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Which is barely anything, some of the greatest games are made by a passionate few in their bedrooms, while 90% of multi hundred million dollar games end up with feature bloat and the majority of the money pocketed by greedy suits and the disgustingly expensive marketing
It COULD'VE worked. I mean look at the budget for Godzilla Minus One and compare it to the latest american Godzilla movies. The budget could've worked! 😉😉
@@dawnbreaker2912Toho barely have anything to do with the monsterverse. Which is why both Shin and Minus one were released when they were. They release before or after Monsterverse movies leave the cinema. As much as I love Shin, Minus One and Toho I feel like they wouldn't have soared as high if it wasn't for the newer movies bringing in a lot of new eyes on Big G and I'm not even a big fan of the "monsterverse" stuff.
One thing that caught my interest here is the "court ordered apology". I may have misunderstood it, but this is ordered by Japanese court. If this is in fact true, then that brings a lot of red flags. As those who've followed the whole Selen Tatsuki/Nijisanji situation might know, Japanese law has a different legal definition of defamation. In the USA, defamation is more akin to slander: saying things about others that you know are untrue in order to harm their reputation. BUT in Japanese law, it doesn't even matter if that statement is factually correct or not. You can be sexually abused by your manager, publically call out that manager for sexually abusing you, get sued by said manager for defamation and LOSE that court case because your factually correct statement damaged the reputation of that manager. But because a lot of people backing this project likely were not familiar with Japanese law around defamation, they interpreted it as being judged by USA standards of defamation. Thus the court ordering an apology for exposing the stuff going on behind the scenes would be interpreted by the public as a confirmation that it wasn't a factually correct exposé, when in reality it was merely a confirmation that it damaged the company. This is why you see vtubers almost always being so incredibly vague when talking about their experiences under a specific company, especially if said vtuber resides in Japan. And this is why in vtubing culture, it used to be the standard that your past identity would be treated as an entirely different person by everyone and it was taboo to talk about an identity being someone's past life. Because laws like this resulted in such strict contracts that you were in no way at all allowed to disclose ANYWHERE that you worked as a vtuber for any particular agency or disclose that you were a particular vtuber before or during your time at that agency. USA defamation law is focused on facts. Japanese defamation law is focused on reputation. I thought this was an important and interesting distinction to point out, because we've started seeing more blatant examples of Japanese companies with EN branches use Japanese law in ways that serve sort of like propaganda in the EN communities. So it's definitely important to be aware of these differences when analyzing scandals relating to companies in Japan
As someone who has run Kickstarter that was only trying to raise money for a marketing budget, it kills me how many people pitched ridiculous dream projects and then just straight up not deliver.
How much money typically goes into marketing for advertising an indie game? I ask because one day I also want to create games, but also being incredibly wary and cautious upon approaching to create them since I keep hearing about disaster stories like this pop up about game development gone wrong. I understand that if you want to start out as a developer, you have to keep your scope as well as budget low in order not to become overly ambitious with the project and end up wasting money while also plan ahead to make sure you have the main components of game development before over promising on goals.
@@doclouis4236 Marketing budget depends completely on the way you want to promote the game. - A lot of Indie devs play it smart & slow by promoting for Free on Social Media: like TikTok shorts + Reddit + Twitter + Steam Whishlist + General word of Mouth in the Indie space. ("The First Tree" as an example). - If you want to go Big, you can spend like +100k and get promoted in a big Event like SummerGameFest or E3 somewhere in the showcase. (the price will increase by how long the trailer is, but its not cheap) - There's obviously a more inbetween approach like Hiring an Animation studio to make you a Sick Trailer you can release by yourself / OR sneak in into one of the more Niche Console showcases for a total of ~20-50k. (like Deadcells does by sneaking in on Xbox + Playstation showcases). At the end of the day, Marketing budget is the most flexible part of a project, but also what could make or break your game selling and even getting known.
@@doclouis4236Depends on how niche your game is and the game's scope. A small game with a really niche community might need a budget of $0 - 15,000. Small-to-Medium Sized businesses can spend tens of thousands to several hundred thousands of dollars on marketing if there's a big enough community. AAA will spend millions in marketing.
I dont see whats wrong with it? I mean let the sheep provide if they are so easily convinced to spend so much money on nothing but an idea even if its vision is entirely unclear and its entirely unknown how to do it on the technical side, its their own fault.
5k for a steady 200k+ viewership in the first week? Sounds like peanuts for a creator like him that was not enthusiatistic about taking it. They probably got him with like 20-50k after the negotiations.
I've backed many KS games that were successful, including Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity. Not all of them was or are scams. It's sad to see KS getting such bad reputation because of scammers. Same with other types of KS projects. I've backed hundreds of projects throughout the years and only three amounted to nothing. I believe only one of them was a scam; the other two simply ran out of money (I suspect that, at least). All one has to do is to have an discerning eye and assess which projects are likely to be successful. I think it has helped that I've been investing and trading on the stock market for over 25 years. It takes a similar approach to neither trust every opportunity that one sees nor be cynical and never take a chance on anything.
As someone who has been living in Japan for quite a while, this entitlement is more common than most people think, especially among this type of "business person". I've worked for a few of them. It's always *surprised Pikachu face* when you list the reasons of why they can expect nothing. It gives serious 'but mummy always said I was special' energy.
People seen to forget that japan is just another country and not some sort of dreamland, the exact same bullshit that happens over here in the west happens over there as well
At least in Japan, when someone is caught in a scandal, they have to humiliate themselves in public and disappear for awhile. Here, they're just on to the next scam ASAP.
@@r01d2 i ain't american and i'm not going to defend america or my own nation when it comes to it's faults, i literally point out that bullshit happen on the west on my original comment
To quote a programmer friend of mine: "Game engines are a bit like languages. You, as a programmer, know one, maybe two quite alright. However, game engines should be treated like the foreign languages they are; what is on one engine does not work on the other."
@@govinpillai It doesn't really matter if it is proprietary. It can matter if it has open source though, because knowing how it works internally is often crucial to use it properly.
@@k1dn1ce76Game engines are a huge spectrum of complexity. Some game engines are simple 2d engines that do some light work for you; some like unreal have incredibly complex render technology, asset management, and structure Most game engines (source, unreal specifically) started as a simple System for a first person shooter and then constantly added features for 25 years Goldsource(the first source engine half life 1) was the quake engine with the following added features: Character scripting, facial animation, movable objects These are just the ones I remember
It's pretty insane that this has so many similarities to the eventual disaster that was Mighty No. 9's fiasco of a development. At least MN9 was actually finished.
