This week I’m going to post a review back to Mighty No. 9, a game I reviewed a while ago, but never posted to this site. For those of you who need a little background: Mighty No. 9 was a kickstarter project from the man that brought us the original Mega Man. This hard 2D platformer was hugely successful in the NES years, but with Capcom owning the IP, it stagnated, becoming a title that was never developed in the 3D era.
If you fancy reading my feelings on the game, by all means give the review a read below:
Disclaimer: The following is an opinion piece. People may not agree with what is being said, but I by all means encourage readers to engage in discussion about the following views and opinions.
I originally wanted to write an article about the frustration I felt towards Double Fine when they announced that Broken Age would be split up into two pieces and the first part would be sold on Steam Early Access. I felt that Double Fine were taking advantage of their fanbase, and were gambling with fan’s money as if no risk is involved. Double Fine themselves had admitted that they had taken their idea to publishers before, only for publishers to turn them down, saying there wasn’t a market for adventure games. For all we know, Double Fine has that entire market already invested in its project, but are acting as if their sales for Broken Age in January are all but confirmed. I decided to skip writing this article in the end as I felt it was a bit hypocritical of me to be frustrated when I hadn’t kickstarted the project, and let it be.
To the public’s surprise, yesterday saw Double Fine release a new game called Spacebase DF9, a game that was conceived during their “Amnesia Fortnight” where the whole company makes new game concepts that may one day turn into a product. I say this is a surprise as Double Fine still have 2 other projects that are yet to finish, and they’ve decided to add a third to the fray.
Broken Age does indeed look pretty, but was it really necessary considering it’s over budget? Double Fine are from the same camp that says graphics do not make a game, yet go out of their way to generate reflections in water, something which I would class as “graphics and aesthetic not needed to fulfil the core game”.
In the past, Double Fine have indeed worked on multiple projects, as many fans have been quick to point out. The difference this time is their use of Kickstarter and Steam Early Access, 2 services that were built to support and maintain indie developers that don’t have access to publishers, something which Double Fine has. In the past, fans didn’t complain about these multiple projects because Double Fine were using publisher’s money, which is the same for every developer in the industry. What makes this wrong is that Double Fine are now messing with their own fan’s money directly, rather than fans just being annoyed that a game has been delayed. It sets a bad precedent that Kickstarter can indeed fail if Broken Age’s sales don’t meet expectations in January, something which everyone seems to gloss over and act as if it’s not a big deal.
I can’t help but feel that Double Fine has been getting a free pass with fans lately. First they overspend on their project which made 8x as much as was needed, and the fans rushed to bless them for making a more ambitious game and being open and transparent with everyone. Next, we don’t hear much about their second game in development, Massive Chalice, and now we get a new alpha game that is still early in development, yet is being sold at a premium price. If any other company were to do any of the above, the gaming industry would be up in arms, telling the developers where they could stick it. But ohhhh no, since Double Fine have a few legendary staff who helped make nostalgic games of yesteryear, fans rush to save them from hostility. It’s a bit ridiculous when you look at it from afar, as Double Fine are still yet to deliver on any of the promises they have made with Broken Age and Massive Chalice, and yet fans are still eager to trust them. Some may claim that Double Fine is composed of 60 employees, and they can’t have people sat around doing nothing, so why not make another game? Which would usually be true in most studios, but when Double Fine have the press and the whole community of Kickstarter watching them, why would you risk your game being mediocre? You’d ensure as many staff were working on the main game as possible to ensure that your reputation isn’t tarnished.
Whilst massive chalice wasn’t as big of a success as Broken Age, it still broke $1million, meaning it easily has a bigger budget than a lot of indie games and Kickstarter projects out there.
Finally, I’m not sure how I feel about early access games recently. I believe that if a customer is willing to buy your broken unfinished game, they should be given an incentive to do so, similar to Minecraft. I bought Minecraft for £8 when it was in beta and was still being fixed and expanded. I felt that was a good price, and it continued to get better and better. With the £8 I spent, I got to watch an enterprising, ambitious and unique project grow into the huge success it is today, whilst becoming engrossed in a diverse, intelligently made world, seeing requests and demands for game additions being fulfilled, brilliant customer service in several other ways and a copy of the game in its entirety upon official release. I was rewarded for my belief in an otherwise unproven product and company. But I’m seeing a growing trend of developers charging premium for this “early access”, like with Double Fine’s recent release. As it stands while I type this, they’re charging £18.99 for the privilege of playing a short, broken game, because apparently at that price it’s already a better game than Fez, Super Meat Boy and Braid, to name a few. Fans should be rewarded, not punished, for supporting developers.
