Colecovision's Kickstarter failure is deeply depressing to me

[carlsson]

Are there any costs associated with listing a project on Kickstarter, no matter the outcome of the funding? Otherwise I find this sort of fundraising similar to when people list their rare video games on eBay with a reserve price at $5,000 upwards. Usually those won't get sold, but the seller gets a hunch what the market really is willing to pay. In this case, the project maintainer gets a feeling how much money the crowd is willing to raise for a similar project. I understand that licensing costs take a fair bit of the funds, but it also seems the app developers are doing this as a living, not a pet project. This is something that seems more and more common these days, what used to be enthusiast projects people did on their spare time now goes through crowd funding to become a side income, a way to combine your hobby with getting money for it. Yes, some projects are so awesome that others will want to chip in money to make it viable but far from all projects fall into that category.

[youki]

I hate modern device...being under IOS or Android.

 

the only Android i like is that one : http://www.gametronik.com/site/fiche/mo5/Androides/

[Andromeda Stardust]

I hate modern device...being under IOS or Android.

 

the only Android i like is that one : https://www.ouya.tv/

Fixed.

 

BTW, there's already a crap-ton of free emulators available for download in the Ouya Store, plus you get to use real game controllers instead of a crappy touch screen.

Edited October 29, 2013 by stardust4ever

[youki]

Fixed.

 

BTW, there's already a crap-ton of free emulators available for download in the Ouya Store, plus you get to use real game controllers instead of a crappy touch screen.

 

I don't like that one too! A good device must have a Cartridge port !

[Keatah]

When I play classic games, I typically do so through emulation. I use a quality controller on a no-hold barred top-quality big screen. There are times I'll jam with original hardware. But one thing is for sure, a tiny 3 inch screen is out of the picture entirely!

 

And my telephone is used for talking (and the occasional text message) NOT for fucking around with games, especially classic games!

Edited October 29, 2013 by Keatah

[Flojomojo]

Everyone's reaction here is interesting ("deeply interesting," even!) to me. Seems many folks

 

- don't like touchscreens

- don't like emulators

- don't like Apple

- don't like Kickstarter

- don't like people who ask a quarter mil for licensing a tiny set of old games

 

I love Apple, emulators, touch screens, and Kickstarter ... as well as the developers' previous work on the Vectrex emulator. I found that to be "good enough" for me to eBay my old fire hazard of a Vectrex. iPad stuff with an 8-Bitty controller works well IMHO, way better than original hardware. I like it when officially licensed emulators get on the App Store as opposed to the grey market of Google Play. But the Kickstarter's asking price is way way way too high. I asked them about it on the first day what would happen if they didn't meet their goal. Their answer was pretty much "we'll see." They've removed the bit about working with the company that exhumes grave-robs monetizes old intellectual property, which makes me wonder who set the greedy high bar.

 

And yes, it is "deeply depressing" to me -- it symbolizes me getting super old and out of touch (or more so). Of course, the many deaths of Atari have done the same thing to my fragile psyche. The complete and utter failure of the David Crane "Jungle Adventure" Kickstarter felt the same way (interestingly, it's no longer on the KS site). This is hardly unique to the Colecovision.

[Albert]

The complete and utter failure of the David Crane "Jungle Adventure" Kickstarter felt the same way (interestingly, it's no longer on the KS site).

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jungleventure/david-cranes-jungle-adventure-0

 

Edit: Interestingly (and not surprisingly), the jungleventure.com domain is up for sale.

 

..Al

[+Gemintronic]

I'm probably reading too much into David Cranes comments here at AtariAge, but I feel he partly blamed us for the Kickstarter failure. I hope these people come back from this and give it another try - perhaps with more feedback from their audience.

[Albert]

I'm probably reading too much into David Cranes comments here at AtariAge, but I feel he partly blamed us for the Kickstarter failure. I hope these people come back from this and give it another try - perhaps with more feedback from their audience.

I don't see where you're getting that, and I just looked at his posts in the thread here about the game.

