Castle Story - 80k or 700k?

  I hadn't been planning to write anything on gaming for awhile after doing Gaming Week last week.  But, events of the day have encouraged me to write one last blog entry.

  I've spent a large portion of my evening on the Steam forums and the Castle Story Online forums.  And there have been a few people saying some things that I don't necessarily agree with.

  Now, before I get into that, I need to say one thing.  I did hurl some minor insults at people, calling several people stupid and what not.  For that, I am sorry.  That is not something I should be doing, affiliated with the devs or not.  I will endeavor to avoid doing that anymore in the future.  I will stick to facts from here on in.

  Alright, let's get into it.  The first thing I've heard several people say is that $20 is too much for an early access game.

  Well, this doesn't really hold up.  The majority of games on Early Access are indeed $20.  That's sort of par for the course.  It's certainly worth $20, especially when you consider that it doesn't just get you the current version, but the completed version as well once it's done.

  Second, back during the Kickstarter, the cheapest thing you could pledge for was beta, which was $15.  Now, one of the running themes about kickstarting something is that you typically get something a bit cheaper, since you're supporting a project in it's infancy.  If they turned around and offered this version for $15, wouldn't that be a bit of a slap in the face of the beta backers, who've been supporting the game since it's inception?

  Another thing I'm hearing brought up a lot is that they were only asking for $80,000, to make a game worth $80,000.  And that, even though they got $700,000, they should have still delivered the $80,000 game.  This just doesn't make sense to me.

  Personally, if I gave someone three-quarters of a million dollars, and they returned something to me that was only worth a tenth of that, I would be mad as hell.  I would call them incompetent, I would call them thieves, and I'd scream from the mountaintop how crooked they were to just pocket all that extra money.

  Would I like to have a complete version of the Castle Story they originally pitched for $80,000 now, polished and bug free?  You bet your ass.  But, I'd much rather have a much bigger, much better Castle Story later for $700,000.

  There was actually an experiment done with children once.  They gave them a marshmallow, and told them they could eat it right then, and it would be done, or they could wait 5 minutes, and get a second marshmallow.  Many of the children just ended up eating the marshmallow, and then regretted it when they were told they couldn't have the second.  And those that waited were much, much happier.

  So come on guys, let Sauropod give us a second marshmallow, we paid for it after all.

  Another thing I've heard said was this.  Why didn't they just make the originally pitched game, and then build on that with all the extra money?  Well, it's really just not that easy.  For one, you never see 75% of a game.  It's all in the background, it's the framework that holds it all together.  All of that needs to be there and be right before you can really add on the stuff you do see.

  This means that they couldn't have delivered the originally pitched game, and had the framework in place to build it into what they wanted, and done all of that for $80,000 or within the original time frame.  It simply wouldn't have been feasible.

  Furthermore, even if they had, you have the be a lot more careful with a fully released game.  When something is in early access, bugs are expected.  Patches that break things are expected as well.  This can't be said for fully released games.  If a studio patches a game that's been fully released for it's fully price and it breaks the game for half of the people that play it, that is really, really, really bad news.

  I mean, look at EA, they've been doing that for ages.  I still remember the debacle that was the 3rd patch for Battlefield 2142.  It took them over a year to develop, and borked the game for half the players.  And they even had a public alpha for this patch, which was just as broken.  Oh, and that public alpha patch?  It couldn't be turned into the fully patched version.  When they released the full patch, they told everyone that they had to fully uninstall the game, reinstall it, reinstall the DLC, repatch all the previous patches, and then the new patch.  It was a nightmare.  And if it had been on a game that was an alpha itself, or Early Access, or whatever, I would have been alright with it.  But, it wasn't.  It was a full, released game that I had paid full price for.  And I was pissed.

  All of this is sort of a moot point anyway.  Fact is, this is where it is.  You can say what they should have done all day, but that doesn't change where things are now.  They don't have a time machine, they can't go back and develop the 80k version of the game.  They can only move forward, not backward.  This is the version of the game we've got.  It's good, and it works fairly well.  And they're going to constantly be adding to it.  Let them do it, and stop arguing about what they should have done.  It's silly.