Double Fine have access to publishers, have access to the industry at large, and have a loyal fan base. These means of funding were made for small, independent developers who don’t have access to the same contacts as big businesses, yet Double Fine seem to be abusing the system. They want all the money to develop a game without any of the responsibility. If Double Fine had to go to a publisher and announce they were delaying their product, the publisher would go insane, possibly dropping funding for the rest of the project, yet if Double Fine do the same with fans that invested and they get applauded for being so open and transparent.
And that, my friends, is why I think Double Fine are taking the piss.
Today, a marvellous victory has been won for all indies everywhere that want to one day use Kickstarter as a valid investment source. Elementary, My Dear Holmes (made by Sam Chandola), has recently been suspended due to unusual activity on its account (this was the Kickstarter project that had many fake profiles, included a poor lady that has been missing for months and many fake celebrities).
Elementary, My Dear Holmes has been suspended, and with it, one foul Kickstarter has been taken down. The Developers of EMDH are still in the comments section, claiming they knew nothing of it, so time will tell what actually happened.
Sam Chandola, the creator Elementary, My Dear Holmes has stated in the Kickstarter comments:
“We love point-and-click adventure games and this will, by no means, stop us from pursuing Elementary, My Dear Holmes. We are devoted towards the project and will be seeking private equity to finish this up. And I’m happy to say that based on the initial traction that we got here, we are already in talks with some Venture Capitalists who are willing to back this project privately. Elementary, My Dear Holmes will see the light of day – and will see the light of day sooner than later.”
This is a great victory for those of us that want to keep Kickstarter a clean and safe place for the small independent studios of the world, and goes some way towards clearing Kickstarters name, but the campaign isn’t over. MogoTXT (the developers of Gridiron Thunder), the worst culprit of the Free the Games campaign, is still at large and racking in the thousands through rich investors:
As can be seen, Gridiron Thunder continues to get funding that’s impossible for any ordinary project. Take for example the 5th of September, they managed to lose 3 backers but still gain almost $5k? I call bullshit. Image courtesy of Kicktraq.com
I hope that within the next 47 hours (at the time of writing), the internet can join together to get rid of this evil from Kickstarter. Technically, what MogoTXT is doing isn’t breaking any rules, but it is breaking the spirit of Kickstarter, a site for those that don’t have the means to find investors in their projects, that just want a chance. What MogoTXT is doing is a blatent rip off, for Kickstarter and Ouya. You can’t defend the project on the grounds it’s a game the community wants when only 142 backers have backed the project, showing that no one actually wants this game. I mean, look at the quality of it:
Does Girdiron Thunder really look like a game that a team of talented developers have poured their souls into? Especially one thats going to be released in less than a week and has now got itself over $220k of funding? Ask yourself, why do MogoTXT need the money? They’ve already made the project, meaning they’ve already had the funding needed to release the game. What you’re seeing here is just a scam, pure and simple, to get as much money as possible whilst releasing a sub-par project. It’s a disrespect to Kickstarter that MogoTXT would even dare host this campaign, and extremely disrespectful to Ouya themselves.
The Free The Games campaign was meant to be a fantastic publicity stunt for Ouya, but it’s turned into a bigger mess than any AAA publisher or developer could ever cook up.
I shall keep this blog updated if any more news comes to light in the coming days.
This morning, I awoke to some seemingly good news coming from my Flipboard news app. Polygon reported that Ouya’s “Free The Games” fund had been successful twice on Kickstarter. I was amazed, astounded even, as never in my wildest dreams would I imagine any game prospect would actually be able to raise $50,000 in funds for an Ouya exclusive game. The news article I read can be found here: http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/27/4664654/first-ouya-free-the-games-campaigns-surpass-funding-goals
To summarise, it states that 2 kickstarter campaigns (Gridiron Thunder and Elementary, My Dear Holmes) have successfully got their needed money, and so Ouya will give them 100% extra funding over the course of their development. This is all well and good until you actually take a look at each Kickstarter page:
126 backers pledged $78,234 to this one kickstarter campaign. You can’t tell me that doesn’t seem fishy?