@@miruz3519 I think a lot of the hate was informed by the absolutely detestable behavior of the people running the show, not so much the mediocre game itself. Well, that, and it didn't actually deliver the stuff it promised.
funny thing is, mighty only took slightly over 3 years of development instead of 10+ years of bullshit and empty promises, less drama and less bullshit from the founder throughout the development, less the funding amount of project phoenix with actual added DLCs, and finally, it's actually a playable, fully voiced in japanese and english, true to the initial concept of the megaman-esque game instead of something that doesn't even exist like project phoenix, with the CEO Hiroaki Yuura being an actual asshole who allegedly sexually abused his employees and used the funding to make other things that don't even have anything to do with the game while using those unrelated stuff as justification for not delivering the game or even refunding to add salt to the wound, to this day, that Hiroaki Yuura still runs free and he is still involved in big projects while inafune seemed to be buried as a relic of the past
@oniplus4545 Maybe Inafune isn't the big name producer he was (idk if he even wants to be) but he's still respected as a game designer. His latest project is under Level 5, the upcoming Fantasy Life i
I was one of the backer of Under The Dog. This was the guy who almost single handedly destroyed the anime project. After months of silence, the studio made the right choice to part ways and gain full control of UTD.
Damn, reading this comment then going to see the reviews of UTD on MAL, they really got the brunt of what rightly should've been towards Hiroaki Yura... Most people didn't even take it seriously because of how it was hyped by him on the Kickstarter...
Another backer of Under the Dog here, I was unaware of the whole Project Phoenix stuff and the drama with Hiroaki Yura at the time. I remember backing so much stuff in the early, heady days of Kickstarter and I was deep into anime stuff at the time. I backed UTD and I do remember thinking "Wow, an OVA costs $800,000?". [Edit: obviously I'm not involved in animation so it might be that's its not a lot of money]. There was a lot of drama around UTD at the time, and that whole saga about the creators played out in updates and comments on Kickstarter. It took ages for the OVA to come out and when it did come out, it was just...okay. The plot was really bad, generic anime kinda stuff of evil monsters, government agencies, etc, and the short length meant it was totally unsatisfying and unexplained. The animation didn't look nearly as good as the teaser and by the time it came out, I'd completely forgotten about it. Under the Dog and a second animation project I'd backed called Urbance (which similarly went absolutely pear shaped) made me swear off Kickstarter animation stuff forever. I just back tabletop games now and an occasional video game. [Edit: I've added some more words and context to my comment, which I should have done originally].
6:00 is spot on. I burn through 130k/month just for the team working on an (corporate) application which has been running for 4 years and with another year left.
Yeah, make no mistake that there are plenty of kickstarter flops but there are also plenty of wins in there as well. Particularly for CRPGs since pillars of eternity and pathfinder were also KS projects.
Raid is the only sponsorship my streamer friend has ever taken, and it’s because they literally allow you to say whatever you want on top of paying really well. He tells his audience NOT to download it if they are bad with money or have a propensity to gambling, because they will get addicted. Raid doesn’t care lol
@@DeviIInADress Raid was developed by an Israeli studio built from scratch by Aristocrat Gaming. The biggest gambling corporation in Australia. Fun fact: Australia contains about 20% of all the slot machines in the world, and has the biggest global gambling problem as well. They know what they're doing and what their average user will end up doing. No sweat, money's not a problem, any eyeballs on the game is good.
I called out Tiny Metal on their Twitter years ago for this and they were very adamant that they had zero to do with Project Phoenix. I knew that was bs then as much as I know it now. Thank you for this retrospective.
Skip this one. The thumbnail is just blatant click bait and lying. The guy who made the project and scammed multiple times never saw ANY jail time or court, at all. At best all he did was thresten to sue a whistleblowing exposing the truth and made him legally retract his statements, typical defamation bullshit. Kira just lied and I watched the whole video. I'm at work and bored so just needed something.
Most games I backed on Kickstarted were delivered (even if the end result was not what was promised) but I'm still upset about this one. I'm glad I 'only' lost $20 on it. I checked the Kickstarter page and the last update was in 2019 and nothing at all in the comments beyond angry backers. (and YES, I KNOW how Kickstarter works, nothing promised, blah blah blah. But as Kira points out in this video, this project at launch had a STRONG chance to come out, just like Richard Garriot's Kickstarted game as well, another I lost money on. That's why I never back something for more then $20 as that's the most I'm willing to lose. I'm just upset cause this could have been a GREAT game.)
Yeah, idk if I’m savvy or just lucky but I’ve never backed a game that wasn’t delivered. They weren’t all amazing, but they were still honest attempts at full games.
As someone who have backed numerous projects on Kickstarter and having never been scammed like this I feel sad that a few bad apples destroy the credability for crowd-funding.
I've been satisfied with every kickstarter I've ever backed, its unfortunate that bad apples ruin crowdfunding for people who are genuinely trying to make good and unique indie projects
Kinda related to that end segment with the court ordered stuff - In some cases in Japan, people can be ordered to either apologize or pay for things even if the content they posted was completely true, as long as its main intention was to damage the company/an individual or its financials. It's likely with half decent lawyers that dude could have made a case towards it just being a malicious attack on the company, and that's why they were ordered to apologize under court order.
@@sdjhgfkshfswdfhskljh3360 It's a whole culture of saving face, or in other words, sweep problems under the rug as fast as possible and hope everyone forgets it immediately. It's pretty shit.
This is what I wanted to point out. It's one of many significant differences in the legal system between Japan and western countries like the US. In the US, a defamation suit requires falsehood. Slander and libel are only considered so if the information being spread to ruin someone's reputation is false, and truth is an absolute defense against it. In fact, as part of a defamation case, a plaintiff must prove that the statement made is false. And many states require proof of malice, which generally means in this case proving that the defendant knew it was false(or blatantly and recklessly disregarded the possibility), and intentionally spread the information specifically to harm the plaintiff. In Japan, the damage to reputation is considered more important than the truth. Even if what you're saying is true, if you're spreading information with the intent to harm someone's reputation, that's a civil violation.
Kira, you've helped us as gamers be more aware, as well as more skeptical of proposed games with absurd promises. You've helped form the mindset that if I were to back a project, gaming or otherwise, I'd have to approach it like a loan officer or banker. You've taught myself and others a nugget of financial wisdom. Thanks, and keep on keepin' on.
While there are some horror stories from this stuff there was at least one genre resurrected with the help of Kickstarter and you could argue two. Hollow Knight might have never been made without it which caused a renaissance in the almost dead 2D metroidvanias before that. Kickstarter also brought games that play similarly to Baldur's Gate 3 back into the spotlight with games like Shadowrun Returns and Pillars of Eternity both which might not have been made without the platform.
I think approaching it like a loan officer or a banker is a responsible attitude. Or maybe a better word would be an "investor". Since like any other form of investment, there's no guarantee of success. There will be projects where the creators were a bit too ambitious for the amount of funds they expected/got, there will be projects that are finished, but never turned out quite the way their creators set out from the beginning, and there will occasionally be outright scams (though we should be careful not to accuse projects in the first two catagories of this. Failed dreams are not scams). However, among all this, you do sometimes have the right people and the right project all align to allow great things to happen. The point is that, just like conventional investment, there's no guarantee of success for anything, just unfinished potential. So for anyone who might get butthurt if a project they backed folds, leaving them with nothing, well, perhaps investing in a Kickstarter is not for you? For everyone else, do your homework in evaluating what to back, and maybe, maybe, you'll walk away with a little more than you put in.
