Egosoft and Kickstarter - the missed opportunity?

Roenie · Post by **Roenie** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 01:53

This is what I would have done, if I were Bernd:

I would have not released Rebirth. Instead, I would have publicly announced: Sorry, but we messed up. Rebirth as a game does not meet the quality standard that we as a company demand of our products. We experienced problems during the development and as a relatively small studio, not releasing the game means we now do not have the funds to continue developing X games. However we do NOT think it is fair to our fans to sell the game, so we will NOT be releasing it. We have made mistakes X Y Z A B C and D. We have now learnt from these mistakes and we have changed XYZ in our development process and pipeline to make sure we make X into what it deserves to be, next time. We would very much appreciate if you would give us a new chance by instead of buying a bad game, use that money to support us and back our kickstarter for X4. We have the following things planned: XYZABC.

Most people would have appreciated that honesty and openness, and as a result they would have backed the project, no doubt. So many people would have just donated their 50 euro. And be happy about it too!

Had Egosoft taken this opportunity, no one would have felt so disappointed and betrayed. It would have given Egosoft a few more years to make something awesome. Maybe a contract with Deep Silver prevented this from happening though. Or, perhaps they didn't think of this, or actually believe their game is good (they might be in denial).

Kickstarter is for developers who don't have funds. No publisher funding their project, and no income from recently sold games. Egosoft have had Deep Silver's funding and they've been selling copies of Rebirth. They don't have the "right" to go on kicksterter NOW. I fear that now, it's too late for that.

Would going 100% indie (no funding publisher), possibly with a Kickstarter be good for Egosoft in the future? I believe so... what do you think?

werewolves? · Post by **werewolves?** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 01:55

They were under contract to a publisher, you can't just go "oh sorry not making it anymore" and go to ks

Roenie · Post by **Roenie** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 01:57

Depends what piece of the pie you offer them from the success of the new project....maybe it was possible to strike a deal and suffer the losses. Heck, even if not, if it meant that Egosoft had to go bankrupt and start all over with kickstarter, I would have still done that. Entrepeneurs go bankrupt all the time, it's not the end of the world. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way and try again. What's best for the X series is what matters, everything else is secondary.

Yohandis Yololo Yum VII

KS is not the only way to do business...

Your "idea" is no different from what Egosoft did, except they did not ask for people's money years before they delivered a product (albeit somewhat incomplete). I assume you have Star Citizen in mind. Of course, KS has worked for that company so far, but its not for everyone.

Plus, you lump everyone into the same group expecting everyone to have the same reactions far too often, and your idea has no room for the simple fact that Egosoft is a BUSINESS. Businesses can't scrap huge projects and expect to survive.

Roenie · Post by **Roenie** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 02:08

It does not matter if the business survives if that means having to release a bad game. The game is priority number one, everything else is secondary. You can start a new business. That's what it means to be passionate about games.

I would NEVER release a bad game. Over my dead body. Literally.

Yohandis Yololo Yum VII wrote:Your "idea" is no different from what Egosoft did, except they did not ask for people's money years before they delivered a product

My point is that now you've got an angry community and Ego have lost a lot of their credibility, their good track record. They would have not had that problem if Ego had scrapped the project and managed to start over on kickstarter (as a new company if necessary). People would have been happy and continued to support them as developers.

Yohandis Yololo Yum VII

Roenie wrote:It does not matter if the business survives if that means having to release a bad game. The game is priority number one, everything else is secondary. You can start a new business. You can't un-release a released title.

Uh... lol... Did you really mean that it does not matter if the business survives? You do understand that it often takes credit, and a lot of it, to keep a business going, and investors aren't going to lend if you have a track record for failure and choosing to not collect proceeds.

Nice aspirations if you are Warren Buffett, though, they are not even remotely realistic. BUSINESSES EXIST TO MAKE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shrewd135 · Post by **Shrewd135** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 02:15

Roenie wrote:It does not matter if the business survives if that means having to release a bad game. The game is priority number one, everything else is secondary. You can start a new business. That's what it means to be passionate about games.

I would NEVER release a bad game. Over my dead body.

And you never have. Nor ever will.

A lot of fat talk from people that do nothing around here.

Roenie · Post by **Roenie** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 02:19

Please adjust your attitude or stay out of my thread. The Egosoft forums are not Youtube. Trust me I know, I've been here for a while...

edit: cut- personal info removed

What have you contributed lately?

Yohandis Yololo Yum VII

Shrewd135 wrote:
Roenie wrote:It does not matter if the business survives if that means having to release a bad game. The game is priority number one, everything else is secondary. You can start a new business. That's what it means to be passionate about games.

I would NEVER release a bad game. Over my dead body.
And you never have. Nor ever will.

A lot of fat talk from people that do nothing around here.

Hilarious! Totally agree.

Roenie · Post by **Roenie** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 02:21

Yohandis Yololo Yum VII wrote:You do understand that it often takes credit, and a lot of it, to keep a business going, and investors aren't going to lend if you have a track record for failure and choosing to not collect proceeds.

Kickstarter gets around that problem by instead relying on a lot of micro investments from the general public - they are more lenient than the regular kind of investors (businesses). The only thing they really hate is releasing a bad game.

devastat_ · Post by **devastat_** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 02:23

These days you have a lot of excuses to release an unfinished indie game, as no one is complaining when it is a Kickstarter or an Early Access game.

Kickstarter would have been great for X-Rebirth, but the game development started way before Kickstarter even existed.