The above, for example, only has 126 backers that have seemingly managed to be the most charitable backers in the entire world. Upon inspection it’s very suspicious: 110 of the 126 backers only want rewards totalling $5063. We all know that backers can indeed pledge more than the reward they’ve chosen but this is extremely rare. To add to this, some of the biggest backers want to remain anonymous, which adds further fuel to the fire and just cries out that this is a scam. To break it down even more, other very clever online sleuths have done some investigating and have come to some very interesting conclusions:
In the above post, people have found multiple backers that have the same name or are in no way affiliated with the games industry, or worst still, don’t exist entirely:
Alivia Das is one of the scammed accounts seemingly backing Elementary, My Dear Watson, and it’s likely the most disturbing of the lot. My heart goes out to the family of this poor lady who is now being used in ways they never imagined. (Credit goes to Zach Roth for this compiled image)
It’s sickening to think that developers could be trying to pull the wool over our eyes to make a sub-par product and a quick buck in the process. All these two games have to do is release a game, any game, whether it is good or bad to the Ouya Marketplace and they’ll get double what they initially invested. When people reached out to Ouya, to find out what they would do about these highly suspicious projects, Ouya just simply responded:
This is all Ouya had to say on the matter at this time of writing. This reply has even lead to further speculation with Ouya’s involvement in this scandle.
They blew it off. Ouya’s official response has led to many speculations that it was Ouya that has been making these fake accounts and giving the developers money. Rumours have been flying around that Ouya was always going to pledge to these developers, but to get more publicity decided to do a “Free The Games” campaign. When it came to light that there was no way these developers could get their initial $50,000 required to qualify for the fund, Ouya themselves started backing them. It makes sense when you think about it. Why would Ouya want their campaign to fail? It would show lack of demand (a reality Ouya have had to deal with almost all of its commercial life) if no projects were able to reach their kickstarter goals, and would show a failing platform. By Ouya funding the projects with scam accounts, it makes it look like the whole community really loves Ouya, and it’s a platform everyone needs to be on. It shows demand, which is exactly what Ouya is struggling with.
Spend two seconds yourself on Kicktraq.com, and you too will find how dodgy Gridiron Thunder is.
There are many people saying it’s the developers themselves that seem to be conning Ouya out of money. I don’t agree with this concept when it comes to Elementary, My Dear Holmes. Sam Chandola, the creator, has been very helpful in responding to people’s concerns on his Kickstarter comments section, even going so far as to email Amazon payments to get to the bottom of this fiasco. MogoXT (Gridiron Thunder) on the other hand have been the complete opposite, even going so far as to answer questions that were never asked when Gamasutra questioned their seemingly dodgy funding system:
Gamasutra themselves are surprised that MogoXT answered questions that were never asked, and points out that they should definitely be further researched. To me this shows guilt, and it appears they are trying to cover themselves in areas, which have yet to be queried.
This entire scam is bad for many reasons. Firstly, it makes users trust Ouya even less. They’ve already had a terrible marketing campaign, one which puts a foul taste in fan’s mouths, and Ouya is walking on thin ice in regards to what they’re going to do in their future to make the Ouya everything they promised. Secondly, it’s terrible for Kickstarter itself, and can open up many projects in the future to scams. It sets a terrible precedent for all indie campaigns, and may even discourage people from investing.
I’m not saying people didn’t back the projects, I’m sure their were a fair few that did legitimately want the games that were advertised. I just think it is extremely improbable these campaigns could have raised over $50,000 without these scam accounts giving large backing. Making a successful campaign in itself for any game that requires $50,000 is hard, we’ve seen more games fail than succeed in the history of Kickstarter. A game exclusive to one platform, that next to no-one owns, managing to succeed, seems just damn well impossible. Ouya needed these campaigns to succeed to make it look like the Ouya is still a viable platform, something communities’ want and love, and something developers would be interested in capitalising on.
Ouya are doing these campaigns for publicity, and like all their other marketing campaigns recently, they’ve been called out.