Gaming Week! - Castle Story

  Hey there guys!  So, that was fun yesterday, huh?  If you read the entry right after I posted it, you may have missed the update.  So, in a nutshell, Ouya has changed the rules of their Free the Games fund for the better.  Much better.  And as a result, Gridiron Thunder is no longer eligible for it.

  But, we aren't talking about that today.  Today, we're talking about Castle Story!  What's Castle Story, you ask?  This is:

  Castle Story is a game in development by the kind folks over at Sauropod Studio.  It's the strategy meets building.  You control all your little yellow guys, called Bricktrons, and you use them to cut down trees, mine into the ground, and build castles to help defend not just your people, but the crystal that brings your people to life.

  Oh, and the islands are floating high in the sky above an endless ocean.  So don't dig too deep or too greedily.

  I've personally been a part of the game in some capacity since early on.  As the Kickstarter was running, I became a moderator on the community forums.  While not directly associated with Sauropod in any way, much of the community spends their time on the forums at www.CastleStoryOnline.com.  The Sauropod guys don't manage that page, it's entirely community run.

  They ran into a pretty major issue during the Kickstarter campaign.  They realized that the estimated delivery dates listed in the pledges were just plain untenable.  There was no way they'd be able to deliver by those deadlines.  This became especially true as the project scope began to change when they blasted past their funding goal of $80,000, climbing all the way up past $700,000.  They made it a point, at that time, to tell everyone that the estimated delivery dates simply would not be met, and that Kickstarter wouldn't let them change those ETA's after launching the campaign.  They recommended that anyone who wasn't alright with that withdraw their pledge.  Few people did, if any at all.

  The game had gotten much more attention than anybody at Sauropod, or even in the wider community had ever expected.  Suddenly, what had started as a little demo reel for Germain and Francois had turned into a game that was getting a lot more press than anticipated.  And that's not always good news.  Suddenly, they had a lot more critical eyes on their Bricktrons than they'd expected, and that's enough to make any artist sweat bullets.  They started a weekly development blog to help get any information about the game out there.

  However, shortly after the Kickstarter Ended, the weekly development blog became...  Well, less weekly.  And the community quickly started to lose patience, becoming divided over people who wanted the news, and people who didn't care about the news and just wanted a game.

  Enter Thierry, the web man.  He took over the blog, quickly stepping forward to make it a weekly occurrence again.  At this point, I had started speaking with him pretty regularly.  When the blog fell to him, he asked me if I could help him with it.  The problem was that Thierry, while very intelligent, is not a native English speaker.  He's French Canadian, and his native tongue is French.  He can speak well enough in English to convey an idea, and have a conversation.  But when it came to a professional blog that is the singular news source for the community, it simply wouldn't do.  So, he needed an editor, someone to read through the blog and clean up the English.  That's where I come in.

  In the early days, he'd write the entire entry in a pastebin, then send me a link.  I'd copy the entire thing into notepad, edit it all, and then make a new pastebin with the completed blog, sending it back.  This didn't last long, as it was complex and couldn't be viewed and corrected easily in real time.  After about a month and a half, we realized we needed a better system.  So, we switched to google docs.  From that time forward, he'd write it all in a google doc, then just share it with me.  I'd go in, make all the changes, and then just tell him it was done.  This is still how we do it today.  I also eventually took over the Soundtrack of the Week, another element of the blog, as the team ran dry on new music.

  Once the rest of the team had the concerns of the blog removed, development accelerated.  Now, these guys are still new to the industry and game development in general, so it wasn't quite as fast as what you'd expect from a team of veterans, but progress was happening regardless.  The prototype of the game was released in October of 2012, and over the next few months saw a couple updates to help fix some of the more broken parts of it.  It was pretty bare bone, but it had most of the building and resource management in.

  After the second prototype patch, they decided that their efforts would be better spent progressing towards beta than continuing to support the prototype.  It was, after all, only ever intended to give a small glance at what the game would be.  Continuing to patch it and make sure it would work on all supported platforms at each released build would have taken a lot of resources away from the overall development.  So, they dropped support of the Prototype and went full steam ahead.

