Kickstarter VNs

[InvertMouse]

I came across this the other day:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/758714218/driftwood-the-visual-novel

Hope everything goes well for him. More English VNs never hurt.

There are a few other VNs on Kickstarter as well. Honestly, I'm not too sure where I'm going with this topic. Just wanted to see if anyone here has had experience with Kickstarter, what their thoughts on it are, etc.

With most Kickstarter projects I see, I look at the costings and I think, "Does it actually cost that much?" There are some where I react with, "Yeah, I've done a project just like that back in uni. A beginner level game or graphic novel of some sort. I supported myself by doing severely underpaid freelance work. Finished off those projects while eating two sandwiches a day." It sure would've been nice if Kickstarter existed when I was a student. Even then, would I have used it? Who knows. Maybe I'm just being a grumpy old man. I've churned out a ton of artworks out of passion (i.e. without pay) in the past and perhaps unfairly expects everyone else to do the same.

Do those Kickstarter funds go to just resources? Or are they going to cover the creators' living expenses while they do these projects full time? A lot of these games are released free, though. Perhaps that makes it all good? Just wanted to hear some thoughts.

As many of you know, I'm working on a VN called Unhack. I have a 9 to 6 full time job. When I get home, I'd work on Unhack for around 2 to 3 hours a day. On weekends, I often do 8 to 12 hour days, sometimes both Saturday and Sunday. While I have dreams of putting this onto the App Store, let's be honest, it's not that easy. Money wise, I'd expect very little to nothing at all.

I have yet to ask for a single dollar from anyone for Unhack. Of course I'd love to do this full time if I could. I accept reality, though. Everybody works to make a living. I'm willing to do the same. Who funds the hosting cost for my website? I do. And that applies to many of you folks out there with blogs, etc, too. This very Fuwanovel forum, in fact. When I receive some feedback for my game, that's my only (albeit gratifying) reward right now. But do you have the passion to continue anyway? That's what I respect most.

That aside, Kickstarter could be used as a way to promote your project. Again, though, I'm not asking for funding. Is there are way to use Kickstarter for just promotional purposes? Yeah, it's not the point of the site, but you get the idea.

Hope I'm not being too aggressive with this. I'd rather start this discussion with a more curious mind than anything else. Please feel free to share a different perspective. I'm ready to learn. Thank you heaps .

P.S. I named this topic wrong. It should more be "Kickstarter Projects" in general.

[Steve]

About KS and the money spending.

Well "resources" count in human resources as well, that's actually the biggest part.

So obviously those people are getting their living expenses paid if they are working full time on the project.

If you would go and say that you want to start working on Unhack full time (which would mean you would work on it more than you currently do), but you wouldn't be able to go daily work, you would also need to take number of months you think the project would take working normal daily hours and multiply it by your living expenses.

And then it depends how much you need. Can you live from 500$ a month where you are (this really is variable, there are some very expensive countries and some very cheap), then ask for 3000 and you can work for half a year on it without a need for other work.

Alternatively you can spread those into a year while keeping a part time job or whatever.

Often you see KS asking for too low amount of money and they they risk running out of resources. And you see they talk about having 3 people working on it for a year and ask for 10000, that is just not anough to pay 3 people for a year, 2 at max if they live in a cheap part of a world - and many people see that and it doesn't get funded because of that.

People backing on KS are not stupid, they can calculate that much.

So you really need to calculate your expenses and set that as the minimum goal, if you set minimum goal lower than what you actually need, firstly you are misleading the people funding it and you are risking that you will get the minimum goal and then run out of money in the middle of project.

You can also announce the rough calculations there on your KS page to show people that you are actually able to sustain the project at that cost.

And it is the biggest concern of KS backers, the project might seem cool but if they don't see some kind of insurance that it will actually get finished (there is never 100% that it will anyway), they will not back it.

Show that proof and you will have it easier.

As for second part of your question, you can't use it as promotion, you can ask for money on promotion and advertisement though, not sure how that would work, but there are KS's that are already done and just need money for distribution.

[InvertMouse]

Steve, thanks for your reply !

[Tanteikingdomkey]

There is another one as well from some of the people who did EOL manga with tokyopop

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/851478113/errant-heart-a-visual-novel

It does look very nice actually

[Mephisto]

Driftwood just made its goal ;O

[shcboomer]

Driftwood just made it's goal ;O

That was pretty quick, expecting to see some great things now.

[meru]

I'm afraid I don't really know anything about the workings of Kickstarter.. but as a potential backer, what I usually look for is evidence that the idea is already in progress, and is something the creator is genuinely passionate about. Of course, both those apply to you & Unhack ^_~ I actually don't look too hard at the maths behind what they're asking for, but I probably should ^^; But I've only backed one project so far anyway.

It was this VN project http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/99640711/memento-aurora-chronicles I can't wait for it to actually be released & don't think I'll regret backing it!

[Tay]

Anybody hear about this one?

http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/23/4246922/errant-heart-is-a-way-for-creators-to-escape-the-compromises-of

[solidbatman]

Perhaps the west will see a robust indie VN market rather than clamoring for VNs to be brought over from Japan. Its like the fans are saying, "Screw it, we'll do it ourselves then!"

[InvertMouse]

Thanks for the further replies everyone .

Solidbatman, yeah. It's great to see so many people building their own VNs. Sadly, though, I'm sure a huge portion of people will go, "It's not from Japan. I don't care. It's not from Key. I don't care. It's not a major release. I don't care." But such is the life of an indie, I guess.

Meru, indeed, Unhack would be a legit Kickstarter project. Again, I guess I'm just old fashioned. I've finished pretty massive (though rubbish in retrospect) projects when I was in uni without asking for a dime, and I was dead poor back then. With a full time job now, I actually have it easier. Most important, I, without meaning to be morbid, assumed nobody would care about something I made. That's why I never bothered with Kickstarter. I've been kindly offered donations as of late, though. Even then, I have yet to take any action on that.

It also depends on what I'm asking money for. If I need money to hire an artist, I think that's cool. But what if I'm asking for money to promote the game at some convention? Am I trying to promote the game, or am I just wanting to attend the convention free? Worse yet, what if I ask for money to buy other VNs to use as research material? Which ones of those do you guys regard as acceptable? For some reason, when others do it, I go, "Oh, that's cool. Good luck !" but if I consider doing the same thing I go, "What am I doing ."

Right now, if people play my game and let me know they've played it, that's payment enough already. Even that's already hard enough to do, let alone asking for money. Though if players have invested, they may feel more obliged to check out your game. Just some random thoughts.