[POLL] Kickstarting Starbound - For or Against?

I was just looking at how Wasteland 2, a game funded by kickstarter raised
$2,933,252
and was wondering whether it would be good to take Starbound down that route. Because unfortunately since the Starbound team are indie devs, they only have limited time and money and I worry that they may not have enough time to add all the awesome features that they have planned. With kickstarter, I think there would be no real downside as they would get loads of extra money; as a lot people have been have said they would happily donate lots of money and would love to preorder. This would be good as the devs would have a lot more time and money to implement whatever features they might want. Personally, I know I would straight away donate as I really want this to succeed. Hopefully the devs will decide to kickstart it as it would be very beneficial

Tell me your thoughts in the comment section.

 

how many copies of terraria was sold? 700k? 900k? at this $ was founded Chucklefish, and Starbound develop....so....if Devs in future want to create some game at CryEng3, then kickstart.
Also, there are no pre-order!!! at the time mainstream devs (ea, 2k, ubi) give preorder at 8-10month befor release, and this is kickstart)
also no any video or screen in wasteland2 game. I am very sorry for people who have invested money in the air

 

related: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/kickstarter-alphafunding-pre-orders-etc.1201/

 

If they needed the extra money for the game they would have kick started, this is their baby and from what we know at this time is that they are the parents that don't want volunteer nannies. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure kick starter is only for companies who don't have enough money to make a game and need the communities support then they would have done that before announcing the game, though it is still pre-alpha so who knows! rabble rabble.

 

kickstarter are a good way for the community to get a project of the ground, but as it says above, i think they got enough money already

 

I do not like this idea for two reasons:
1) Kickstarter hands out special privileges for donating to a development (e.g. early access, in game content, etc) which is unfair to those who can not donate but want the game just as much (Also this could lead to people donating to the kickstarter just for privileges)
2) If they needed money, they probably would have made that apparent already.

 

You have to remember that this is a business we're talking about. To us, raising over a million dollars to fund a game sounds fantastic, but in a business sense it's a nightmare! Sure, it's engaging to get the consumer on board almost immediately, and it's great to know that you're a success before you've even started, but there are some problems with a Kickstarter project. Lets say your company has had $1,000,000 invested within the designated asking time, here's the scenario:

• Around 10% of money raised automatically goes to other sources (Kickstarter and Amazon charge 5% each). That's instantly $100,000 of the money for the services provided by the company handling money.
• TAX!!! I cannot emphasize how much this will affect getting such a large transaction of money over a short period of time. The money has to be distributed almost instantaneously to make sure that there is hardly any tax deduced from it. Holding onto a sum of money that large makes it liable to be taxed almost a third of what it's originally worth if the correct documentation isn't filled in (which is also a huge pain). This leads me onto the next point:
• You are liable for where the money goes. This may sound stupid, but for a small company it's often a nightmare running a business whilst trying to develop a game (they usually have a handful of people to do this in a large company)
• The money takes time to actually arrive to your account once the Kickstarter funding has become a success. (around 2 weeks!) Remember that this is development time, so you're still running a business without money.
• It's a lot of extra work! PR is a must have for almost any business directly dealing with their consumer, but this is even more work. We're talking constant updates, specialized rewards for fans, replying to tweets and messages, etc. Remember that Starbound only has a small team of developers, so they need all the time they can to work on the actual game. (We're lucky Tiy keeps us posted at all since he has a business to run and a game to make!)
• Fans can be tricky to deal with after the launch of a game, imagine the privileges and attention they'll want after sinking money into it before release.

Of course there are problems with the traditional corporate methods of funding a game, but I'm simply stating why Kickstarter is more problematic than people think.

The main reason I think Starbound is not going to use Kickstarter is because they respect everything that being an Indie company is about. Working hard on what really matters: the game. Personally, I've always felt that running on a tight budget and having restrictions makes you work harder and makes it all the more rewarding when your game is a success.

 

Agreed, mostly, I dunno if their "respect for everything that being an Indie company is about" is as high as you think it is, they have a lot of money, but I agree that they won't use kickstarter because they've already dealt with making a game without good funding, and they are - as you said - working hard on what really matters: the game, not the customers (although we're nice too ).

Also, I didn't even realize how much pain is in kickstarter, thanks for making those points, it's still better to use and it's revolutionary for indie developers simply because they can get the funding to afford the good equipment instead of constantly fighting with mediocre or sub par equipment. But still I knew kickstarter and amazon took money, didn't realize you'd get all that taxed... Course than how taxation works probably has to depend with your country and location in said country.

 

OmnipotentEntity has informed the community on more than one occasion so far that Chucklefish is doing completely fine financially. Tiy has mentioned that he intends to actually publish ANOTHER game (not develop, PUBLISH.) that people can buy from Chucklefish in order to support them. When the details of that are ready to be made public, we'll see an announcement. He was asked about Kickstarter quite awhile ago, and said that he was not interested in using it.

 

Yo have been thoroughly answered OP... I would say we're done here thank you Aijou

 

Well Im pretty sure that after working in Re-Logic Tiy got lots of cash of Terraria And after publishing some game(dont know what game) Im sure they have enough cash by themselfs kickstarter isnt needed so NO.

 

It may be difficult to pull off Kickstarter, because of all of the difficulty's previously mentioned, but I still think the more money they have the better; because it allows for more and better features in the game.

 

They probably don't need it but you could donate like 25 dollars and get a bunch of extra cool stuff that come with the different levels of the perk!