  Eventually, they did release one final patch for the prototype at community request, adding in a couple more mechanics and features, such as the new user interface.  And now, they're only days away from the big one, the game's release on Steam Early Access.  I'm certain the guys are all sweating bullets at this point, knowing that for the first time, anybody will be able to just pick up the game and play it.  I do not envy them the stress of the next few days.

  I've loved working with Thierry on this stuff every week, and watching the game slowly evolve.  I've never been paid for any of it, and that's OK.  I've wanted to work in this industry since I was a child with no concept of money, and this volunteer work has let me fulfill that dream at least in part.  I've routinely been told by my parents, by my ex-girlfriend, by many people that I should stop and tell them to pay me or do it themselves, and I've refused to do that every time.  I'd happily do it for another year if needed.  The window it's given me into the process has been invaluable.

  So, if any of them are reading this, thank you for letting me be a part of this project.  I've enjoyed every moment of it.  And good luck on Monday, I'm sure it'll be a hit.  I've seen the latest builds, and it's shaping up great.

Gaming Week! - Kickstarted Rage Part 2

  So, yesterday we went over the perils many developers face when they start up their game with Kickstarter.  I'd say it's worth it at the end of the day though, personally.  Today, we're going to talk about when the rage directed at these developers is warranted.  And, we'll have a few excellent examples as well!

  Now, to reiterate, I'm not condoning going online and spewing venom at people.  I don't think it's ever OK to start insulting someone personally, or threatening them with violence, or any of that.  There is nothing that makes that alright.  Ever.

  What I am condoning is holding them accountable, insisting on a return of your money, and pointing out the major flaws in what they're doing.  And I'm condoning that when they aren't fulfilling their obligations.  Note that delivering a finished product right on time isn't considered one of those obligations.  Here is what it says in Kickstarters' FAQ.

What should creators do if they're having problems completing their project? 

If problems come up, creators are expected to post a project update (which is emailed to all backers) explaining the situation. Sharing the story, speed bumps and all, is crucial. Most backers support projects because they want to see something happen and they'd like to be a part of it. Creators who are honest and transparent will usually find backers to be understanding. 

It's not uncommon for things to take longer than expected. Sometimes the execution of the project proves more difficult than the creator had anticipated. If a creator is making a good faith effort to complete their project and is transparent about it, backers should do their best to be patient and understanding while demanding continued accountability from the creator. 

If the problems are severe enough that the creator can't fulfill their project, creators need to find a resolution. Steps could include offering refunds, detailing exactly how funds were used, and other actions to satisfy backers. 

  So, many developers on Kickstarter do run into delays.  That's sort of normal.  Almost anyone who's ever done software development can tell you that delays happen, and in any dev's early days, they were the worst judge possible about how long something will take.

  However, sometimes it's more than just delays.  Enter 'Code Hero', a game that was pitched on Kickstarter quite a while back.  It was pitched to be an educational tool, a game revolving around coding that could teach kids rudimentary programming skills while keeping them engaged with a game.  The developer asked for $100,000 and got $170,954.

  Over a year and a half later, there is still no game, and the developer cut off pretty much all communication with the community.  He admitted to burning through all the funds, including that which should have been reserved for physical items that were pledged for.  All the dev has done so far is admit to being out of money, and released a mostly broken beta.  He's no longer operating in good faith, as he won't communicate with the community.  There's even been talk of a class action lawsuit against him, though it wouldn't do any good since he doesn't have any money left anyway.

  Then there are instances that are straight up scams.  I can't recall the name of the last one I'd heard of right off the bat, but they had put together a very good pitch.  Then, an eagle-eyed surfer noticed that some of the concept art they had up seemed very familiar.  Upon a bit more inspection, it turned out the, and I use the term loosely here, developer had lifted the entirety of the art assets from someone else's project.  Needless to say, much hell was raised, and the project got shut down by Kickstarter.

  Then there are projects that smell distinctly of scam.  Take Gridiron Thunder.  Now, before the owner of that project decides to threaten me with a lawsuit, they aren't doing anything illegal or against the rules.  I'd count on them not doing so, the lead dev has been a lawyer in Silicon Valley for over twenty years.  If anyone knows how to get through the legal system, it's him.  But, what they're doing is highly unethical.

