Quote from: Spinachcat;690179I disagree Kyle.

The patronage model brought us a lot of amazing works of art, music and theater in the history of civilization. I do not know if Kickstarter will ever bring us something amazing, but I imagine that for ever Great Artist XYZ who was funded by ancient royalty or the Church, there were plenty of Dwimmer dudes as well who got some money at the time, but are forgotten by history.

I guess the key difference is patrons were traditionally very rich whereas kickstarter backers are not. We also know that he lower the stakes, the more bitter the fighting. $100 = a limb in the world of kickstarter.

Quote from: Spinachcat;690179I disagree Kyle.

The patronage model brought us a lot of amazing works of art, music and theater in the history of civilization. I do not know if Kickstarter will ever bring us something amazing, but I imagine that for ever Great Artist XYZ who was funded by ancient royalty or the Church, there were plenty of Dwimmer dudes as well who got some money at the time, but are forgotten by history.

People who flaked in the Patronage system probably found themselves destitute or at the bottom of a river.

Kickstarter is a bit different than that...

I think that people really shouldn't be blaming the system simply because they're not discerning with their money. If a kickstarter is from a known artist, author, company than there's very little risk. But its hard for me to believe people have had such an explosive reaction to giving their money to some guy best known for having a blog mostly focused on pseudonostalgia with very little in the way of content. If a person is an unknown starting a kickstarter, I expect to see some proof they are more capable than 90% of humanity and actually have the drive to finish the project, hell or high water. This basically means, I want the product already done, just waiting for production or distribution costs. "Hey I wrote this awesome RPG product I just need some money to get it illustrated and published" makes sense. "Hey, I'm thinking about writing this awesome RPG product but I need some money to get off my arse and do it" does not.

I guess that might be called 'blàming the victim', though I prefer to call it common sense.

As for claiming this example as justification for never having any kîckstarters, well I take that about as seriously as someone saying there should be ño email because they sent some money to a prince in Zimbabwe who emailed them saying they just needed to get access  to some vast fortune in escrow...

If you want to take a gamble on a new artist/writer, then at least have the decency to realize its a gamble and don't get pissed at the casino went you don't know when to hold them or fold them.

Quote from: One Horse Town;690188People who flaked in the Patronage system probably found themselves destitute or at the bottom of a river.

How many ended up in debtors' prisons?

Quote from: ggroy;690192How many ended up in debtors' prisons?

Only the ones from rich families.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;690174Traditionally, it works like this.

• Person A creates product Z
• If Z is any good, people give A money for it.

This is the traditional order of things happening. Attempts to reverse the order are favoured by the As of the world, this is good for their ego but not much else.

That's for things that one person can produce.

For things that require a team of people, usually it involves in getting funding to pay for the team. Either by starting a company and selling stock, or by financing it themselves.

Where KS begins to get shady IMHO is when they don't do the work they can do without needing money. Like in the case of RPGs, not actually writing at least a draft of the thing.

So many RPGs KSes have run into problems simply because the main author behind it didn't write the product already, thinking it would be easy to do. Only to find it wasn't so easy. (Writing isn't so much hard in of itself, but the self-discipline to write X amount a day can be, especially with the internet as a distraction)

Anyway, Kickstarter has produced this, which I think justifies it. (The upcoming Tex Murphy game)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBbzzUBiUEg

My experience with Kickstarter for RPGs hasn't been great.  RPG companies seem to have real problems delivering anything on time.

I've backed a lot of different projects on kickstarter and so far the RPG ones have had universally the worst communication and have all been late.  

Classic example is the Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed, which I'm dead keen on, I dropped about $150 on their kickstarter pretty much on the basis that they promised delivery by Halloween 2013.  Now it seems that they completely over estimated their ability and we'll be lucky if we get the books by spring 2014.

That along with the poor management of other RPG Kickstarter projects means that in the future I'm really unlikely to back anything else gaming related.  I'll just wait until the book hits the stores.

Quote from: TristramEvans;690189But its hard for me to believe people have had such an explosive reaction to giving their money to some guy best known for having a blog mostly focused on pseudonostalgia with very little in the way of content. If a person is an unknown starting a kickstarter, I expect to see some proof they are more capable than 90% of humanity and actually have the drive to finish the project, hell or high water.

Well, James may have been well known for his blog, but it's not like he didn't already have several RPG books published.  Looking on Amazon it's pretty easy to find that he's written for White Wolf, Guardians of Order, Steve Jackson, AEG.  Also, he published his own SciFi rpg, "Thousand Suns" with his own company.

It's not like he popped up and said "I've got a blog, let's make a dungeon!"  Dude was established.  He fatally flaked, and there's been probably more written about him online in the last two years than ever needed to be written, but he had finished projects before.

You know what bugs me? When projects develop an arcane series of add-ons and upgrades that you can stack onto your bid, but then don't use a decent backer management system like backerkit to help people manage that stuff. Chaosium are failing to do it with CoC 7th and all I can say is I'm glad I made a note of what extras I paid for, otherwise I'd never remember. I know such things cost a proportion of the Kickstarter money but the time they save in avoiding confusion and grief more than pays for it in my estimation.

Quote from: One Horse Town;690188People who flaked in the Patronage system probably found themselves destitute or at the bottom of a river.

Kickstarter is a bit different than that...

Now that would make Kickstarter interesting!

QuoteC.J. Cregg: They sent me two turkeys. The more photo-friendly of the two gets a Presidential pardon and a full life at a children's zoo. The runner-up gets eaten.
President Josiah Bartlet: If the Oscars were like that, I'd watch.

Logically, this clusterfuck must end at some point.  I just don't see when that's going to be.

RPGPundit

Someone should make a Kickstarter to refund the original Kickstarter backers.

Quote from: Piestrio;691091Someone should make a Kickstarter to refund the original Kickstarter backers.

Lol. The video should be done as a pastiche of those Sally Struthers "adopt a child" ads of the 80s, with dramatic music over a montage of geeks looking sad at the camera.

Quote from: Piestrio;691091Someone should make a Kickstarter to refund the original Kickstarter backers.

I think my brain just broke.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;690172Wow, I had no idea the ladder got pulled up so quickly.

Thanks, Allan.

Sure, happy to help, Mike.