Thursday, November 15, 2012

Kickstarter project cancelled

My kickstarter project for the sequel was cancelled. You can read the post for more details.

Honestly, a part of me knew the project would never succeed. But we live in a world where independent developers are getting funding every day to create games. Even super small niche games with very little mass appeal get lots of funding on kickstarter. Apparently a mod for an existing game is in a total different ball-park.

What surprised me the most was some of the hostility I read on the internet. Some people seemed genuinely offended that I was asking for money to create a mod. Many comments started out hurtful, with me being accused of generating a shitty mod and then 'having the gall' to ask for money to do what others do for free.

This I don't understand. What is so offensive about asking for money? People ask for money every day. Some provide soup for free (Volunteers at a soup kitchen) and some provide soup for a fee (Souper Salad anyone?) Should I be offended that a restaurant charges for soup, just because others give it away for free? Some seem to think that the profit motive is a sin, I honestly don't think a volunteer at a Soup Kitchen is any better or worse than a Waitress at a restaurant. Both are providing a valuable service. I guess some think the Volunteer is more admirable because she's not motivated by money, just compassion for other humans.

Was I motivated by money to make a Kickstarter? HELL NO. The kickstarter was an attempt to make a mod I could never do in my free time. If I did it to make money, I woulda started a project to launch a Business; Never once did I have the allusion that I could make a profit from developing mods. I just wanted to break even.

 It was an experiment; a failed experiment. But as the Mythbuster's say, 'Failure is ALWAYS an option' At this point, I just want to put the whole thing behind me, and focus on my next mod coming out.

25 comments:

  1. I would say that I hope you learned your lesson, but it looks like you didn't.

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    1. Sure I learned my lesson, but that lesson was: If you're going to make a Kickstarter Project, it better be for an Original game and not an extension to an existing one.

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    3. Bah, didn't read the post before I replied. Anyway, Bethesda probably closed your kickstarter, it was illegal.

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  2. Soup kitchen volunteers don't distribute copyrighted content.

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  3. Hello, you'll be glad to know that I sent a mail 2 days ago to Bethesda customer service and legal team to inform them of your "project", guess they agreed that the whole thing looked shady.
    If you don't get what's shady about it, here's a few things:

    -"From what I've read (and I've read a lot on this subject) YES."
    If you were serious about the legality of it, you'd ask Bethesda directly like I did, you just read a few things and interpreted them in a convinient way to be in line with your project.

    -"$44,000 is the bare minimum I need to pay my bills and eat food for a year"
    How many people are we funding here exactly?
    Three, maybe four? Either that or you must have been living the high life until now. In case you suck at math that's $3666,66 a month, I know people who live with 4 times less money.

    -"I currently make a little less than 60,000 a year, so if this project is funded I'd actually be taking a pay CUT"
    Now that just sounds like a lie. Who in their right mind would quit their job to make less money? Or maybe, you're not quitting, then you don't need the money. Else, you hate your job, that I can understand, but then finding another job might be a better idea.

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    1. what kind of sad sad little man, would go tattling on someone for asking for money, you gain nothing from this.

      It would be like seeing one of those salvation army santas and asking a police officer to arrest them because you don't like the bell, and they are on private property

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    2. 1) Asking permission is not something I do. Thats the #1 way to get nothing done. I'd rather apologize after the fact then get nothing done. And technically, according to the EULA, i'm not breaking the contract unless Bethesda say's I am. Honestly, if they wanted for whatever reason, they could've let the Kickstarter go on and let the cards play out. Ultimately they have the final word, and I respect that. So when they finally contacted me, I respected their wishes.

      -44,000 is a lot of money, i guess if you live in Africa. Where I live 44,000 is starting salary for a Teacher. I spend about 13,200 each year just for Food, rent, and my car payment. And that's just a rough estimate that doesn't include gas, electricity, medicine, phone bill, or internet bill. ALSO: the government would've taken $4,000 in taxes. Meaning i'd only have gotten $40,000

      -pay cut
      Well, obviously I can't prove that I wasn't lying (you can't prove a double negative) But I honestly just wanted to spend a whole year dedicated to making a great mod for the players. I had this altruistic notion that the players would be willing to pay me to do that. I love my current job, but being a self-employed Game Developer is a very alluring prospect to me.