  They started up their project to develop a football game for the Ouya game system, and to make use of the Ouya 'Free the Games' fund.  This fund will match any money raised in a kickstarter for a game in return for 6 months of exclusivity on the platform, so long as the game raises $50,000, and will match up to $250,000. Now, I'm not going to go into how bad of an idea that is to begin with.  Suffice to say, it's a stupid idea.

  Now, Gridiron Thunder raised $171,009 by the end of it's campaign.  From only 183 backers.  That means, on average, each backer gave $934.48.  Each.  This is the highest average for a game project ever.  By a massive margin.  Of those 183 backers, 23 claimed no pledge levels, so they just threw money at it with no return what so ever.  That's also exceedingly fishy.  I can't recall having ever seen that happen before.

  Even fishier is how many donations came from accounts that had just been registered, and had never donated to a project before that.  And how many of those new accounts had the same name.  And how many of those accounts shared their surname with the founder of the company.  Now, if he wants to funnel money into his own project to make sure it succeeds, that's fine by me.  I have absolutely no problem with that.

  Where my problem lies is that this is specifically set up with Free the Games.  Which means if he invested say, $50,000 into his project, that means Ouya will now double that.  He's using this fund not only to double what his fans will put into the game, but his own preexisting capital as well.  And that is incredibly dishonest and unethical in my book.

  It would be one thing if the game looked good, but it doesn't.  I've seen their demos.  The game appears to be absolute, complete, unadulterated crap.  They have made exactly 2 models, one of the players, one of the football, a few skins, and used a Kinect to motion cap all the animation.  The game is terrible, slipshod, and it will not sell.  There is a reason that it had so few backers.  This game was clearly assembled in less than a month, and he's going to get not just the $171,009 that the Kickstarter raised, but that amount again from Free the Games, bringing him and his exceedingly small team's haul for a month or so worth of work up to a whopping $342,018.  For what is truly a horrible game.

  And, to make it worse, Free the Games, a fund that could genuinely do some good for the platform if they lower the bottom limit a bit, is a capped fund.  They will only spend one million dollars running this promotion.  This awful game, developed by a horribly immoral company, is going to use up almost a fifth of that fund.

  And Andrew Won, the founder of the studio, has nothing more to say about it than that he didn't realize that the numbers were unusual, and that he's done nothing illegal.  To you Andrew, I say this.  You may have done nothing illegal, but you and your company have done something incredibly immoral.  I am ashamed of you, and I am ashamed to say that someone like you exists in an industry that I have grown up treasuring.  I genuinely hope you one day realize how wrong you have been here, and endeavor to live your life in a less parasitic way.  Your actions may have kept another indie developer from being able to realize their dream.  You may have stolen away another man's bread, another man's livelihood.  And you should be ashamed of yourself.

  Hmm, I guess I went against what I said when I started this entry.  That was a pretty broad personal attack.  Alright, I'll amend that.  There is a very, very small number of situations where something like that is called for.  But do notice that I never started cursing, I never threatened, and I never got irrational.

  Tomorrow, if I can find the time, we'll talk about a project I've been voluntarily involved in for the last year. Another project that got its life from Kickstarter.  We'll be talking about Castle Story, from Sauropod Studio, along with all the ups and downs they've experienced over the last year since their Kickstarter, leading up to the early release of their game on Steam this coming Monday.  See you all then!


EDIT:  Just as soon as I finished this, I looked up some news.  It turns out that it's good news.  Ouya has, very wisely, changed the rules of Free the Games.  The minimum required has been lowered from $50,000 to $10,000, first off.  Also, they require games to have 100 backers per $10,000 raised, to keep people from gaming the system like Gridiron Thunder did.  And, even better, they lowered the required exclusivity period from the previous ridiculous 6 months to a single month, and it excludes PC.  So, devs can release on PC and Ouya at the same time, just not on other consoles until a month has passed.

  And, even better, these new rules count Gridiron Thunder out.  They will no longer be getting a single dime from the Free the Games fund.  This makes me very happy.

