[80Maxwell08]

Well because we just didn't have enough of these yet Brenda Brathwaite, the creator of the Wizardy series who went on to work on Dungeons and Dragons, and Tom Hall, the creator of Commander Keen, Anachronox and DOOM, are teaming up to do a Kickstarter on an old school RPG.

http://www.kickstart...ite-and-tom-hal

Judging from reading this they are going back way old school. There are quite a few interesting parts to this though.

Multiple Endings: The smallest of intentions sometimes matters far more than you know. It is a world alive with memories.
Multiple Beginnings (Stretch Goal): The endings in one game affect the beginnings in another. Import your characters from one world to another.

Also I'm not sure if this goes against the terms or not for any reason but one of the parts of the description says if they hit 1.9 million Brenda and Tom split and make 2 games.

Super Hardcore Mode (Stretch Goal) : Challenge yourself with Permadeath mode, no-save option and some optional but barely beatable bosses with the loot to prove their worth.
Pen & Paper RPG ($60 Reward Tier): Gather around a table and enjoy playing Old School RPG the seriously, really old school way.
Two Games, One Kickstarter ($1.9M Stretch Goal): Brenda and Tom make different, separate RPGs with unique worlds, quests and characters.

I do think that P&P reward tier is actually a really good idea. Don't really have any money to give them though but no problem I'll just keep an eye on it and see if I want the game(s) when it/they come out.

Also I wouldn't worry too much if this is going to make it or not. It's not even the first day and it's gotten 65k. No idea if this is the Witcher forum's thing or not but I figured a good amount of people here like really old school games so I figured I would link it.

Also while GOG doesn't have the Wizardy series it is possible to get Anachronox there for $6.
http://www.gog.com/e...card/anachronox
I think Steam has Commander Keen and DOOM but I don't think those really matter in this scenario.

Well my closing thoughts are I really wish these big names would coordinate with each other to give people some breathing room. From Planetary Anniliation to PRoject Eternity to Nexus 2 couldn't they give us at least a week of breathing room?

[.Volsung.]

80Maxwell08 said:

Well because we just didn't have enough of these yet Brenda Brathwaite, the creator of the Wizardy series who went on to work on Dungeons and Dragons, and Tom Hall, the creator of Commander Keen, Anachronox and DOOM, are teaming up to do a Kickstarter on an old school RPG.

http://www.kickstart...ite-and-tom-hal

Judging from reading this they are going back way old school. There are quite a few interesting parts to this though.

Multiple Endings: The smallest of intentions sometimes matters far more than you know. It is a world alive with memories.
Multiple Beginnings (Stretch Goal): The endings in one game affect the beginnings in another. Import your characters from one world to another.

Also I'm not sure if this goes against the terms or not for any reason but one of the parts of the description says if they hit 1.9 million Brenda and Tom split and make 2 games.

Super Hardcore Mode (Stretch Goal) : Challenge yourself with Permadeath mode, no-save option and some optional but barely beatable bosses with the loot to prove their worth.
Pen & Paper RPG ($60 Reward Tier): Gather around a table and enjoy playing Old School RPG the seriously, really old school way.
Two Games, One Kickstarter ($1.9M Stretch Goal): Brenda and Tom make different, separate RPGs with unique worlds, quests and characters.

I do think that P&P reward tier is actually a really good idea. Don't really have any money to give them though but no problem I'll just keep an eye on it and see if I want the game(s) when it/they come out.

Also I wouldn't worry too much if this is going to make it or not. It's not even the first day and it's gotten 65k. No idea if this is the Witcher forum's thing or not but I figured a good amount of people here like really old school games so I figured I would link it.

Also while GOG doesn't have the Wizardy series it is possible to get Anachronox there for $6.
http://www.gog.com/e...card/anachronox
I think Steam has Commander Keen and DOOM but I don't think those really matter in this scenario.

Well my closing thoughts are I really wish these big names would coordinate with each other to give people some breathing room. From Planetary Anniliation to PRoject Eternity to Nexus 2 couldn't they give us at least a week of breathing room? ›››

While I am extremely happy that classic RPG's are somewhat resurfacing (through crowd funding) I think most of us are done with our donations to projects we haven't even seen. If I had money to spare in random games, I would definitely donate to this and every other classic RPG in kickstarter. But let's be honest and responsible here: not a single "big" crowd sourced game has yet been finished and released. I suggest we wait and see how projects like Tim Schafer's adventure game, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns and especially Project Eternity turn out.

So while I'd like to support this and every other effort to bring classic gaming back, I think this is a terrible moment for new classic RPG kickstarters. Let's see if this works first, then if it does let classic RPG's take the world all over again.

[80Maxwell08]

They could all be afraid that Kickstarter is a boom and bust cycle and are trying to hop on as soon as they get the chance. Which is probably going to be a bust when so many people jump on at once. I do wonder how Double Fine is doing though. Haven't really heard much but haven't been searching either since I don't play adventure games. I do agree on the part of liking the effort of trying to bring them back but so far the most progress on any of these has been a camera demo. Unless Shadowrun has something more.

