Notice Publishing vs Developing

CF says many things. Of which only a few are true.

 

Yes. I know that none of the devs are WORKING on these other games, but the money that CF got from preorders is used to fund them. It's not about man hours. It's about funding. Money that we were told would help get the game (Starbound) to a working 1.0 release. I didn't realize that I was paying CF to become a publishing company.

I also didn't realize anything I said warranted you trying to insult my intelligence.

 

Taken from the Starbound pre-order page:

"Thank you for supporting us! Your purchase will go directly towards the development of the game and help us to get it finished sooner."

So, how much of that stated $4,102,878 went towards publishing these other titles? I sure hope the answer is $0 and it turns out you guys were incredibly wealthy and used your own personal funds, otherwise you're going to have a difficult time explaining that statement and why your game is in a constant state of disarray and perpetual delay whilst remaining unfinished.

Further, what business does CF have publishing anything when they can't seem to get their own projects out the door promptly?

 

Welcome to game development, an organic beast that usually devours some of the promises made. It's always easy to "plan" to do things, but sometimes they just don't work out in practice and you have to adjust and change the way things are done. I'm sorry that you were expecting everything to happen on schedule and in the way they said it would without anything being excluded or changed. Welcome to the real world, where things break and plans change. It's tough, I know.

Chucklefish is publishing and advertising for these other games, they aren't funding the development. All of those games got their funding before CF got involved, either through Kickstarter or other means.

I apologize for insulting your intelligence, but when you base your negative responses on false information it's frustrating for the people that have to read it, and the developers who have to deal with it.

Also I'm sure CF planned to assist other games with publishing regardless of what you were paying for. You're still going to get Starbound, and they're still trying really hard for the promised 2014 release. They're putting every dollar they can within reason into developing Starbound, but games aren't just things you throw more money at to complete faster. It's going to get done when it gets done, so where's the harm in sharing the wealth and enhancing the gaming industry with more good games?

 

I would like dev confirmation on this. That none of their published games received direct funding from CF. If they are getting 10% profits just for plugging other peoples games they are REALLY working those other devs over.

I didn't say you did. Only that you tried.

 

So you expect me to believe that their publishing and advertising is done with no budget whatsoever, and that these other companies are just volunteering 10% of their profit for what could apparently be done for free?

Ok, continue - I'm listening.

 

You'd be amazed what advertising with a popular company is worth. 10% isn't all that bad of a deal to plug their game on social medias, and on their website, and to advertise here and there. It's a 2-way deal. These other companies get more recognition (also having the weight of a bigger and more popular company's name to throw around never hurt either) and CF gets a little bit of return for their time and effort invested in helping.

Publishing and advertising is not the same as funding a games development. Those games would have been completed anyway, this just helps them sell more copies.

 

Still costs money. And I can only think of one place that CF got an influx of cash before they wanted to start becoming a publishing company overnight without a single completed game to their own credit.

 

That's fair criticism. However I'm sure nowhere in the ToS they had drawn up when starting to crowdsource their games funding says "We promise that we'll never use any of this money for anything other than Starbound, for real". Chucklefish is a company, and they're going to use THEIR money however they want for the good of their games and their company as a whole. If they feel that's by supporting other gaming companies along the way then so be it.

You bought an early access game that received full funding, Starbound is going to get completed and it's going to get completed as fast as they reasonably can. All of the money that Starbound needs to finish exists, and isn't being spent anywhere else(They're not stupid enough to spend vital development money like that). The money going into all of their publishing stuff is what's leftover, or earned from non-kickstarter sales. We have no right to tell them where and how they spend their money. All they owe us is a game, and they're still going to deliver on it.

 

As Mr. Sampson said:

And if they were to be completed regardless as you state, chances are they could have used their own proceeds to fund advertisement, so I find it difficult to believe they haven't been funded in development as well, and it still doesn't explain where they received the publishing and advertising funds...

 

It doesn't really cost money to put a blog post on the internet, though. Time, yes. But since you already have community managers and equivalent positions, they can do that on their work time without really costing anything that they wouldn't have paid out already.

 

The inability for some mooks to look at the gestalt (The big picture) and not seeing the forest because all those frickin' trees are in the way is at the root of some these problems.

The fact that CF is investing that piddling 15 bucks you voluntarily gave them into other ventures does not mean the game is stillborn. It means the company as a whole is actually striving to become a viable entity.

Not putting all your eggs in one basket makes perfect sense.What they're doing is publishing other games in order to secure the foundation for their flagship game. You know, the one you're bitching about right now.

Come on archives, don't fail me now.

Boom:

 

See my previous reply to BrakSampson.

 

Well it's not really "their" money, now is it? It's especially debatable when their OWN STARBOUND PRE-ORDER PAGE says, again:

"Thank you for supporting us! Your purchase will go directly towards the development of the game and help us to get it finished sooner."

Now occasionally some things can be misconstrued, but, "Your purchase will go directly towards the development of the game..." doesn't really leave much ambiguity, does it?

 

No, but our purchases DID go directly to supporting the game. Because of us they can afford to branch out like this and strive as a company, while also making the game we paid for. They didn't say

"Thank you for supporting us! Your purchase will go directly towards the development of the game and help us to get it finished sooner, and don't worry, we won't spend it anywhere else. Ever. Even if we have way more than we need to make the game!"

Again, games aren't something you just throw more money at to get it finished faster (like most complicated things).

 

Yes, it is.

Once you spend money on the game, it's not yours any more, to be sure. There are no refunds.

 

I just feel that it is extremely unethical to sell me a preorder, saying that the reason that you need to start taking money is to get Starbound's development funded and feed and shelter it's devs; and then turn around and spend that money on anything else. Not a violation of ToS, just unethical.

 

It isn't unethical though, not even a little bit. Starbound needed that funding, yes. It got way more funding than it needed, so that money went into the company. Yeah we were paying for Starbound, but we were supporting the company Chucklefish more. Their company is what it is today because of us, it's thriving, it's making the game they promised us, and it's supporting other developers by getting their name out there and helping them make more money(while making Chucklefish more money too). None of this has been done to offend us, yet people are still getting all kinds of upset over it.

 

Oh, let's talk about a few other things they DIDN'T say:

"We plan to take some of the money, after telling you it would be invested DIRECTLY into THIS game, and spend it in other, unrelated areas afterwards."

"'Thick and fast updates' is really subject to interpretation. So is, 'expect daily updates.' A day on Venus isn't the same as a day on Earth, and this is a space game, after all."

Because had they said that, which is the reality we're dealing with now, the game most certainly would have never seen four million dollars worth of support.

But I guess the most amusing part is before you were sticking to your guns about how they didn't use Starbound funds to cover publishing costs of other games, but now they might have, but, "... it's their money, and they can branch out if they please."

Please, go on.

 

Well what can you expect from a laughing fish? Fishy business is their true nature.