Bloodstained: Ritual Of The Night ("new Castlevania")

[Opa Opa]

Kickstarter is the equivalent of the dude that plays a guitar on a city sidewalk. Throw a dollar in his hat and you may get a nice little tune or he may just light up a cigarette.

It definitely isn't a pre-order system and calling it an investment is laughable. You're not part-owner of the content with stock in the company.

I do buy kickstarter games once they're real and available (FTL) but I'm perfectly happy letting others throw their money at dreams. So I hope this project turns out okay too and I can pay for it when it comes out.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Kickstarter is the equivalent of the dude that plays a guitar on a city sidewalk. Throw a dollar in his hat and you may get a nice little tune or he may just light up a cigarette.

It definitely isn't a pre-order system and calling it an investment is laughable. You're not part-owner of the content with stock in the company.

I do buy kickstarter games once they're real and available (FTL) but I'm perfectly happy letting others throw their money at dreams. So I hope this project turns out okay too and I can pay for it when it comes out.

It really depends on who you are supporting. A lot of times, people do throw their money on pipe dreams with too big a vision. You have to be smart on who and what you back. Games like this, Mighty No. 9, Broken Age etc. come from established developers and a professional team.

Go and back a game like Stomping Ground and...well.....

[Snatch1414]

I'm not really into Kickstarter either so I don't know if this is typical or not, but it's shocking to me the average backer is putting up around $77.

I'm interested in putting up the $60 to get the physical release, but the tiers still confuse me. It seems like $15 for a digital copy and say, $30-40 for the physical one would make sense. After all, if this was picked up by a publisher to begin with and put on Xbox Live it would be $15 right? I guess my question is is this a downloadable game or not? The Kickstarter can't seem to decide.

[MrPopo]

I'm not really into Kickstarter either so I don't know if this is typical or not, but it's shocking to me the average backer is putting up around $77.

That's very unusual. A lot of people are backing at the higher than physical release tiers.

I'm interested in putting up the $60 to get the physical release, but the tiers still confuse me. It seems like $15 for a digital copy and say, $30-40 for the physical one would make sense. After all, if this was picked up by a publisher to begin with and put on Xbox Live it would be $15 right? I guess my question is is this a downloadable game or not? The Kickstarter can't seem to decide.

The physical copies are a one-time run for Kickstarter backers, so they aren't going to get the same economy of scale as they would with a full retail production. This is a digital game.

[DonSilvestre]

I'm not really into Kickstarter either so I don't know if this is typical or not, but it's shocking to me the average backer is putting up around $77.

I'm interested in putting up the $60 to get the physical release, but the tiers still confuse me. It seems like $15 for a digital copy and say, $30-40 for the physical one would make sense. After all, if this was picked up by a publisher to begin with and put on Xbox Live it would be $15 right? I guess my question is is this a downloadable game or not? The Kickstarter can't seem to decide.

I think there's a lot of gamers (most of them probably hang out on sites like this...) that are frustrated that publishers don't seem to understand what they want from their favorite franchises (Castlevania, Mega Man, Contra, Sonic, too many others to count). When a defected creator like Iga puts out a Kickstarter like this, a lot of fans see it as an opportunity to show the middle finger to publishers by paying way more than normal for the game. "SEE Konami! If you'd just make the damn game I want, I'd happily shell out a TON of money for it if it's given the care it deserves." Part of that sentiment is obviously ridiculous, as you know if Konami released Bloodstained for more than $15 everyone would be bitching about that. That said, I do think several publishers severely underestimate what they could do with "Special Physical Editions" of these digital games if they really tried to make it special.

I mean, consider you pay $40-$50 for a physical copy of Super Castlevania IV that can easily be emulated for free. $60 for a VERY limited physical run of Bloodstained on PS4 that will cost you $15 minimum for a digital copy anyway is a bargain in comparison. Plus you get all the feels of helping make a project like this happen AND giving the middle finger to Konami for effing up Castlevania.

[Jmustang1968]

So it's at $1,323,563 right now with 31 days to go. I hope this thing breaks $5,000,000 so Konami can piss themselves in despair. ]

This is what you get for letting your shareholders steer the boat, dipshits.

Problem is, those still arent numbers major publishers get too excited over.

[Exhuminator]

Problem is, those still arent numbers major publishers get too excited over.

Let's see what another month brings us though.

[DonSilvestre]

Problem is, those still arent numbers major publishers get too excited over.

Let's see what another month brings us though.

Too many publishers are looking to publish the next Call of Duty/Halo/Minecraft. Problem is it's a massive risk to fund those kind of huge budget games. You'd think if a company like Capcom/Konami made more of a point to fund smaller games like this, but a lot of them, they'd have no problem making lots of money. Didn't Mega Man 9/10 turn a profit? Those couldn't have been expensive to develop.

Then again, I guess that's what a lot of companies are doing with mobile. Most of them don't seem to be all that successful with that model though.

Meh.

I think the real answer is just to go back to NES and SNES game development so that everything is way cheaper to make

[topperware]

I'm definitely excited for this game and have Kickstarted it.

I view Kickstarter (at least for games) more as a pre-order system than an investment, however. With an investment, you expect to make a return. Here, you're not getting anything beyond a pre-determined product, much like a pre-order. It's obviously riskier than a traditional pre-order, which you can cancel. But Kickstarting doesn't share any of the upside (basically the reward for your risk-taking) that investments have. If you back this game and it becomes wildly successful, the next Minecraft, you still get . . . a copy of the game and any other goodies for the level you pledged at. A true investor would see something additional.

This isn't a criticism of Kickstarter; I just don't feel like an investor in any way when I use it.

[Gunstar Green]

Maybe investment is the wrong word to use and donation is more accurate.

Though you're still investing in the success of the product, not with the intention of making a profit in the traditional sense, but in seeing the product's completion.

The return is essentially the game itself with the hope that more money = higher quality. That's the main thing that makes it different from a pre-order. Like a traditional investment you run the risk of not getting what you wanted out of it in either the game not coming out or the quality not living up to what you expected.