[Ward Dragon]

I'm naturally suspicious as well. However in general a new PC game nowadays costs $50-60 and I've made mistakes in the past and totally wasted the money (like Myst: URU ). I'm at the point where I threw some money at a few of these different games and if one of them turns out to be really good then I feel like it was worth the overall money I spent on Kickstarter. Of course I'm hoping all of them will turn out to be great, but I've been careful not to spend so much money that I'd be devastated if the games all suck

[Guy N'wah]

Getting too excited about Kickstarter could end up in tears; as 80Maxwell08 says, "a bust when so many people jump on at once".

The majority of Kickstarter projects are not going to deliver anything. Just because a developer has a good record of creativity does not mean that developer knows how to run a business or complete a product on his or her own. The ones who do not, are certain to fail. But even of the ones who do, many of them will not succeed. This will leave the Kickstarter contributors holding an empty bag.

Kickstarter is not like traditional sales of goods and not like traditional investing, and indeed it manages to make the worst of both traditions. Kickstarter funding is neither equity investment nor a loan. It doesn't create a fractional ownership in the Kickstarter-funded company; it doesn't create a debt that must be paid in money by a certain date.

The status of Kickstarter contributions is not settled, but the most responsible authorities believe it is dire: Kickstarter contributions are advance sales. They are contracts for the right to receive goods for a price paid. That's sales. This means you have sales income and owe income tax and sometimes VAT or sales tax, before you have anything to sell, even before you have ramped up development and incurred expenses to use up that taxable income.

[Pangaea]

Very little info to go on so far, but it sounds like they want to make a 'classic' RPG

May be terrible timing for another project like this with Project Eternity still only about halfway through their kickstarter, and with many people having forked out a lot on that project. Hope this gets funded too, though, as another quality RPG game would be brilliant.

Loved the small section in their video about modern games too. Reading a book and then clicking a button once in a blue moon! Must be the Awesome button, but still...

[Ward Dragon]

Guy N said:

The status of Kickstarter contributions is not settled, but the most responsible authorities believe it is dire: Kickstarter contributions are advance sales. They are contracts for the right to receive goods for a price paid. That's sales. This means you have sales income and owe income tax and sometimes VAT or sales tax, before you have anything to sell, even before you have ramped up development and incurred expenses to use up that taxable income. ›››

That's a good point about the taxes. I wonder how much gets taken before they even get a chance to start making the game. In a traditional situation where a developer receives funding from a publisher to make a game do they also have to pay income taxes on the funding?

[80Maxwell08]

I meant a bust when half a dozen big names all make projects at once and none of them get enough donations because of how much they ask and how many people want to donate to them. Granted I've seen a few projects either fail or make a product so bad they may as well have failed. There was an iPhone case that blocked the phone from getting it's signal, a jellyfish tank that killed the jellyfish inside, someone wanted 3k to open a ballpit in an abandoned house then it got shut down by the city after he got the money, the guy who asked for money to make comics and ran off with it to open a comic store, etc, etc. Still of the few video game ones I've paid attention to they all seem to be progressing well. I found a sword game called Blade Symphony that was backed over a year ago and while they didn't update for a while they managed to get an update out in late August.

I wish I could check on the status on the Double Fine game but they keep making their updates backers only. Unless that's just an automatic thing after the kickstarter ends. Wasteland 2 seems to be going fine though it's going to be a while before anything resembling gameplay exists.

[Pangaea]

To the discussion above, I hear FTL was Kickstarter funded, and it has gotten raving reviews so far, even from some professional reviewers. It's of course true we don't know how any of these projects will end up, some may not even see the light of day. But they have everything to gain by making a good game, and everything to lose by making a poor one. Make a good and they get the chance to make more games like this, make a poor or don't deliver at all, and your reputation is shattered and they'll have even worse cards when dealing with traditional publishers.

Besides, plenty of people pre-order games months in advance anyway, so on that note this isn't terribly different from that. You just happen to 'order' and pay the game much sooner in the development cycle. There are pitfalls, no doubt, but compared with the neverending row of turds the traditional publishers come out with, I like the Kickstarter model much more.

There are quite a few big projects on the way now that have been funded, so it will be very interesting to see how these games turn out in a year or two. Broken Sword, Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, and perhaps this one as well. They will either create an alternative model for production of games, or it will fail miserably and we'll be right back to the shithole we are in now where you are almost more likely to win the lottery than to find a good new game.

[80Maxwell08]

I think it's already an alternative model for funding games I just believe it won't last long for a company. I just don't see people funding more than one game from a single company. Sadly this is a bit off topic.

[Pangaea]

True, it already is an alternative. But whether it remains an alternative will depend on how good the games become. Maybe it still isn't durable long-term, but if it isn't, I at least hope the games that have been funded now will see the light of day and be truly good games. Something will at least have been gained then, as games like that simply won't be produced by the current big studios.

This whole thing is a bit off-topic, but I hope this project gets funded as well. I love an old-fashioned RPG, and it sounds like this will be right up my alley. At least I hope so. Right now we don't really have many details to go by.

