Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Bodoh]

That MMO is on an ultra-thin budget!

The above can be accomplished with the desired $2,000 goal.

$2,000 Breakdown,
$300 for LLC
VPS (sever solution for Alpha testing) $45/month
$700 for outsourced 3D and 2D art pieces to better establish a more filled out environment for our current map for the Alpha.
$800 Outsource an experienced freelance networking programmer to better refine our current setup. (should be roughly 2 weeks or less job by estimate).

Do you think they can make it with $2,000?

[Edge-]

Do you think they can make it with $2,000?

Abso-freaking-lutely not. It's a prime example of either someone who has literally no idea of how to budget for a game (very likely, there are a lot of these folks crowdfunding all sorts of projects nowadays) due to having no experience, or someone looking to try to score some winter beer money.

Given that their campaign is more than half over and they've raised just over $100, I doubt they'll get anywhere near the $2k minimum so the project is pretty much already dead. As these types of projects should be. So seems like it's working as intended : )

[Kyanion]

Abso-freaking-lutely not. It's a prime example of either someone who has literally no idea of how to budget for a game (very likely, there are a lot of these folks crowdfunding all sorts of projects nowadays) due to having no experience, or someone looking to try to score some winter beer money.

Given that their campaign is more than half over and they've raised just over $100, I doubt they'll get anywhere near the $2k minimum so the project is pretty much already dead. As these types of projects should be. So seems like it's working as intended : )

Yup there are games all over the place trying to crowd fund that don't have a prayer. Most of them aren't even worth glancing at. It is the ones that try REALLY hard and start to get some notice through advertising....err interviews on websites and try to hype up what they are doing that should catch our eye. ToA and GM were 2 standout ones for sure, and I am sure there are other ones down the pipeline that might pop up. But it is going to be harder and harder to do this type of stuff through crowdfunding. I think most of the scammy stuff will try to use steam greenlight and even that is not going to earn them much money.

[Edge-]

Yup there are games all over the place trying to crowd fund that don't have a prayer. Most of them aren't even worth glancing at. It is the ones that try REALLY hard and start to get some notice through advertising....err interviews on websites and try to hype up what they are doing that should catch our eye. ToA and GM were 2 standout ones for sure, and I am sure there are other ones down the pipeline that might pop up. But it is going to be harder and harder to do this type of stuff through crowdfunding. I think most of the scammy stuff will try to use steam greenlight and even that is not going to earn them much money.

Yeah, this is a brand new segment of the market, so there's going to be the usual pushing of boundries and fuckery going on while folks on all sides (crowdfunding sites, media, crowdfunding groups/companies/individuals, folks who crowdfund) get their bearings and get more familiar with/educated it all.

[lawow74]

And with the SEC getting involved next year, crowdfunding will have greater legal guidelines that will help protect investors, and hopefully will lead to more oversight of the system. ToA and GM were early breakouts because KS was still in its potato salad days. People stood up and screamed 'WE WILL MAKE THE DIFFERENT AND AWESOME GAMES YOU WANT!' and got money thrown at them site unseen. In some cases this was good(I think of projects like Mighty No. 9, for example)and in others bad. Now that people have seen and heard KS projects fail and fizzle, they're growing more wary.

By the same token, Steam Greenlight will probably see more oversight in future to try and cut down on the cashgrab projects people try and make(like that unfinished walking simulator/horror game we talked about a while back made to try and circumvent the refund period by delaying game progress past the time limit before you realize there IS no progress to make).

Of course, I can't help but wonder how much backrubbing Steam will allow with projects who try and add achievements and trading cards as a way to motivate sales for themselves and Steam, regardless how cheap and crappy the actual game is. It would be an interesting test to see someone take one of these box-cake games and add cheevs and cards to it and see how it does.

[Edge-]

By the same token, Steam Greenlight will probably see more oversight in future to try and cut down on the cashgrab projects people try and make(like that unfinished walking simulator/horror game we talked about a while back made to try and circumvent the refund period by delaying game progress past the time limit before you realize there IS no progress to make).