It is a good platform for indie developers as they get feedback on the game and it can be polished while all the criticism remains constructive(!) They can also release the game as they want without any pressures from publishers.

In any case, with X-Rebirth - now the devs will listen, release bugfixes, change things and make expansions for the game so that most us will like it, and the end result is similar..

Yohandis Yololo Yum VII

Roenie wrote:
Yohandis Yololo Yum VII wrote:You do understand that it often takes credit, and a lot of it, to keep a business going, and investors aren't going to lend if you have a track record for failure and choosing to not collect proceeds.
Kickstarter gets around that problem by instead relying on a lot of micro investments from the general public - they are more lenient than the regular kind of investors (businesses).

I agree that KS gets around that problem, but that is irrelevant.

None of my business pals would EVER choose to have hundreds of thousands of investors, minimally invested and constantly bickering, over the "regular kind of investor" (whatever that is).

I just realized I'm wasting my time... jeez... Bye.

Roenie · Post by **Roenie** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 02:32

Contrary to being under contract to a publisher, a crowdfunded project is never forced to actually implement "bickerings", the features that the funders want, into the game. The funders are not the project leads. The goals are set from the start and they can choose to back that, or not. The developer gets to pick and choose what suggestions they want to implement. A publisher on the other hand, can actually demand a thing or two (and threaten to halt funding).

malevolentwmd · Post by **malevolentwmd** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 03:05

Roenie wrote:It does not matter if the business survives if that means having to release a bad game. The game is priority number one, everything else is secondary. You can start a new business. That's what it means to be passionate about games.

I would NEVER release a bad game. Over my dead body.

Yohandis Yololo Yum VII wrote:Your "idea" is no different from what Egosoft did, except they did not ask for people's money years before they delivered a product
My point is that now you've got an angry community and Ego have lost a lot of their credibility, their good track record. They would have not had that problem if Ego had scrapped the project and managed to start over on kickstarter (as a new company if necessary). People would have been happy and continued to support them as developers.

And how many games have you released to be so righteous?

This point of view coming of course from your vast pool of experience in game design and publishing?

Roenie · Post by **Roenie** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 03:08

I'll be happy to respond if you have something valuable to say about the actual subject of the thread. I'm tired of non constructive comments posted using accounts that were registered just this month. Look at devastat_'s post as an example of a constructive post by a new guy in the community.

loubert · Post by **loubert** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 03:23

Roenie wrote:I'll be happy to respond if you have something valuable to say about the actual subject of the thread. I'm tired of non constructive comments posted using accounts that were registered just this month. Look at devastat_'s post as an example of a constructive post by a new guy in the community.

You want only constructive comments to a thread which is, itself, not constructive.

Oh, the irony.

Roenie · Post by **Roenie** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 03:34

You can go to a better thread if you prefer. Not stopping you.

ND89 · Post by **ND89** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 06:32

As usual I find myself in a thread where the most short-sighted people are also the one's being rudest. No surprise there.

Releasing the game in it's current state does not help their business if it cannot be adjusted to the point where the community is satisfied in a reasonable amount of time. Let's be honest, we do not know yet if that will be possible. If they cannot, they will have effectively alienated nearly their entire fanbase.

Let's consider the types of players purchasing X games now. EA Sports games alienate their customer base, but still sell well. Same with Call of Duty. They are the pawns of the gaming world. Can the same be said about the X gamer?

In the scenario where they cannot fix this game in time, they will likely find themselves low on launch sale for their next title let alone the disastrous presale numbers. X games are notoriously released buggy and improved over time so guess what? Now we have gamers waiting on reviews to decide if they want to purchase the game, reviews which talk about how many bugs and hindrances their are in it's current state as per usual.

No publisher is going to want to wait months after launch for the sales spike. A lot of people will see it as "yet another failed launch" and never even come back.

Is Kickstarter the best option? I don't know. Releasing it in this state certainly was not though. If they can indeed fix the game somehow, they still would have been better off releasing it at that point instead. The whole fiasco will leave a bad taste in some people's mouths. If they needed more funding to get to that point, they should have come to the community and explained to us the situation. Legions would have pre-ordered the game (Steam, etc) to make it happen.

Once again, those acting out might want to take a stab at communicating like human beings from this point forward. It's actually quite a rewarding feeling, knowing you completely disagree with someone but are mature enough to keep your cool about it.

Zorvan · Post by **Zorvan** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 07:13

They absolutely should have done a Kickstarter for X:Rebirth. But Kickstarter requires transparency. Kickstarter requires showing continual progress, allowing customer to see the game as it's being developed. Allowing the customer to have a say in the process of that development. Star Citizen is a prime example of that process, and that is mainly why Star Citizen ended up with so much funding.

Egosoft would have tried to hide everything behind trailers and promises ( NO DEMOS! ). Egosoft would not have listened to feedback or suggestions ( how much feedback and suggestions THAT THEY ASKED FOR did they get over the 7 years on their very own forums that they ignored? Hmm? ).

But even if Egosoft would have done it right, and gotten that huge budget and made the perfect X game, it matters not now.

After X:Rebirth, Egosoft will be lucky to borrow a dollar for a candy bar for all the devs to share. No Kickstarter will ever work for them now. They blew that opportunity ( past, present, or future ) to oblivion

Ordian · Post by **Ordian** » Wed, 20. Nov 13, 07:26

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... SR3h1wUoS8

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Egosoft and Kickstarter - the missed opportunity?

Egosoft and Kickstarter - the missed opportunity?