free to play the other day. It's detractors were quick to point and say 'I told you so'. Later calmer heads prevailed and between stock analysts and the stock market EA was actually doing better after the news. These days the drive to go F2P has changed the landscape and the billion dollar quarters are the singular domain of only World of Warcraft. I've always felt the the MMO market was sitting on a bubble, but I see F2P as a kind of market correction without the doom and gloom of a crash. I don't think we're ever going back to subscriptions, unless a product can truly transcend the market and I haven't see it yet.


Addendum: I read this article on VG247, that sparked my attention, such a well written article deserved notice.