I was one of the backers for Under the Dog. Was recommended it by a friend who thought that it sounded interesting. I wasn't aware of it being a secondary project by someone who was developing a game at that time.
I really hope you never change your outro's background soundtrack, it's so characteristic of your videos and gives me chills each time. Great vid as always!
Gotta hand it to raid, a lot of their sponsorship slots are done very sarcastically/tongue in cheek, but they don't seem to mind as long as they get a few looks their way.
Nah man that's crossing the line to me. Raid can only pay this much because they are omnipresent with their adds and prey on the vulunable (addicts, gamblers, inexperienced users, kids) with their entire psychological warfare setup. Never seen a game this bad before, it's more like a casino with permanent personalized popups based on user behavior. And then there is also kind of a game hidden somewhere in there. Accepting Raid money is on the same level as allowing someone to pay your bills of who you know he scams elderly people for a living. Fuck that shit!
To be fair, most Kickstarters are not funded by Kickstarter alone and the campaign could mostly exist as marketing and a pre-order service. Like, Pillars of Eternity pulled in some $4 million. But the actual cost of making the game was rumored to be about $15 million. So $11 million of the funding came from elsewhere. That does not mean that the Kickstarter was useless as it proved that there were a market for the game and created a lot of hype and free marketing for it.
I dont really like Raid. But its just a game. In the worst case scenario its harmless. Compared to a lot of other sponsors like Masterworks which is pretty much real life NFT's.
This kind of advertising is entirely unrelated to the kind of advertising platforms like facebook run. So what happens with mainstream advertising doesn't impact integrations really at all. If anything if other ad service gets worse, it should actually improve the "influencer" ad space as we provide far greater value and far more customization/targeting/engagement per view than traditional advertising does. I doubt it'll dry up at all.
Which mobile game is a ponzi scheme? Because that is a very specific and technical term that implies a specific type of fraudulent operation involving return of profit. I'm unsure of any mobile games that work like an investment with a promised return on investment if you can let me know I'd love to investigate that.
Man I bought Tiny Metal because I'm a fan of the genre and it looked really good, I never knew it had such turbulent origins. They even released a second Tiny Metal as well. Crazy
Tbf not many ppl knew unless they heard about project phoenix. I was one of them. I think I was at the Last ever PlayStation Experience convention and they had someone going up and down the line for ppl trying to get in saying: "If you like games like Advance Wars check out Tiny Metal"
Wow hearing about Project Phoenix reminded me I pledged $20 for this and at the time I was hyped about it. After a few years of waiting I figured it will never come and there was no hope for a refund and I cut my losses. It was one of the reasons I stop pledging any project for some time.
@@LilithsCosmicLounge Not all games are expensive to make, it all depends on project scope and the core team and what the core team is willing to live on.
@@khalid666 Mighty No.9 didn't fail. It's very true people expected more, especially visually, but as a whole the game was ... okay. It was a dissapointment, but not a failure. People give Mighty No.9 more shit than it deserves, even if it deserves very little praise as well.
it's not an exaggeration to say that kickstarter back then is a literal sacrificial ground for unsuspecting backers for future backers to learn about budgeting in game development and to learn about not trusting some campaigns before doing research about the developers, gotta at least thank these poor unfortunate souls
I'm a former game designer, developer, and studio owner. I've worked for large companies like EA and WB, as well as running my own studio making sports games for XBox and PlayStation consoles. $100,000 USD doesn't even get you a vertical slice, hell it would barely get you storyboards or concept art sketches. Also, 16:00 I've worked a lot in Unity, and never, not once, have I ever heard someone say "I'm switching to Unreal to reduce development time". Unity, for all its faults (and it has many), is by far the easier of the two engines to work with and going with Unity allowed me to ship games within a year that would have taken 2-3 if using Unreal. Switching to Unreal (mid development) would do exactly the opposite of helping you meet deadlines.
A japanese court ruling in favor of a Japanese producer against a non Japanese employee, forcing the non Japanese employee to apologize. Wow, what are the odds.
@@chyaboi11it should. Japan doesn’t have strong laws protecting “whistleblowers”. In fact, a company can take legal action against a person for exposing damaging information about them even when it’s true. 😂
@@allinformyjacket the Japanese use the Chinese word "society" to mean "company" in Japanese. Tells you everything about how they value the corporation over the individual.
A Japanese arbitrator. An arbitrator can make pretty much any ruling they want so long as they can justify it in law. A proper court appeal can overturn these decisions, but oftentimes its so expensive that by that point most people just leave it be.
$100,000 is the salary of one good developer for one year. That does not include hardware, software, art, frameworks, etc. etc. How could someone be so ignorant to think that any kind of game can be made with that kind of money? Maybe a card game, or a board game, but a top of the line video game? Yeah, it's blaming the victims, but it would take at least $10,000,000 to even have a decent chance. That's 100 times the kickstarter goal. ONE HUNDRED. It would take one hundred kickstarters to make the game they expected.
It has been 10 years so I can't say my recollection is perfect, but the way I saw it was that all the big names would not be getting a salary but would be getting money out of sales when it would be done, which was the only thing that made sense.
I was looking up more information about Hiroaki Yura and this dude is just a violinist. He's not even really in game development. I can see why this shit failed. It's amazing how many people followed his every word knowing he's just someone that plays a musical instrument. Maybe it's just because he's Japanese and most JRPG fanboys from the west will look at him and think he's some kind of hardened game lead like Hideo Kojima.
Seems through his career as a musician, besides getting in contact with the Japanese high society and politicians (which his parents probably where already part of, shelling out 25k per year for his high school), he was also involved in several game projects over the years. Some really noteworthy ones actually but in these as well his roll was only that of a musician. The orchestra he founded was involved in the production of several game and anime soundtracks it seems - looking at his wiki and mobygames. One can only speculate why he did not just stick to his guns and instead decided to screw over random people with the Phoenix project. Looking at Tiny Metal it probably wouldn't have been a big deal for him anyway to get funding via his connections instead of using a platform like Kickstarter. I better don't write what I think about him…
We just have to pray RAID don't somehow use their dirty money to end emulation 😂 I'm out of modern gaming now everything is live service it doesn't exist to me
100k is more like a week or two for a small'ish studio now. Consdering they need all the hardware and software from day 1. Plus a team that actually works on more than just their main tasks, such as brainstorming, is really expensive.
Must have been 10 years ago now but I remember Dan Geisler (Road Rash) wanting to put out a successor to it at one point but couldn't get funding and said that Kickstarter wasn't viable, guess he had a point... He is now working at Warner Brothers as a Game AI Software Engineer.
