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How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS


racerx

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It's pretty clear that many people still don't understand how sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo work. There are several people posting on the RetroVGS Facebook page, stating that a successfully funded campaign is a guarantee that systems will be delivered. While those crowdfunding sites need to make the public more aware about how they work, I feel that those running campaigns need to be a little more transparent with their backers. Fact is that crap can happen and the could run out of money for any number of reasons.

 

Here is a handy link for you, in case you feel like "educating" people on Facebook.

 

http://kotaku.com/12-successful-kickstarters-that-never-delivered-1687019268

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Well, it's time for another midnight RVGS update:

 

At the start of the day yesterday, the campaign was at 186 backers and $66188 raised. These totals include a loss of seven backers and $1462 over the course of the previous day. Yesterday, they lost five more backers and $1187, but they managed to pick up another six backers late in the day, albeit with lower pledges. So, they ended the day at 187 backers and a loss of $232, still hovering at 3% of their goal.

 

Here are their totals at the start of each day that I've been keeping track:

 

Day 3 (09/21): 172 backers, $60041 raised

Day 4 (09/22): 186 backers, $66188 raised, +$6147

Day 5 (09/23): 187 backers, $65956 raised, -$232

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Typo in the number of backers for Day 5 (should be 187).

 

[bTW in case you're not aware this information is available graphically on CrowdChart]

 

Not sure why they haven't pulled the pin yet. Flat-lining can only harm the chances of a reboot, IMHO. Save face now and admit it was too soon, otherwise holding out until the end is just stubborn refusal to admit they're wrong.

 

I know they're hoping some press will bring backers in droves, but seriously, who out there that would want this hasn't already heard of it?

Edited by tcdev
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Typo in the number of backers for Day 5 (should be 187).

Thanks, corrected. (That last backer came in within the last ten minutes.) I've been checking CrowdChart also, but their updates and projections currently seem to be buggy, so I thought it would be convenient to have the same information here in text form.

 

Not sure why they haven't pulled the pin yet. Flat-lining can only harm the chances of a reboot, IMHO. Save face now and admit it was too soon, otherwise holding out until the end is just stubborn refusal to admit they're wrong.

 

I know they're hoping some press will bring backers in droves, but seriously, who out there that would want this hasn't already heard of it?

One of the backers mentioned (in a comment on IGG) that they're busy getting fresh press coverage this week, but I think you're right: they've been doing almost nothing besides talk about and hype this thing for months. Who else can they expect to reach at this point?

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I've been checking CrowdChart also, but their updates and projections currently seem to be buggy, so I thought it would be convenient to have it in text form.

 

Yeah, what's going on with the predictions? Was 50% for the first few days, then down to 3% (or current funding level) yesterday where it remains. It's either a stupidly naive curve-fit algorithm, or completely f*cked. I would have thought (hoped) that it employed statistics from other campaigns (eg. likely distribution of backers/pledges) in its algorithm(s). Apparently not.

 

EDIT: OK, maybe I'm a bit premature here. Maybe for 50% the sample size was too small, and 3% is actually a pretty good estimate? I'd be prepared to believe that!

Edited by tcdev
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Somebody was asking earlier about Gamemaker and Unity and what not with regards to plug-ins. While GM might be able to roll something out, Unity for sure isn't. For one, they're going to ask 7 figures in order to even consider supporting your platform and for two, it uses c# which means you need some significant processing power to handle all that runtime managed code (garbage collection, etc). Nintendo licensed Untiy for an 8-figure sum whereas Sony and others have multi year deals for 7-figure deals. And that's for platforms that have ample resources and storage.

 

So yeah, it would take more than the $3.3M in order to not be laughed out of Unity's offices. Anyway, software development is expensive. Considering they have ONE guy, at say a burn-rate of $10k/month (low estimate) they would need to spend a boatload of money on IP in order to not burn the guy out. Things like USB, IP stacks, that kind of thing. Alternatively, they could hire another programmer but then they would have to finish everything in about 4 months, so no... Also, for new cores... Who's going to do the API's, do the testing and support?

 

While it's probably never going to happen, I would really like to understand how they came up with these numbers in some sort of post-mortum. I've been in game development my entire life and it's just mind-blowing to think they can pull this off. Mike seems hellbent to destroy whatever is left of his credibility, perhaps out of stress / being pissed off at the world but admitting that they completely under-estimated everything would go a long way, at least IMO, towards restoring that.

 

-Mux

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EDIT: OK, maybe I'm a bit premature here. Maybe for 50% the sample size was too small, and 3% is actually a pretty good estimate? I'd be prepared to believe that!

So would I. They've been languishing at 3% for the last three days. I'm waiting until they manage to scrape together enough pledges to get them to 4%. Maybe the prediction algorithm will fix itself once it has more data to work with.