 

As far as Kickstarters go, there wasn't enough information about the game to get people excited about it. In fact, there was virtually zero information about the gameplay, since they hadn't yet designed a game. There were some concept sketches of characters, and they talked about how realistic the jungle would be. An underwhelming video of the jungle was shown in one of the updates, but again, nothing at all revealing gameplay. They didn't even put together a video to help promote the Kickstarter (outside of the jungle video that came halfway through the Kickstarter).

 

If they had taken the time in advance to flesh out the game design and put together a proper concept video, I'm sure the Kickstarter would have received more funding. Not sure it would have succeeded, but it would have raised more than $31,207. It really seemed like a half-hearted attempt to me.

 

..Al

[JamesD]

Everyone's reaction here is interesting ("deeply interesting," even!) to me. Seems many folks

 

- don't like touchscreens

- don't like emulators

- don't like Apple

- don't like Kickstarter

- don't like people who ask a quarter mil for licensing a tiny set of old games

 

I love Apple, emulators, touch screens, and Kickstarter ... as well as the developers' previous work on the Vectrex emulator. I found that to be "good enough" for me to eBay my old fire hazard of a Vectrex. iPad stuff with an 8-Bitty controller works well IMHO, way better than original hardware. I like it when officially licensed emulators get on the App Store as opposed to the grey market of Google Play. But the Kickstarter's asking price is way way way too high. I asked them about it on the first day what would happen if they didn't meet their goal. Their answer was pretty much "we'll see." They've removed the bit about working with the company that exhumes grave-robs monetizes old intellectual property, which makes me wonder who set the greedy high bar.

 

And yes, it is "deeply depressing" to me -- it symbolizes me getting super old and out of touch (or more so). Of course, the many deaths of Atari have done the same thing to my fragile psyche. The complete and utter failure of the David Crane "Jungle Adventure" Kickstarter felt the same way (interestingly, it's no longer on the KS site). This is hardly unique to the Colecovision.

I don't like touch screens for joystick games. I also don't like touch screens for games like Candy Crush Saga that put in kill screens to try to get you to pay them money for a "free" game.

I don't like bad emulators but I do like good ones. Original hardware or an accurate reproduction there of is always better.

I like the Apple II series, I don't like the Mac, the iStink, the iOverpriced and Apple's marketing to iSnobs. Apple... Stink Different

I like good kickstarter projects, bad kickstarter projects are welcome to die a pitiful death with no sympathy on my part.

I don't like people who tack on $150K on to the cost of licensing old intellectual property just for an emulator so you can run it on your iStink when it's about $30K of work he's probably already written in his parent's basement. (I guess the rest is for his own house)

 

Ok, so maybe he lost his job and that's what he needed to pay off his house... whatever. If you charge too much for a product, it won't sell, it's that simple.

And iExaggerated a lot for Apple simply because the deserve it and iCan.

 

BTW, David Crane worked on one of those attrocities they called games involving live actors in the '90s. Just because he was involved doesn't mean it would have been worth your money.

Edited October 29, 2013 by JamesD

[+5-11under]

Everyone's reaction here is interesting ("deeply interesting," even!) to me. Seems many folks

 

- don't like touchscreens

- don't like emulators

- don't like Apple

- don't like Kickstarter

- don't like people who ask a quarter mil for licensing a tiny set of old games

 

I love Apple, emulators, touch screens, and Kickstarter ... as well as the developers' previous work on the Vectrex emulator. I found that to be "good enough" for me to eBay my old fire hazard of a Vectrex. iPad stuff with an 8-Bitty controller works well IMHO, way better than original hardware. I like it when officially licensed emulators get on the App Store as opposed to the grey market of Google Play. But the Kickstarter's asking price is way way way too high. I asked them about it on the first day what would happen if they didn't meet their goal. Their answer was pretty much "we'll see." They've removed the bit about working with the company that exhumes grave-robs monetizes old intellectual property, which makes me wonder who set the greedy high bar.