Geisler said he'd need $2.5mil, I think right after DarkSeas Games launched their own $160,000 Kickstarter for their own Road Rash-inspired Road Redemption. While DarkSeas's Road Redemption did see several years of delays, it was eventually released in 2017 on PC and 2018 on consoles. Meanwhile, Geisler announced "Hard Rider: Back in the Saddle", which honestly may never have progressed beyond the announcement, as there doesn't seem to be anything online about it other than a couple of reports of its announcement.
A strong reminder that you can defraud regular people and simply... get away with it. As long as you don't defraud institutional investors, nobody cares.
I just know I'm going to be watching one of these videos about The Bazaar one day. Crowdfunded in 2018 and slated for release in 2021, then delayed and delayed until the current release date of 2024. Over time it completely changed genre from PvP deckbuilder to autobattler and (who would've guessed it) in 2021 they decided to add in crypto.
I think that at the time consumers were starting to get aware of the business side of games. If a game said it had a $10 million budget it meant at least half of it went into marketing. Extrapolating those numbers it didn't necessarily raise big flags when Kickstarter projects low balled the budget. No money towards marketing, retail releases and other corporate interference, so consumers wrongfully took it to the other extreme and believed you could make the next AAA game on a shoestring budget as long as there was passion. Personally I would've liked a breakdown of the budget. For instance a project's goal/ambition looks like a minimum of $500 000, purely dev side, but they're asking for $150 000. How? Government grants? Employing sweatshops in Buthan where children write the code for the game with the payment of one apple for 8 hours labor?
@CaraCreations1000 im not sure but maybe larian studio became what it is today (and was able to create bg3) because Divinity: Original Sin II was partially funded with kickstarter. No kickstarter, no Original Sin 2, no popularity for larian, no BG3
@@happytimes10191specifically, Larian Studios wanted to develop Baldur’s Gate 3, Wizards of the Coast told ‘em nah, so Larian Kickstarted and developed Divinity Original Sin 2 in order to prove that the BG3 would be in capable hands. DoS2 goes gangbusters, WotC gives LS BG3, rest is history.
This is the first time I heard about this. So I googled the guy, and to my surprise most of his related stuff, his youtube videos, twitters, etc. remains highly positive. Like nothing wrong happened.
Yeah I did got caught in this one, this was so sad to see unravel but it did teach me about pledging on sketchy projects without existing product or demo and about the cost of game development.
wow never knew tiny metal had a history like this. i wishlisted the game but never bought it. i never played advance wars but the concept of the game wasn't lost on me and tiny metal looked fun at least the guy knows now how difficult it is to make a game and how much resource you need to complete one. it is a big undertaking and requires time and money, and what indie devs who take to kickstarter doesn't know is that being on kickstarter doesn't mean you won't have a boss that dictates your creativity. It just means your boss is now your backers, and they are a lot more demanding and less understanding than corpo suits who actually understand where and how their money will be invested in.
You know a game and creator I'd like to see on kick starter to court is yandere simulator and it's creator yandere dev. There are some pretty juicy stuff to talk about. From taking 9 years to develop the game. To yandere dev's shady past. The mistreatment of volunteers. And using and wasting people money for the game for his own uses. While many people have already talked about it and the drama continues go on as I speak. I think it would be fitting for this series.
I would love to see a video like this made about Cryamore. Because hoo boi is that a story, and I still haven't been refunded the $100 I backed despite being told I would years back... Either way, it's a shame stuff like this has become a barrier for folks trying to crowdfund, but we still do get success stories from crowdfunded games like the recently launched Sea of Stars (which is very good!).
I remember Yusuke Kozaki the man himself was trying to get us to give money to Under the Dog at his panel at Otakon I think it was 2014? The artist for Fire Emblem Awakening-what better person to endorse? I was too young at the time to have any money but I would’ve donated at the time.
My favourite part of this debacle is them calling the only update in years - the one where they say “right, THIS time we are starting and will get it done!” - Gearing Up To Finish Project Phoenix ^^’ since then years without an update, though they logged into the Kickstarter account once a few months ago
@@TheLittlekuribohfan hah good one but if you think about it, Kira has a portfolio of good vids, he's not a stranger on kickstarter with grand promises :D
Ahhhh yes! The kickstarter that turned into Tiny Metal, and then Tiny Metal 2. Which i still enjoy to this day....Sucks about Project Phoenix, though 😂😂😂 A friend of mine is still pissed about this to this day because he backed it and was mad about the Tiny Metal Reveal.
Can't tell you how many times I start one of your vids intending to second screen it while I play a game on my other monitor, but then I just end up fully invested in the video. Thanks for another banger Kira! Never heard of this one either, crazy how much interesting stuff happened on Kickstarter.
Maybe he can clarify, but I would imagine any sponsor would be asking for video analytics and it's not a good look if your entire audience skipped the section they paid for, hence me trying to help him out. @@underleft
Oh wow what a coincident, I just happened to do a quick check on what happened to the project like a few weeks ago! I was actually interested in the project when it popped up on Kickstarter but was skeptical due to its project goal amount, and the video does a great job to explain why. Thank goodness I didn't back it cause that demo they showed was just terrible looking, and then later on reading about their development issues just made it clear I dodged a bullet.
Might be an unpopular option, but I'm glad to see the sponsorship considering your luck with youtube monetization lately. You do great work. I hope you take more sponsorships in the future
Whether unpopular or not, I appreciate it. I haven't accepted sponsors for over a year, left literally 100s of thousands of dollars on the table. Not going to do that anymore when my videos keep getting demonetized/age gated. Just not feasible. If people are upset about that, they can just not watch!
@@KiraTV1yeah man please do start taking sponsorships. As long as you’re not promoting a straight up scam I don’t feel like people have a right to be upset with you for trying to make some money with your talents. I know that doesn’t stop them. But there are some reasonable people out there that are happy to see you take some sponsorships.
Thanks. Yeah, people will be upset about whatever they're going to be upset about. Realistically, I can't let that stop me doing what needs to be done. They don't contribute much to my life anyway, so their discontent shouldn't be important.
I'm impressed at your honesty with RSL. I normally get a little miffed when someone takes that kind of money, but you owned it and I'm okay with that. Just don't go picking up Established Titles or one of those "save the children" deals and we're good :)
Incredible video mate. The game After Reset has a similar situation. So much money was raised with enough art and a fake demo released, just for the dev to take the money and convert it into assets sold on the unity store.
Disregarding the fact that $100k isn't enough to even fund half a game, you can kinda tell in the video the so-called dev is just reciting buzzwords. Idk how people didn't notice that at all.
I supported many projects on Kickstarter in the past and the ones that failed to deliver anything were mostly video games. I did get my Divinity: Original Sin 2 though.
I backed the game back then but made my peace with it when i noticed the engine swap. Because i basically treat money i give to projects as "gone" i have no hard feelings personally, i knew this could happen and i knew it was a higher probability in this case when i backed it but it is nice to get a bigger picture. Thank you for this video Kira. Personally i believe he truly wanted to make this game a reality but was far too naive and inexperienced and when it all came crushing down and was backed into a corner failed to make the right decisions. That does not excuse anything of course. By the way i am pretty sure they raised even more money through their website. Not sure how much more tho i remember 1.3 million but could be entirely wrong.