Eh, that's entirely on Valve. Regulation would have to come from them, it can't really come from without. And give that they've said they want to let the community decide/stay as hands off as possible, and that they're not happy with the way Greenlight works and want to replace it with something eventually, I doubt they're really going to start stepping in.

Of course, I can't help but wonder how much backrubbing Steam will allow with projects who try and add achievements and trading cards as a way to motivate sales for themselves and Steam, regardless how cheap and crappy the actual game is. It would be an interesting test to see someone take one of these box-cake games and add cheevs and cards to it and see how it does.

The amount of money Valve likely makes from those games is likely completely insignificant. They see very low sales volume, often lead to a high number of refunds, and over time can cause harm to the Valve/Steam brand (which is why they've been stepping in to pull some of the scam games). A few thousand sales, with half refunded, of some sham game at $20 a pop (let's say 2,000 actually sell through and aren't refunded) nets Valve a whopping $12,000 in revenue (pre-tax) with their 30% cut. That's nothing.

[Azrile]

Unity has started to show some teeth in this regard. They have started pulling stuff from the asset store that is a complete clone of a popular game or that has a demo scene that is designed mainly to be flipped onto Steam. Things adjust quickly to currently market conditions. As soon as you saw people putting asset store packages directly onto Steam, and just renaming it to appear to be a new game.. now you have people creating small games and selling them on the asset store, KNOWING that people are going to buy them just to put them on Steam. So like instead of making Candy Crush and putting it on Steam for $1, you put it on the Asset Store for $50 and let others actually put it on Steam. Where there is demand, there will be a supplier. But I think this type of stuff flames out pretty fast. Both Unity and Steam will adjust, and players will learn and just the dilution caused by so many clones will make them not worth doing.

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I just won this game, it's amazing....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m6XTfn34Bw

Steam greenlight needs to change.

The sad thing is that game got greenlit to begin with, which means 1500 or so people voted for it in the last few months. So many suggestions about this. I think one thing Valve could do is track people who vote for something, then do not buy it... and have their votes count less. The idea behind votes is that they are supposed to represent people who are interested in buying the game. People who vote for a ton of games they never buy should have their votes count less than people who buy what they voted for.

[lawow74]

That assumes they'll be done in a year. I can't help but wonder if they'll plod along for a few more months, go buy a box-cake gamepack and try to reskin it in hopes they can call it ToA and get some money.

[Azrile]

That assumes they'll be done in a year. I can't help but wonder if they'll plod along for a few more months, go buy a box-cake gamepack and try to reskin it in hopes they can call it ToA and get some money.

That was Proctors plan with the zombie game. He thought he could throw a zombie pack from the asset store onto Steam and earn enough to fund a real game.

It was like ToA with Kickstarter, they think it is ´easy money´ and that players will just throw money at them for nothing. Yes, Steam is a cesspool of bad games, but that does not mean those games are making any real money... definitely not enough to pay a staff and pay for the development of any future games. Brax is just way off scale as far as his expectations. The kickstarter that they spent a year on, spent $60k making... ended up getting about 5% of the money Brax was expecting.. I imagine his estimates for ToA on Steam are probably just as bad.

[lawow74]

Saw this article mentioned on /. today. Another good example of the early days of crowdfunding and pie-eyed promises amounting to nothing. According to the article, they want to release their work for others to continue if it does go under, but we'll see. Things like this are a prime example of why we need better laws concerning crowdfunding, not only to protect backers, but if what the company claims is true, to ensure those running the campaigns get the funds they were promised.

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Love the latest ToA dev blog. Careful guys, your smug levels are rising, we'll have to call the Ego Protection Agency on you. I especially like "Upgraded the original demo code to Unity 5.1". Yeah, how many lines? Two?

But it would seem Gassy is still working with them, since he's mentioned as a modeler.

[Deleted]

This thread just keeps on giving.

[dextersmith]

Love the latest ToA dev blog. Careful guys, your smug levels are rising, we'll have to call the Ego Protection Agency on you. I especially like "Upgraded the original demo code to Unity 5.1". Yeah, how many lines? Two?

Why do you suppose their list of accomplishments are written so dark, it's illegible without highlighting? You think it's shame or trickery?