 

And yes, it is "deeply depressing" to me -- it symbolizes me getting super old and out of touch (or more so). Of course, the many deaths of Atari have done the same thing to my fragile psyche. The complete and utter failure of the David Crane "Jungle Adventure" Kickstarter felt the same way (interestingly, it's no longer on the KS site). This is hardly unique to the Colecovision.

I like touchscreens for the right application... it works fine for very simple controls... VERY simple controls.

Emulators are okay. Keyboards are okay. Joysticks are awesome. I usually just use emulators for testing purposes, but plenty of people use them exclusively. I have nothing against that.

Apple is a company. Usually they have pretty good products. A bit too closed. Usually expensive.

Kickstarter is great. It's a tool. It's an advertisement company, essentially, like eBay. People go there. I check out the new projects every day. Kickstarter is not a miracle cure. There are many reasons a pitch can fail. Me getting old is not one of them.

I have nothing against Rantmedia.

1/4 million is a lot of money to create an app. Perhaps $10 is a lot of money to spend on an app. It's all relative, I guess. I have never bought an app, but if I was hooked up to do so, I'd probably buy a couple for the kids (Minecraft).

I had a Vectrex once. I've got another on the way, for various reasons, including Minestorm. That game doesn't get old! I don't think the Vectrex will ever catch fire.

[+nanochess]

Some common failures I've seen in Kickstarters for games:

1. Not having the concept of the game working.
2. Having only some nice drawings / half-cooked story.
3. Depending too much on creator's name
4. Not having a trailer to create "interest"
5. Asking for too much money without specifying on what it will be used.
6. The text doesn't show a glance of effort or enthusiasm

In fact from a purely personal point of view (that is IMHO) some projects can be done by one person, just that the person is not putting enough effort on it.

 

By example, I financed myself my MSX2+/Colecovision/Sega Master System/Atari for testing my games, I didn't need to do a Kickstarter besides it was pursuing my own ideas and various ideas simply fall down along the way.

 

It would have looked silly "Kickstarter for $1500 USD: I'm planning to do some games but still not clear about the ideas"

Edited October 29, 2013 by nanochess

[Keatah]

I didn't like the Jungle Adventure thing because it felt too much like a big operation. A big operation resting on past laurels. A million dollars!! Shit.. I also felt there was "too much story" and too much "this will happen" and "that will happen" pertaining to what your character would do in the game. All that without actually showing anything. Too much hype. Too many overly descriptive adjectives used in the text. The whole thing felt like one of those plans for those idyllic future cities.

 

I'd rather play Missile Command instead.

[Albert]

I like the Apple II series, I don't like the Mac, the iStink, the iOverpriced and Apple's marketing to iSnobs. Apple... Stink Different

 

..

 

And iExaggerated a lot for Apple simply because the deserve it and iCan.

Your arguments lose a lot of merit with comments like this.

 

..Al

[Keatah]

Whether or not DC blames us at Atariage I couldn't care anything beyond this posting.

 

In the colecovision video, they got guys screwing around with a nerf gun or something. Look, I'm not paying you to slack off, you could have written 3 lines of code in place of that little stunt!

 

Not that those 3 lines of code would make up for some funky hard-to-use graphical interface. They tried these virtual user interfaces in the 90's and they more or less flopped didn't they?

[+5-11under]

Some common failures I've seen in Kickstarters for games:

• Not having the concept of the game working.
• Having only some nice drawings / half-cooked story.
• Depending too much on creator's name
• Not having a trailer to create "interest"
• Asking for too much money without specifying on what it will be used.
• The text doesn't show a glance of effort or enthusiasm

In fact from a purely personal point of view (that is IMHO) some projects can be done by one person, just that the person is not putting enough effort on it.

 

By example, I financed myself my MSX2+/Colecovision/Sega Master System/Atari for testing my games, I didn't need to do a Kickstarter besides it was pursuing my own ideas and various ideas simply fall down along the way.