Again; man- great video. Well produced, well spoken and narrated. Well paced, researched. Blah blah, I just got off a 9 hr work shift and wanted to just sit down and make some veggies and ramen and you helped me calm down greatly and enjoy relaxing learning about a crazy story of crazy video game/ kickstarter bs . So I thank you and, Kira dude keep up the good work!!!
The first minute is literally what pisses me off. Degenerates just took peoples money. Now you have big names like moist and asmon saying 'Don't put your money towards a game that's not out yet' which obviously sucks for games you wish to be made, but it's smart for the individual. Just annoying that no one ever deliveres.
This isn't 2019 anymore, everyone knows what Raid is and nobody should be getting mad over it anymore. Raid sponsorships are just harmless funny memes these days. Glad you're getting paid for that! Videos like this are always fun to watch.
Honestly, I somehow felt that Kickstarter was gonna be "Abused" by greedy people when Kickstarter idea came out. I think it gave me a bad impression when Mighty No.9 game was made. Also I always find it weird that in the highest reward where you paid the highest amount and get to pay them a visit. They always mention they will not pay for your travel fee. I mean if you paid 1000bucks to them, they could at least pay for taxi or a cheap hotel stay.
I do believe most kickstarters are created for good reasons. We've all had that amazing game idea that nobody else has done and if we just had the money to do it we would make it. But ... reality kicks in, deadlines, online pressure, hate, backlash, impatience, realization of costs, time, working with a team and everything else happens and before you know it you've run out of money and have nothing to show for it.
Everytime I see these Kickstarter videos I always compare them with CoE and all of Caspian's shenanigans but basically no matter how fraudulent these projects, they seems to deliver more than Caspian could.
Your channel makes it more and more clear to me that I got super lucky when I helped fund Albion Online, that a game actually came out of it that's been going strong for like 8 years now. Though 100k to pay at least 6 wages for 2 years.. Surely people in 2013 could do basic arithmatic, there is some personal responsibility there. Not saying it's okay they got scammed, but at the point you can barely see the pitch through a sea of red flags, it is also partly the consumers fault.
Kickstarter where people have their money taken for pipe dreams. Look, i know there some legit devs on there but if someone is saying they make a game bigger then world of warcraft for 50k they are a scammer. AAA MMO cost millions to make. 50k or even a 100k is likely not covering monthly costs of development of AAA game. Make sure no one is selling you a pipe dream beyond what our current technology can create.
@@HinataElyonToph i think that happens alot too. The Dev is not scamming because they intend to give the product they promise but they bite off more then they can chew. The devs find themselves in situation well over their heads and cannot fulfill the promises they made. By then it's too late, the money has been given and they spent it.
I knew from day 1 of learning about Kickstarter that shit like this would happen. Out of the few projects I put some money in, I did so knowing well enough the project may never see the light of day. Doesn't mean people like the folks the video mentions aren't shitbags. They most definitely are. That said, I do enjoy the irony of Kira sponsoring a game that does very questionable things for the almighty dollar.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
📲 Install Raid for Free Mobile and PC: pl.go-ga.me/jpyqmekc and get a special starter pack with an Epic champion Knight Errant 🔥 Use the Promo Code JTSKIN before October 7th to get both the Epic Champion Stag Knight and Gilded Glider Custom Skin!
hahahahahahahahaaha ;O)
THEY GOT HIM
Quality nice hahaha xD
How much!😂🎉
these Kira Kronicles are always top notch
Man, if nothing else, I feel like Kickstarter has helped a lot of people learn how much it costs to make games.
the real kickstarter was the epiphany we had along the way
rofl @@cs8712
Which is barely anything, some of the greatest games are made by a passionate few in their bedrooms, while 90% of multi hundred million dollar games end up with feature bloat and the majority of the money pocketed by greedy suits and the disgustingly expensive marketing
@@cal5365it's called greed, and those who start out to do good will eventually fall into it
kickstarter has mostly learned us not to back any devs unless you are 100% certain about the team!
I like how it went from "Savior of the JRPG" to "simple fun little game"
It was totally a just give me your money fraud.
Run on weekend yet with 1 million funds
It COULD'VE worked. I mean look at the budget for Godzilla Minus One and compare it to the latest american Godzilla movies. The budget could've worked! 😉😉
@@koppsr There was only one 'American' Godzilla movie, that '98 piece of crap. All the most recent films are Toho.
@@dawnbreaker2912Toho barely have anything to do with the monsterverse. Which is why both Shin and Minus one were released when they were. They release before or after Monsterverse movies leave the cinema. As much as I love Shin, Minus One and Toho I feel like they wouldn't have soared as high if it wasn't for the newer movies bringing in a lot of new eyes on Big G and I'm not even a big fan of the "monsterverse" stuff.
One thing that caught my interest here is the "court ordered apology". I may have misunderstood it, but this is ordered by Japanese court. If this is in fact true, then that brings a lot of red flags.
As those who've followed the whole Selen Tatsuki/Nijisanji situation might know, Japanese law has a different legal definition of defamation. In the USA, defamation is more akin to slander: saying things about others that you know are untrue in order to harm their reputation.
BUT in Japanese law, it doesn't even matter if that statement is factually correct or not. You can be sexually abused by your manager, publically call out that manager for sexually abusing you, get sued by said manager for defamation and LOSE that court case because your factually correct statement damaged the reputation of that manager.
But because a lot of people backing this project likely were not familiar with Japanese law around defamation, they interpreted it as being judged by USA standards of defamation. Thus the court ordering an apology for exposing the stuff going on behind the scenes would be interpreted by the public as a confirmation that it wasn't a factually correct exposé, when in reality it was merely a confirmation that it damaged the company.
This is why you see vtubers almost always being so incredibly vague when talking about their experiences under a specific company, especially if said vtuber resides in Japan. And this is why in vtubing culture, it used to be the standard that your past identity would be treated as an entirely different person by everyone and it was taboo to talk about an identity being someone's past life. Because laws like this resulted in such strict contracts that you were in no way at all allowed to disclose ANYWHERE that you worked as a vtuber for any particular agency or disclose that you were a particular vtuber before or during your time at that agency.
USA defamation law is focused on facts. Japanese defamation law is focused on reputation. I thought this was an important and interesting distinction to point out, because we've started seeing more blatant examples of Japanese companies with EN branches use Japanese law in ways that serve sort of like propaganda in the EN communities. So it's definitely important to be aware of these differences when analyzing scandals relating to companies in Japan
This is Tariq. I'll just go out and say it: you hit the nail right on the head. It's inspired me to speak up, so I'll leave a comment just a moment.
As someone who has run Kickstarter that was only trying to raise money for a marketing budget, it kills me how many people pitched ridiculous dream projects and then just straight up not deliver.
How much money typically goes into marketing for advertising an indie game?