[lawow74]

Considering the last line "Documentation. Of. Every. Thing." I can't help but think it's snark directed at us. Yeah, Wayback Machine says hello, Brax, mister game developer.

[Kyanion]

Considering the last line "Documentation. Of. Every. Thing." I can't help but think it's snark directed at us. Yeah, Wayback Machine says hello, Brax, mister game developer.

Haha right? Documentation of them lying about having skills of how to code and then admitting later that no, they never really had any skills at all. They learned in that tough school of real life, or hard knocks or whatever BS it was.

[Azrile]

Haha right? Documentation of them lying about having skills of how to code and then admitting later that no, they never really had any skills at all. They learned in that tough school of real life, or hard knocks or whatever BS it was.

Yep, the lessons they learned from the shadowpool days they said would help them with the first kickstarter... the lessons they learned from the first kickstarter they said would help them with the second kickstarter... I think the only lesson they have learned so far is to not mess around with MMO-C

So now upgrading to Unity 5.1 is a new accomplishment? psst.. don´t tell them but we are already on Unity 5.2, and Unity 5.3 is expected on December 8th. It is insane how they talk about this stuff, when normal teams just upgrade as a natural part of development. 5.0 took almost nothing... 5.1 and 5.2 were completely nothing. You just downloaded the new engine. 5.3 will change some lighting stuff, but again, like 5.0 will probably be a 1/2 day job if that. 5.3 is also adding some scene streaming stuff that will make life much easier, but again, implementing it is just an hour or two and can be done whenever... usually when you have to work on a scene for some other reason. These guys just like to talk about every little thing.

Hey guys, we opened a pack of new notecards.... no.. we didn´t actually write anything on them yet.. but we did buy the pack and removed the plastic cover. We have added this to our roadmap and checked it off. Go team!!

[lawow74]

I think the only lesson they have learned so far is to not mess around with MMO-C

Funniest thing is they probably have a bigger 'fanbase' among us than they do people who are actually interested in seeing their game be a real thing. Where's that Dev Chat they talked about?

[ThePotato]

Its how the harp on and hail their landmark achievements. No im sorry making a set of different colored rectangle blocks (looking at you metal ingots) is not a major milestone. If they got 50 unique people stable on a single server with little to no lag issues sure pretty major step forward, or a large visual overhaul but no we get them raving on about making models which at present are fundamentally useless to the playable game they have.

Its akin to a child that's found some colored pens and is proudly showing off its crude scribbling's to its parents. In the child's eyes its pure gold but to everyone else its just well crude scribbling's.

[Azrile]

yeah, I was just looking at their stuff again. It is hard to tell if they are trying to trick people into thinking they are making progress, or if they actually think they are making progress. I mean they are like 6 months into this cut-down version, and they are not even close to having what Teddy had at this time last year working by himself.

[lawow74]

yeah, I was just looking at their stuff again. It is hard to tell if they are trying to trick people into thinking they are making progress, or if they actually think they are making progress. I mean they are like 6 months into this cut-down version, and they are not even close to having what Teddy had at this time last year working by himself.

I'm more inclined to believe the latter, though an element of the former might be in play where they're trying to recruit more people to slavework for them. As is pointed out several times, they're basically patting themselves on the back for doing trivial tasks and acting like it really matters where shaping a game is concerned.

I wonder what the terms of their agreement are, if the Stooges can basically just fire them(giant hypothetical)if they actually get near to releasing something and keep from having to share profits.

[Bodoh]

slavework for them.

Yup, that's what happens. Modern day slavery.
The rest of the team are screwed.


The developers, works for free.
The artists, works for free.
The modellers, work for free.


One person, usually the idea guy, - gets all the money, does nothing every day.


When the slaves revolt, they are kicked out and banned.



... and you can do the maths.

If they earn $100 a month, divided by 5 people, the owner takes $100, gives $0 to the rest of the team.

If they earn $1000 a month, divided by 5 people, the owner takes $1000, gives $0 to the rest of the team.

If they earn $10,000 a month, divided by 5 people, the owner takes $10,000, gives $0 to the rest of the team.