 

It would have looked silly "Kickstarter for $1500 USD: I'm planning to do some games but still not clear about the ideas"

 

My favourite Kickstarter projects (to laugh at, that is), are the ones that are pretty much a charity... I'm starting a business that is really cool, so please buy my overpriced stickers and t-shirts, and with your money I will buy an expensive camera or CNC machine. If I had loads of time to spare, I'd track these to see how they ended up.

 

I agree that many projects on Kickstarter aren't fleshed out enough, or are started prematurely. Get the project done as far as you can, until you absolutely need funding to continue towards a final product.

[Bill Loguidice]

Though this was unfortunate from the beginning (due to the amount of money being requested), there are actually other official projects related to the ColecoVision forthcoming. Hopefully there will be official announcements soon.

[+Gemintronic]

Though this was unfortunate from the beginning (due to the amount of money being requested), there are actually other official projects related to the ColecoVision forthcoming. Hopefully there will be official announcements soon.

 

By omission can I read that the people who you are talking about aren't the same as coleco.com or colecovision.com ?

[Flojomojo]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jungleventure/david-cranes-jungle-adventure-0

 

Edit: Interestingly (and not surprisingly), the jungleventure.com domain is up for sale.

 

..Al

 

Perhaps it was just removed from search, then. Thanks for the link. Hm, looks like they got 3x the pledge amounts that Rantmedia has. Sigh.

 

I'm probably reading too much into David Cranes comments here at AtariAge, but I feel he partly blamed us for the Kickstarter failure. I hope these people come back from this and give it another try - perhaps with more feedback from their audience.

Nah, I think he was just frustrated that they weren't able to communicate their vision (or lack thereof) in a way that would bring in the level of funding they wanted.

 

Bill -- that's good news, hope we hear something soon.

 

Side note: who has the rights to the Exidy games now?

[+5-11under]

Perhaps it was just removed from search, then. Thanks for the link. Hm, looks like they got 3x the pledge amounts that Rantmedia has. Sigh.

I think failed projects are removed from their search engine.

[Pixelboy]

If there's one ColecoVision-related project that deserves Kickstarter funds, it's 5-11under's CV 1.2 project (drop-in console PCB replacement).

 

He's already working on the prototype, but it's probably going to take him a while to get his electronics to reproduce the original board perfectly. Colors have to come out just right on the TV screen, sound output has to be perfect, joystick ports must work with original CV controllers perfectly, etc. It's a very complicated project to realize, especially when you want the board to work with modern TVs, but once the working prototype is done, then Kickstarter would be the ideal vessel to gather some public attention. The more people pre-order the board, the cheaper the board will be to produce, in theory at least.

[Bill Loguidice]

 

By omission can I read that the people who you are talking about aren't the same as coleco.com or colecovision.com ?

 

I try not to get too specific with who has the rights to what (that's a mess), but they won't be directly producing anything to my knowledge. However, if they have rights to something specific, then they'd certainly be involved in that regard. Similar to the failing Kickstarter Coleco app, all rights need to be licensed from whoever holds them regardless.

[Rhomaios]

I don't like emulators that much and I really don't like Apple.

 

This for me, too.

[+5-11under]

... 5-11under's CV 1.2 project (drop-in console PCB replacement).

 

... Colors have to come out just right on the TV screen, sound output has to be perfect, joystick ports must work with original CV controllers perfectly, etc. It's a very complicated project to realize, especially when you want the board to work with modern TVs...

No pressure, eh?

[Pixelboy]

No pressure, eh?

I think you are well aware that people around here won't settle for anything less than perfection. Otherwise the Dina 2-in-1 wouldn't have such a bad reputation.

 

At least you know that your project is totally doable. You just have to be careful about the little details while you are working on your prototype, details which could seem somewhat unimportant to you now, but will come back and bite you in the behind later if you make the wrong design decision.

 

A bunch of us here are following your project with great interest and anticipation, and we're all looking forward to seing a video of your first prototype in action, which we will probably see sometime in 2014. Until then, a word of caution: Expectations WILL be high.