I ask because one day I also want to create games, but also being incredibly wary and cautious upon approaching to create them since I keep hearing about disaster stories like this pop up about game development gone wrong. I understand that if you want to start out as a developer, you have to keep your scope as well as budget low in order not to become overly ambitious with the project and end up wasting money while also plan ahead to make sure you have the main components of game development before over promising on goals.
@@doclouis4236 Marketing budget depends completely on the way you want to promote the game.
- A lot of Indie devs play it smart & slow by promoting for Free on Social Media: like TikTok shorts + Reddit + Twitter + Steam Whishlist + General word of Mouth in the Indie space. ("The First Tree" as an example).
- If you want to go Big, you can spend like +100k and get promoted in a big Event like SummerGameFest or E3 somewhere in the showcase. (the price will increase by how long the trailer is, but its not cheap)
- There's obviously a more inbetween approach like Hiring an Animation studio to make you a Sick Trailer you can release by yourself / OR sneak in into one of the more Niche Console showcases for a total of ~20-50k. (like Deadcells does by sneaking in on Xbox + Playstation showcases).
At the end of the day, Marketing budget is the most flexible part of a project, but also what could make or break your game selling and even getting known.
The problem is that since it isn't a contract and people give their money in good faith, this isn't even illegal.
@@doclouis4236Depends on how niche your game is and the game's scope. A small game with a really niche community might need a budget of $0 - 15,000. Small-to-Medium Sized businesses can spend tens of thousands to several hundred thousands of dollars on marketing if there's a big enough community. AAA will spend millions in marketing.
I dont see whats wrong with it? I mean let the sheep provide if they are so easily convinced to spend so much money on nothing but an idea even if its vision is entirely unclear and its entirely unknown how to do it on the technical side, its their own fault.
Man actually made away with the money. Today's sponsorship really fits the topic, well done 👏
$5000 probably for the ad read
@@BoBandits I'm pretty positive it's a lot more than 5k
At least double
5k for a steady 200k+ viewership in the first week? Sounds like peanuts for a creator like him that was not enthusiatistic about taking it. They probably got him with like 20-50k after the negotiations.
@@mattjohnson8585where are they getting the money? the average person hates that game and hearing about it. Who’s actually playing that garbage?
Man seeing Divinity/Divinity 2 on kickstarter. Good to see some breakouts came from the wild kickstarter west.
Spark The Electric Jester and Advent Neon too
Wastelands 2 and 3 for me.
I've backed many KS games that were successful, including Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity. Not all of them was or are scams. It's sad to see KS getting such bad reputation because of scammers. Same with other types of KS projects. I've backed hundreds of projects throughout the years and only three amounted to nothing. I believe only one of them was a scam; the other two simply ran out of money (I suspect that, at least). All one has to do is to have an discerning eye and assess which projects are likely to be successful. I think it has helped that I've been investing and trading on the stock market for over 25 years. It takes a similar approach to neither trust every opportunity that one sees nor be cynical and never take a chance on anything.
Hell yeah. And now they have just released BG3 and it is a masterpiece.
Also Kingdom Come: Deliverance
As someone who has been living in Japan for quite a while, this entitlement is more common than most people think, especially among this type of "business person".
I've worked for a few of them. It's always *surprised Pikachu face* when you list the reasons of why they can expect nothing. It gives serious 'but mummy always said I was special' energy.
People seen to forget that japan is just another country and not some sort of dreamland, the exact same bullshit that happens over here in the west happens over there as well
At least in Japan, when someone is caught in a scandal, they have to humiliate themselves in public and disappear for awhile. Here, they're just on to the next scam ASAP.
@@RM_VFX On the flip side, some of these scandals are as tame as "single Japanese idol got caught out and about with a MAN". Oh the horror!
@@kron7536 lol being lectured about fake dreamland from people of America, the og dreamland
@@r01d2 i ain't american and i'm not going to defend america or my own nation when it comes to it's faults, i literally point out that bullshit happen on the west on my original comment
To quote a programmer friend of mine:
"Game engines are a bit like languages. You, as a programmer, know one, maybe two quite alright. However, game engines should be treated like the foreign languages they are; what is on one engine does not work on the other."
Must be a nightmare to work with Proprietary engines no?
@@govinpillaiAn example is the Lumberyard engine used for Amazon's New World.
@@govinpillai It doesn't really matter if it is proprietary. It can matter if it has open source though, because knowing how it works internally is often crucial to use it properly.
@@govinpillai I've always wondered what on earth it takes to create the various engines themselves?!
@@k1dn1ce76Game engines are a huge spectrum of complexity.
Some game engines are simple 2d engines that do some light work for you; some like unreal have incredibly complex render technology, asset management, and structure
Most game engines (source, unreal specifically) started as a simple System for a first person shooter and then constantly added features for 25 years
Goldsource(the first source engine half life 1) was the quake engine with the following added features:
Character scripting, facial animation, movable objects
These are just the ones I remember
It's pretty insane that this has so many similarities to the eventual disaster that was Mighty No. 9's fiasco of a development. At least MN9 was actually finished.
Mighty No 9 is finished and I actually had fun playing it, it doesn't deserve the hate that it got! This one tho.....
@@miruz3519 I think a lot of the hate was informed by the absolutely detestable behavior of the people running the show, not so much the mediocre game itself.
Well, that, and it didn't actually deliver the stuff it promised.
funny thing is, mighty only took slightly over 3 years of development instead of 10+ years of bullshit and empty promises, less drama and less bullshit from the founder throughout the development, less the funding amount of project phoenix with actual added DLCs, and finally, it's actually a playable, fully voiced in japanese and english, true to the initial concept of the megaman-esque game instead of something that doesn't even exist like project phoenix, with the CEO Hiroaki Yuura being an actual asshole who allegedly sexually abused his employees and used the funding to make other things that don't even have anything to do with the game while using those unrelated stuff as justification for not delivering the game or even refunding
to add salt to the wound, to this day, that Hiroaki Yuura still runs free and he is still involved in big projects while inafune seemed to be buried as a relic of the past
@oniplus4545 Maybe Inafune isn't the big name producer he was (idk if he even wants to be) but he's still respected as a game designer.
His latest project is under Level 5, the upcoming Fantasy Life i
I was one of the backer of Under The Dog. This was the guy who almost single handedly destroyed the anime project. After months of silence, the studio made the right choice to part ways and gain full control of UTD.
wow
Damn, reading this comment then going to see the reviews of UTD on MAL, they really got the brunt of what rightly should've been towards Hiroaki Yura... Most people didn't even take it seriously because of how it was hyped by him on the Kickstarter...
wait, did UTD end up getting made? sorry if it gets mentioned later, i cant finish the video tonight yet
@@_holy__ghost yep, its a 30 min OVA.
Another backer of Under the Dog here, I was unaware of the whole Project Phoenix stuff and the drama with Hiroaki Yura at the time. I remember backing so much stuff in the early, heady days of Kickstarter and I was deep into anime stuff at the time. I backed UTD and I do remember thinking "Wow, an OVA costs $800,000?". [Edit: obviously I'm not involved in animation so it might be that's its not a lot of money].
