Kickstarter Woes

I’d like to say a few things about Kickstarter.  So many independents are using Kickstarter as a way to not only fund a project but also to establish their company.  I personally don’t understand how they can live like this, such uncertainty would drive me crazy.  There does seem to be a lot of great project getting off the ground using Kickstarter but for me I've hit the wall with this.

As we saw with Double Fine  just because a project gets funded doesn't mean it will get produced.  They ran a second campaign asking for more money to cover additional costs.  I personally have funded four projects, Colossal Kaiju Combat, Stonehearth, Armikrog, and Massive Chalice.  Some have asked for

more money and some have even been involved in lawsuits over their product.  Just like a normally funded game budgets run out and milestones drag on longer.  Regardless of the reasons I have yet to ever get a product through Kickstarter and this has left me feeling very burned.  I don't know if I'll ever see a return on my investment.

I've seen many interesting projects come and go asking for Kickstarter money but I have decided to just keep an eye on them and pay normal price IF they ever release.  Maybe if things work out with my currently funded projects I’ll come back to Kickstarter but not until something positive happens.

The Next Gen Question

Because of my job I get asked a lot which console to get, Xbox One or PS4.  I personally am not getting either for a while.  There are bugs in both and after the 360 fiasco with the “red ring of death” I’m not jumping into anything.  I am currently on my third Xbox 360 after two systems went red ring.  Also there are no games on either system that I can’t live without yet. 

So what have I heard as a dev?  Well speaking to industry friends that have worked on titles such as Call of Duty: Ghost they say the PS4 runs at a higher rez.  I was told this is completely Microsoft’s fault because they refuse to allow devs to use the resources allocated for the Kinet.  Even if the game doesn’t use Kinect functions they won’t budge.  So the Xbone will always be second rate compared to the PS4.

So when the time comes (and it will) for me to buy a next gen system I will without question get a PS4 first followed by a Xbone.  If I had to choose only one I would go PS4.  There, that’s my opinion.

A Little Rearranging

I decided to change my blogs.  Unhealthy Obsession has been moved to it's own place and this space will now be used for my blogging about games and gaming. Click here for Unhealthy Obsession.

Updating my website takes longer than blogging so I decided to go this route.