  Major props to you, Ouya, this was the proper move.  I'm proud of you.  I am, for the first time, considering trying to get my hands on one of your consoles.

Gaming Week! - Kickstarted Rage

  So, on Monday, we talked about indie games, their innovation, and the new opportunities that exist for indie devs to actually get the money needed to bring their dreams to life.  Today, we'll be talking about the pit-fall that some of these methods come with.  Most notably Kickstarter.

  Bit of a disclaimer.  I'm talking specifically about Kickstarter because I'm rather unfamiliar with the others, such as Rocket Hub and Indiegogo.  I also don't know if this happens with Desura's alpha funding service or Steam's early access service, as I'm just not as involved in those communities.  Kickstarter has been where I've been the most involved, both in backing games and in involving myself with their communities.

  Now, Kickstarter is great.  It's a wonderful way to get attention for your project, and to get the funds needed to bring it to life.  Where the problem comes in is that, typically, any project on Kickstarter is still in it's infancy.  These aren't projects that have a lot of time already invested in them.  Rarely a year, sometimes not even a month.  Sometimes barely even weeks.  Most projects have a very basic video that's really more a mock up than anything playable, and sometimes they don't even have that.  Take, for example, Double Fine's adventure game kickstarter.  The first video on their first campaign was literally just asking for money to make an adventure game.  No name for it, no game play, no mock ups, just money to make a game.

  Typically, when a new game is announced on Steam, or in a magazine, or on a website, this game is already pretty far along it's development.  Major game studios do not announce games until they are almost completely certain that the game will come out.  More games than people realize get worked on for years and still get canned.  Studios and publishers won't announce games until they are almost done for this reason.

  They don't want to spend money on marketing for a title they aren't sure will generate a return.  They don't want to spend time speaking with the gaming press over a title they are not positive will actually see release.  And they don't want to lose faith and piss off segments of their customer base by talking up a title only to cancel it later.  So, with major game releases, you typically see a project that's almost done, and they show you as little as possible.  Then, they slowly feed out more info as they squash all the bugs leading up to release.  The result is that it seems like they started with a barely there game, and developed everything else really, really, really fast leading up to launch, and that's just not the case.

  This isn't what happens on Kickstarter.  What you typically see there is a game that really is barely there.  Very often, it's just the developer talking, along side some mock ups, concept art, and some gameplay video that's held together by duct tape, and very carefully edited to avoid showing any major issues.

  So, people get it in their minds that they'll be seeing swift development, and a finished, or at least very advanced beta in short order.  Nine times out of ten, this doesn't happen, and the community just doesn't know how to react.

  Now, most of the people in these communities understand that delays happen, and are wonderful supportive people.  Maybe not pleased, maybe even asking for refunds, but they are typically still very reasonable.  I'm not talking about them.  I'm talking about an incredibly vocal minority.

  Rather than supporting the game, or getting fed up and just leaving, or asking for a refund, they camp out Reddit, the game blog's comment section, any community forums.  Every time the developers say anything, these individuals are there, pitch forks in hand.  They aren't pleased with anything short of a completed game, and a developer blog that has every single detail of what every team member has done every day since the last blog entry.  They don't seem to realize how ridiculous that is.

  Seriously guys, they can't do that.  Obviously, the game isn't done, otherwise you'd already know.  And they can't give you a bullet list of every single thing that's been done.  Fact is, developers will try about a dozen different things before happening upon something that works both mechanically and aesthetically.  If they detailed everything they did, the blog entry would be two things.  Stupidly long and a really bad looking.  It would have "Failed, failed, failed, failed, failed, kinda worked, failed, failed, worked but looks crap, failed, worked properly".

  And that's for experienced developers.  The vast majority of developers on Kickstarter are not experienced devs.  Many have never worked on a full scale publicly known project, and even more have never shipped a game.  And, you're seeing the game from it's infancy, not well into development.  They won't deliver the game next month.  It just won't happen.  And if they do, you probably don't want the game.  Gridiron Thunder is a prime example of that.  They won't give you every single detail of what they do, no developer will, ever.  They won't respond to your every question, especially if you're always asking the same questions in an insulting way every week.