There was a lot of drama around UTD at the time, and that whole saga about the creators played out in updates and comments on Kickstarter. It took ages for the OVA to come out and when it did come out, it was just...okay. The plot was really bad, generic anime kinda stuff of evil monsters, government agencies, etc, and the short length meant it was totally unsatisfying and unexplained. The animation didn't look nearly as good as the teaser and by the time it came out, I'd completely forgotten about it.
Under the Dog and a second animation project I'd backed called Urbance (which similarly went absolutely pear shaped) made me swear off Kickstarter animation stuff forever. I just back tabletop games now and an occasional video game.
[Edit: I've added some more words and context to my comment, which I should have done originally].
6:00 is spot on. I burn through 130k/month just for the team working on an (corporate) application which has been running for 4 years and with another year left.
Wait, Divinity was a Kickstarter project?
Jesus Christ. Kickstarter basically lead to BG3. All praise the crowdfunding process!
Yeah
Divinity crawled so that BG3 could soar.
Yeah, make no mistake that there are plenty of kickstarter flops but there are also plenty of wins in there as well. Particularly for CRPGs since pillars of eternity and pathfinder were also KS projects.
Kickstarter gave us Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
@@or10nsharkfinso KCD was crowdfunded? I thought they had a publisher
I love the transparent explanation of the sponsorship lmao, great content as always Kira, keep it up!
I was so blown away by the fact they allowed him to say it that I didn't skip the ad. Still not going to download, but it was funny
The only one better at these is pint who makes a whole.production out of them lol
@@thebacklashwaveV Internet Historian's ads are pretty good too. They all got full narratives and lore.
Raid is the only sponsorship my streamer friend has ever taken, and it’s because they literally allow you to say whatever you want on top of paying really well. He tells his audience NOT to download it if they are bad with money or have a propensity to gambling, because they will get addicted. Raid doesn’t care lol
@@DeviIInADress Raid was developed by an Israeli studio built from scratch by Aristocrat Gaming. The biggest gambling corporation in Australia.
Fun fact: Australia contains about 20% of all the slot machines in the world, and has the biggest global gambling problem as well. They know what they're doing and what their average user will end up doing. No sweat, money's not a problem, any eyeballs on the game is good.
I called out Tiny Metal on their Twitter years ago for this and they were very adamant that they had zero to do with Project Phoenix. I knew that was bs then as much as I know it now. Thank you for this retrospective.
Ohhh it's the tiny metal company 😂 I remember this story. That game actually got advertised loads as well 😡
What a coincidence. I was just watching your backlog of Kickstarter To Court videos and wished there was a new one out! Might just be my lucky day 😀
Good job on the luck
Skip this one. The thumbnail is just blatant click bait and lying. The guy who made the project and scammed multiple times never saw ANY jail time or court, at all. At best all he did was thresten to sue a whistleblowing exposing the truth and made him legally retract his statements, typical defamation bullshit. Kira just lied and I watched the whole video. I'm at work and bored so just needed something.
@@gasaiyuno6021still a good video
What court? Lol stupid
Most games I backed on Kickstarted were delivered (even if the end result was not what was promised) but I'm still upset about this one. I'm glad I 'only' lost $20 on it.
I checked the Kickstarter page and the last update was in 2019 and nothing at all in the comments beyond angry backers.
(and YES, I KNOW how Kickstarter works, nothing promised, blah blah blah. But as Kira points out in this video, this project at launch had a STRONG chance to come out, just like Richard Garriot's Kickstarted game as well, another I lost money on. That's why I never back something for more then $20 as that's the most I'm willing to lose. I'm just upset cause this could have been a GREAT game.)
Yeah, idk if I’m savvy or just lucky but I’ve never backed a game that wasn’t delivered. They weren’t all amazing, but they were still honest attempts at full games.
the irony of making a video about misleading games and having raid as the sponsors
TRUE
Should have been hero wars 🤣
Nothing really just a shtty autoplay money pit that wants to pretend is something else xD @DementiaDon
Raid isn't misleading at all, ESPECIALLY for a mobile game.
Ok how much did they pay you@@justinbieber8270
As someone who have backed numerous projects on Kickstarter and having never been scammed like this I feel sad that a few bad apples destroy the credability for crowd-funding.
Scammer
@@mushyroom9569who’s the scammer?
Crowdfunding should be illegal.
@@mushyroom9569what?
I've been satisfied with every kickstarter I've ever backed, its unfortunate that bad apples ruin crowdfunding for people who are genuinely trying to make good and unique indie projects
I love that You made "from kickstarter to court" become a series 😁
Kinda related to that end segment with the court ordered stuff - In some cases in Japan, people can be ordered to either apologize or pay for things even if the content they posted was completely true, as long as its main intention was to damage the company/an individual or its financials. It's likely with half decent lawyers that dude could have made a case towards it just being a malicious attack on the company, and that's why they were ordered to apologize under court order.
Shouldn't government fight scammers instead of supporting them?
@@sdjhgfkshfswdfhskljh3360 Good one.
@@sdjhgfkshfswdfhskljh3360Japanese courts and government are much bigger turds than what they are perceived to be.
@@sdjhgfkshfswdfhskljh3360 It's a whole culture of saving face, or in other words, sweep problems under the rug as fast as possible and hope everyone forgets it immediately.
It's pretty shit.
This is what I wanted to point out. It's one of many significant differences in the legal system between Japan and western countries like the US.
In the US, a defamation suit requires falsehood. Slander and libel are only considered so if the information being spread to ruin someone's reputation is false, and truth is an absolute defense against it. In fact, as part of a defamation case, a plaintiff must prove that the statement made is false. And many states require proof of malice, which generally means in this case proving that the defendant knew it was false(or blatantly and recklessly disregarded the possibility), and intentionally spread the information specifically to harm the plaintiff.
In Japan, the damage to reputation is considered more important than the truth. Even if what you're saying is true, if you're spreading information with the intent to harm someone's reputation, that's a civil violation.
Kira, you've helped us as gamers be more aware, as well as more skeptical of proposed games with absurd promises. You've helped form the mindset that if I were to back a project, gaming or otherwise, I'd have to approach it like a loan officer or banker. You've taught myself and others a nugget of financial wisdom. Thanks, and keep on keepin' on.
While there are some horror stories from this stuff there was at least one genre resurrected with the help of Kickstarter and you could argue two. Hollow Knight might have never been made without it which caused a renaissance in the almost dead 2D metroidvanias before that. Kickstarter also brought games that play similarly to Baldur's Gate 3 back into the spotlight with games like Shadowrun Returns and Pillars of Eternity both which might not have been made without the platform.