They're already closing in on 100,000 though, so it seems like it's something people are willing to support even after so many similar-ish projects lately. Would think it's close to the breaking point now, though, as basically all of these games are targeted at the same group of gamers.

[Ward Dragon]

80Maxwell08 said:

I think it's already an alternative model for funding games I just believe it won't last long for a company. I just don't see people funding more than one game from a single company. Sadly this is a bit off topic. ›››

I probably wouldn't fund two games from the same company at the same time, but if they finish the first one and it turns out very well I'd definitely be willing to fund future games from them.

[80Maxwell08]

Ward Dragon said:

I probably wouldn't fund two games from the same company at the same time, but if they finish the first one and it turns out very well I'd definitely be willing to fund future games from them. ›››

Then it appears I stand corrected. Let's hope that the already funded games succeed then.

[Chromie92]

Man it's great they are doing this but they really should have waited until Project Eternity's kickstarter is over. I can't keep donating all this money. ><

[80Maxwell08]

Chromie92 said:

Man it's great they are doing this but they really should have waited until Project Eternity's kickstarter is over. I can't keep donating all this money. >< ›››

My thoughts exactly. Granted there's still 32 days left but still not everyone can keep giving money to kickstarters. Even a $15 tier is worthless for helping this problem when there's 5 others doing it.

[Guy N'wah]

Ward Dragon said:

That's a good point about the taxes. I wonder how much gets taken before they even get a chance to start making the game. In a traditional situation where a developer receives funding from a publisher to make a game do they also have to pay income taxes on the funding? ›››

Depends on the color of the money. Well-run developers and publishers may characterize the funding as an advance against royalties, as a straight fee, a profit-sharing arrangement, etc., all of which have different implications. For example, an advance against royalties may be taxable income if it is not refundable (this is the typical arrangement that book publishers make with their authors), but may not be taxed until the royalties are earned if it is refundable (this is typical in royalty agreements between companies).

Of Kickstarter funds, 5% goes to the owners of Kickstarter, and 3-5% or so goes to Amazon. The balance, which is now 90-92% of contributions, is sales. At least in the US, you're taxed on net sales less cost of goods sold, less direct and indirect expenses and interest on borrowed money. The taxes you owe on that are going to depend on a lot of factors, including how your business is organized and when you incur expenses. But if you raise a lot more money than you can spend before taxes are due, a lot of it will go to Uncle Sugar. In the worst case, you may get about 48 cents on your contributors' dollar:

Say you're located in California, and you're organized in what's usually the best form for this kind of venture: a Subchapter S corporation.
You raise $1,000.
Kickstarter and Amazon get $50 each.
California Franchise Tax Board gets $106 income tax.
California Board of Equalization gets $70 sales tax.
Internal Revenue Service gets $257.
You are left with $477 to do the work.

[80Maxwell08]

Well there's this for how taxes worked for one developer. I'm hoping that the big companies are more competend than these people though.
http://www.kickstart...an/posts/208395

[Aver]

nvm

[Ward Dragon]

Guy N said:

The taxes you owe on that are going to depend on a lot of factors, including how your business is organized and when you incur expenses. But if you raise a lot more money than you can spend before taxes are due, a lot of it will go to Uncle Sugar. In the worst case, you may get about 48 cents on your contributors' dollar

That sucks. So basically as soon as the Kickstarter ends they have to run around like mad buying all of the equipment they need, licensing all of the software, making all of the contracts if they outsource anything, etc. so that it doesn't get counted as taxable income?

That makes me think about another question. How are commissions handled tax-wise? Like if an artist is paid in advance to paint a certain picture, does it all count as income or only what's not spent on supplies? And is there any kind of time-frame to take into account that it takes time to make the commissioned artwork? Or does it purely go based upon what hasn't been spent by tax day each year?

[Guy N'wah]

Ward Dragon said:

That sucks. So basically as soon as the Kickstarter ends they have to run around like mad buying all of the equipment they need, licensing all of the software, making all of the contracts if they outsource anything, etc. so that it doesn't get counted as taxable income?

That makes me think about another question. How are commissions handled tax-wise? Like if an artist is paid in advance to paint a certain picture, does it all count as income or only what's not spent on supplies? And is there any kind of time-frame to take into account that it takes time to make the commissioned artwork? Or does it purely go based upon what hasn't been spent by tax day each year? ›››

Advances, commissions, and things like that become income when they're no longer refundable. For artists, writers, and the like, that's usually the case immediately. At the end of the year, you pay tax on income less expenses (including expenses you incurred to generate future royalties against that advance). So most of us in that situation try to incur expenses by December rather than next January, when it's not totally unreasonable to do so. (A tax deferred is almost as good as a tax unpaid.)

Now if you make advance sales ahead of expenses, so that you're taxed in one year on the advance but don't incur the expenses until the next year, you still get the deduction for the expenses in the next year. But some expenses can't be deducted unless you have a profit to deduct them against. If your Kickstarter project doesn't make money after you've settled with your backers, you may have some expenses that you will never get to deduct.