  And, on that topic, insulting these fine gentlemen who are trying to bring their dream to life every chance you get won't make them work faster.  It won't make them give you more info either.  I've known of several developers who have completely cut off all community interaction because of how toxic a small portion of that community became.

  If you've got questions, ask them.  If you've got concerns, raise them.  But do so politely.  Do so respectfully.  Don't hurl venom and hate at these guys, because then they won't listen to you.

  If you cut someone off while driving, and they pull up beside you, roll down their window, and start yelling, and screaming, and cursing, are you going to care that you pissed them off?  I know I wouldn't.  They're dicks.  But, if you cut someone off, and they pull up, roll down their window, and say that you cut them off, that they realize you probably didn't see them, and they ask you to please just pay a bit more attention going forward, chances are you would.  Chances are you'd apologize, unless you're actually the dick.

  If you're concerned and want to make the game progress better, and want the game to be more fun when it's done, realize that you can help.  You can bring up your concerns, and be heard.  But nobody will listen if you sound like you're full of hate and anger.  If you sound like you can't be pleased, nobody will try to please you.

  Now, all that being said, there are most certainly times when that ire and anger is deserved.  Times where developers of Kickstarter projects should be held accountable, and deserve every bit of anger they get.

  And we'll talk about a few of those in the next entry!  See you then!

Gaming Week! - Indie Titles

  Hey guys!  We're gonna go a bit gaming heavy this week.  I'm going to have a second Tail's Tale in here at some point, but for now, games!

  Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a massive gamer.  I've been playing since I was old enough to hold a controller.  I started on the NES, and eventually became one of the PC Gaming master race.  The entire reason I got into computers to begin with was so I could play Unreal Tournament, and it's been a steady progression since then.

  While I certainly enjoy some of the bigger titles, such as Call of Duty, Command and Conquer, and Team Fortress, I've always had a special love for indie titles.  I've always felt that because of how small the teams that make them are, they are always more willing to risk failure for the sake of innovation.

  Now, I don't mean innovation for the sake of innovation.  We've seen enough of that with Nintendo's special control schemes and forced Kinect support.  Innovating for the sake of being able to say, "We innovated!" is disingenuous.  That's coming up with an idea and looking for some way to force the game to use it.

  The innovation I'm talking about is more organic than that.  It's having a game play element, and coming up with an interesting and original way of implementing it.  One of the best, most recent examples I can think of is in Godus, from 22 Cans, Peter Molyneux's development studio.

  Godus is a game in the vein of Populus and Black and White.  It places you in the role of a God, watching over the land and it's people, yet giving you no direct control over those people.  And that's all fine and dandy, and not really what we're talking about.  What we are talking about is the landscape.

  The game gives you the ability to terraform the world, raising, lowering and dragging around terrain however you see fit.  The result is a massive, and very dynamic world for you to populate with your worshipers.  Now, most games with a dynamic world like this do it in one of two ways.  Either with 'voxels', or volumetric pixels, such as Minecraft, or with a transformable mesh.

  Both methods have their pros and cons.  With Voxels, you get a very modifiable world, but it's very blocky, lacking a lot of the polish we are accustomed to in this age of gaming.  With the mesh, you get a much smoother landscape, but often run into issues with things like structures or caves, since what you're dealing with is essentially a piece of paper.

  Godus chose to do something a bit different, that I can't recall having seen before.  The world is made up of layers.  I would guess that each layer is about a meter thick.  You can remove layers, add layers, or drag around the boundaries, transforming the world however you desire.  It's something completely new, and I love it.

  This is the type of things we see from indie games.  From the floating islands and RTS game play of Castle Story, to the triple pane rhythm game styling of Sequence, indie studios simply push further to make their game play interesting.

  And, with the advance of services such as Kickstarter and Steam's Early Access, opportunities for these small studios to deliver excellence are only growing in number.  I can think of a half dozen different methods right off the top of my head, and I'm certain that there are more beyond that.  And that's just on PC.

  Of course, using something like Kickstarter to launch your game comes with it's own set of issues.  And we'll talk about that tomorrow!  See you then!