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  4. I don't understand why everyone seems to be getting so upset over this. Excellent mods aren't easy to make nor are they quick. Asking for funding to fully commit yourself to create an excellent addition to an already excellent mod is perfectly reasonable.
    Don't let these people keep you down. Continue the good work in the future!

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    1. "Excellent mods aren't easy to make nor are they quick."
      Aethernautics was made in two weeks. And that guy didn't ask for 44,000. Though he did lead the effort to get this shut down.

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    2. trainwiz (creator of Aethernautics) is an egotistical hack that believes his health issues justify gloating and bullying of other mod users via private messages. Good riddance to him.

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    3. "believes his health issues justify gloating and bullying"
      Trainwiz here, I know exactly who you are. You're the one who brought the 'bullying' upon yourself by being an over insistent, even more 'egotistical hack' than me. So shut up StormKat33. And I never used my health issues to justify anything.

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    4. It's funny because egotistical or not, he never asked for 44 grand to make a mod, and didn't cry when he got it, and still managed to make it in two weeks.

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    5. Trainwiz is egotistical. He makes a public thread on the Bethesda forums denouncing jediborg and then proceeds to gloat (playfully) over his scripting prowess. Take it to PMs instead of flexing your muscles over jediborg’s carcass. His “get on my level” phrase on the Nexus page is self-indulgent. Of course, others will find it funny, but self-gratifying humor is indicative of the type of a man he is. And the reason he got banned? For degrading another user’s work. Even though I can safely say here that it wasn’t up to snuff in quality, he should have known better given Nexus’s stringent policy. But he couldn’t resist taking a pot shot even if it meant getting banned. He just wants to put others down, whether or not they deserve it is out of the question.

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    6. Oh please, you just hate him because he refused to make your "dwemer come back" mod.

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    7. StormKat, I can tell you completely deserved to be put down. Perhaps you would like me to go upload some of your own quotes about how you were going to make a mod better than Bethesda's and how you and your wife and everyone would love it? Even now your behavior is indicative of how much a condescending hack you are, the difference is you try to hide it.
      And Jediborg deserved it. The very fact that he had the audacity to charge money for something that isn't his is far worse than I ever do. All I do is make oversensitive idiots like you mad.

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    8. It's funny because a) Jediborg was completely violating a ton of policies held sacred to modders, b) Trainwiz was both joking around with one of his friends, and is in fact, a very good scripter (go look at his stuff for Sotha Sil Expanded), c) The "get on my level" comment was designed to piss off people like you, who get angry over every little thing, and d)Last I checked, you were the one who initially harassed him to make a mod, so if anything, you're the bully.

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    9. Am I the first guy here who isn't one account trying to start a war? :(

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    10. Not one person actually. I just told a bunch of people on TESG about it.

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    11. See, I don't get it. How can anyone say this isn't one or two guys posting back and forth? Also, pretty big assumption that the user posting negative feedback is this Stormkat fellow. The world is a big place. There could easily be more people who see Trainwiz is wrong by the way he handled himself and is apparently posting here.

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    12. ^^^ See what I mean? Anonymity.

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  6. Wow, stop looking at your blog for a week and a post EXPLODES

    I don't really have any grudges against anyone for 'reporting' me. Well actually I did, for a few days, then I got over it. It was obvious to me after about a week that the kickstarter was going to fail. So what surprised me the most was that anyone even bothered to report it. Some people don't understand this part of kickstarter so i'll make it clear: You dont get ANY money unless you raise the full amount. So even if I hadn't been reported, I would have made squat, because the community, for various reasons, did not want to fund my project.

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  7. New to this whole thing, but my 10c: it's a shame that Beth's lawyers decided this wasn't going to be legal and shut it down. DBR part 1 is fun and although I'm not passing judgement on whether or not the community could or should have funded this (or indeed any other mod), I do think it's sad that the shut down order came from Beth.

    I would have thought / hoped that as long as mods were available for free, allowing someone to seek funding to create something that would only improve the game for all users at no cost to Beth or any users who didn't want to (and this is the important bit) *donate* money to the cause would be a good thing for Beth and their games.

    Seems sad and a little short sighted for Beth to ban this sort of thing. Seems doubly sad that the community ruined the chance for other people to do something similar by devouring itself like this.

    --Triscopic

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