 

(Edit: CrowdCharts is now predicting 5%.)

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Me and some of the folks from here and VGCollect talked about the Retro today on our live hangout Retro Reload.

It won't be news to anyone that's been commenting/following along here, but I think it's a decent summary of what's going on and the perspectives from both sides.

 

My open invite to the RVGS folks to come on and say their peice still stands.

 

 

Plus at the very end you can see me get my ass handed to me by a fellow forum members Mario Maker level.

Edited by dashv
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It became a completely different product at the last minute, lol. Why would I buy it?

 

They stressed the FPGA could do wonders, then never said how it could do anything aside from implement old hardware perfectly in VHDL on a chip. That's cool.

Homebrewers with those games could publish a cart on it, or... old arcade games could be released in perfect condition with an HDL of that company's kit.

 

And somehow (this should have tipped me off early) people could port their new games to the box. But, SOMEHOW... they are supposed to do it with a low cycle ARM???

 

A single core ARM. Hey, maybe a single core 2.0ghz arm!! but you need RAM for future retro games.

 

They never put hardware out there and talk hype.

 

What am I buying? I don't like to buy hype machines!!!

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One of the backers mentioned (in a comment on IGG) that they're busy getting fresh press coverage this week, but I think you're right: they've been doing almost nothing besides talk about and hype this thing for months. Who else can they expect to reach at this point?

 

Well, you'd be surprised, the people who would buy into this thing are precisely the kind of people who don't follow sites like these and might send Mike & Co. $350 as an impulse purchase.

 

But as far as press is concerned, I don't hold out much hope unless it's going to be smaller no-name sites following any leads to get their big break. I looked at Kotaku and it looks like yesterday wouldn't have been a great day to launch an RVGS article anyways...

 

Unsung Story Is A $660,000 Kickstarter Disaster

 

The Kickstarter update that led to that article being written went live on Monday, so they cranked out that story quick. Since RVGS' IGG campaign started back on Saturday I figure if they ever intended to cover it along with a glowing invitation to back them, it would have already been published. I think this is yet another unforeseen side effect of not being on Kickstarter. There's so much shit on Indiegogo that it's impossible to take any of those projects seriously since no one needs a prototype there. So no one takes IGG projects seriously, they're not worth covering or paying attention to because no news site wants to get hoaxed. And when you think about it, this idea does kinda sound like a hoax. I'd hang up on them if I wasn't following this.

 

I wish they would do more podcast interviews. When they're put on the spot that's the only time you get any transparency or get a feel for how unprepared and over their heads they truly are. But I think they've gotten wise to that, I don't expect them to go on a podcast unless its got tons of subs making it too good to turn down. Someone should pose as a big podcast and ambush them.

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Well, you'd be surprised, the people who would buy into this thing are precisely the kind of people who don't follow sites like these and might send Mike & Co. $350 as an impulse purchase.

 

 

Which makes it a good idea on our part to point people to threads like this so they can make a more educated decision. If people are just making decisions based on "official" information they aren't getting the whole story.

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So I've been away living life for a few weeks and I decided to check up and come around to see how this RVGS thing has been unfolding because I remember in the back of my mind it was supposed to happen sometime late Sept. I was absolutely floored to see it priced at $300. Honestly, I was expecting $179ish to be a 'good' price outcome with $199 probably being the 'realistic' outcome but $299+ and that's not even for the Jewel series? Not to mention the final goal being $2 million dollars? Ouch.

 

On the updside:

 

+Gunlord looks like a decent game! I'm actually kind of surprised

+I honestly like the Jewel cases but that has more to do with me liking the Jaguar probably

 

With that said, unless someone rich comes along and decides to plunk down 1.5 mil just for funzies, I just can't really see it happneing and I hate saying that because I fully support cool, new, fun projects and Mike seems like a cool guy. It's just an overshot price-wise imo. and why not Gunlord for the pack-in? Just saying.

 

Sell 1,000 Jaguar cases in Jewel form in multiple colors at $59 each and make some money that way. Take the $ you get from that and develop / streamline this more into what was originally promised in the beginning and get some more team members involved, better exclusives, etc. Do it on Kickstarter. Lower the minimum goal. Has the damage already been done though and is it too late? Maybe there are specs but it still doesn't seem clear going from the video, which certainly wasn't included. I didn't look too hard elsewhere obviously but did notice the quite extensive or excessive input/output options.

 

:-/

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Gunlord is a good game. It was a Neo Geo homebrew, originally. They're using smoke and mirrors by showing games they didn't develop and had no real involvement in and claiming that these are games that will appear on Retro VGS. Besides getting snippy with us right after the Indiegogo campaign launched, they haven't even really bothered to do much damage control. It's just getting worse now because pretty soon we're all going to get bored of picking on them and then just no one will pay attention to them at all.

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