I think approaching it like a loan officer or a banker is a responsible attitude. Or maybe a better word would be an "investor". Since like any other form of investment, there's no guarantee of success. There will be projects where the creators were a bit too ambitious for the amount of funds they expected/got, there will be projects that are finished, but never turned out quite the way their creators set out from the beginning, and there will occasionally be outright scams (though we should be careful not to accuse projects in the first two catagories of this. Failed dreams are not scams). However, among all this, you do sometimes have the right people and the right project all align to allow great things to happen.
The point is that, just like conventional investment, there's no guarantee of success for anything, just unfinished potential. So for anyone who might get butthurt if a project they backed folds, leaving them with nothing, well, perhaps investing in a Kickstarter is not for you? For everyone else, do your homework in evaluating what to back, and maybe, maybe, you'll walk away with a little more than you put in.
It's called common sense
I honestly have no idea how people actually believe these guys
That sponsorship intro was fucking gold, great stuff as always man!
I was one of the backers for Under the Dog. Was recommended it by a friend who thought that it sounded interesting. I wasn't aware of it being a secondary project by someone who was developing a game at that time.
I really hope you never change your outro's background soundtrack, it's so characteristic of your videos and gives me chills each time. Great vid as always!
I love the sponsorship ad! You know he had fun with this! 😅But I'm sorry Kira, I am never downloading that game
Agreed, No shade at Kira for doing what has to be done. Man has to pay the bills. But yeah RAID is shit will never download that trash.
Gotta hand it to raid, a lot of their sponsorship slots are done very sarcastically/tongue in cheek, but they don't seem to mind as long as they get a few looks their way.
I mean, if he wanted you to play it he wouldn't have made it so clear he's only doing it for the bag
Yeah, I respect him for taking the money, but I’m still not into those mobile games lol
Nah man that's crossing the line to me. Raid can only pay this much because they are omnipresent with their adds and prey on the vulunable (addicts, gamblers, inexperienced users, kids) with their entire psychological warfare setup. Never seen a game this bad before, it's more like a casino with permanent personalized popups based on user behavior. And then there is also kind of a game hidden somewhere in there. Accepting Raid money is on the same level as allowing someone to pay your bills of who you know he scams elderly people for a living. Fuck that shit!
To be fair, most Kickstarters are not funded by Kickstarter alone and the campaign could mostly exist as marketing and a pre-order service. Like, Pillars of Eternity pulled in some $4 million. But the actual cost of making the game was rumored to be about $15 million. So $11 million of the funding came from elsewhere. That does not mean that the Kickstarter was useless as it proved that there were a market for the game and created a lot of hype and free marketing for it.
Take as many sponsorships as you need if it lets you keep making this cool content my man
I dont really like Raid. But its just a game. In the worst case scenario its harmless. Compared to a lot of other sponsors like Masterworks which is pretty much real life NFT's.
This kind of advertising is entirely unrelated to the kind of advertising platforms like facebook run. So what happens with mainstream advertising doesn't impact integrations really at all. If anything if other ad service gets worse, it should actually improve the "influencer" ad space as we provide far greater value and far more customization/targeting/engagement per view than traditional advertising does. I doubt it'll dry up at all.
Raid is an actual game though, not a scam, so i don't see a problem with taking money from them for a promotion.
Which mobile game is a ponzi scheme? Because that is a very specific and technical term that implies a specific type of fraudulent operation involving return of profit. I'm unsure of any mobile games that work like an investment with a promised return on investment if you can let me know I'd love to investigate that.
Man I bought Tiny Metal because I'm a fan of the genre and it looked really good, I never knew it had such turbulent origins. They even released a second Tiny Metal as well. Crazy
Quality brings success in the end huh
Tbf not many ppl knew unless they heard about project phoenix. I was one of them. I think I was at the Last ever PlayStation Experience convention and they had someone going up and down the line for ppl trying to get in saying: "If you like games like Advance Wars check out Tiny Metal"
Wow hearing about Project Phoenix reminded me I pledged $20 for this and at the time I was hyped about it. After a few years of waiting I figured it will never come and there was no hope for a refund and I cut my losses. It was one of the reasons I stop pledging any project for some time.
@@LilithsCosmicLounge Not all games are expensive to make, it all depends on project scope and the core team and what the core team is willing to live on.
same. one of my 2 failed pledges: mighty 9 and project Phoenix
I pledged as well, and after reading a few of their updates I realized quickly that no game was ever coming out from them. Oh, well.
@@khalid666 Mighty No.9 didn't fail.
It's very true people expected more, especially visually, but as a whole the game was ... okay.
It was a dissapointment, but not a failure. People give Mighty No.9 more shit than it deserves, even if it deserves very little praise as well.
@@LilithsCosmicLounge up and down brother its not been bad the entire time
it's not an exaggeration to say that kickstarter back then is a literal sacrificial ground for unsuspecting backers for future backers to learn about budgeting in game development and to learn about not trusting some campaigns before doing research about the developers, gotta at least thank these poor unfortunate souls
One of my favorite channels. You're going places, mate. This was a certified banger.
❤️
I'm a former game designer, developer, and studio owner. I've worked for large companies like EA and WB, as well as running my own studio making sports games for XBox and PlayStation consoles. $100,000 USD doesn't even get you a vertical slice, hell it would barely get you storyboards or concept art sketches. Also, 16:00 I've worked a lot in Unity, and never, not once, have I ever heard someone say "I'm switching to Unreal to reduce development time". Unity, for all its faults (and it has many), is by far the easier of the two engines to work with and going with Unity allowed me to ship games within a year that would have taken 2-3 if using Unreal. Switching to Unreal (mid development) would do exactly the opposite of helping you meet deadlines.
A japanese court ruling in favor of a Japanese producer against a non Japanese employee, forcing the non Japanese employee to apologize. Wow, what are the odds.
Obviously, it was completely right, but it sounds a little racist when you say it like that lol
@@chyaboi11it should. Japan doesn’t have strong laws protecting “whistleblowers”. In fact, a company can take legal action against a person for exposing damaging information about them even when it’s true. 😂
To be fair, a decent nation SHOULD protect the nationality of the nation and give them preferential treatment. But Japan takes it a little far 😂
@@allinformyjacket the Japanese use the Chinese word "society" to mean "company" in Japanese. Tells you everything about how they value the corporation over the individual.
A Japanese arbitrator. An arbitrator can make pretty much any ruling they want so long as they can justify it in law. A proper court appeal can overturn these decisions, but oftentimes its so expensive that by that point most people just leave it be.
$100,000 is the salary of one good developer for one year. That does not include hardware, software, art, frameworks, etc. etc. How could someone be so ignorant to think that any kind of game can be made with that kind of money? Maybe a card game, or a board game, but a top of the line video game? Yeah, it's blaming the victims, but it would take at least $10,000,000 to even have a decent chance. That's 100 times the kickstarter goal. ONE HUNDRED. It would take one hundred kickstarters to make the game they expected.
It has been 10 years so I can't say my recollection is perfect, but the way I saw it was that all the big names would not be getting a salary but would be getting money out of sales when it would be done, which was the only thing that made sense.
I was looking up more information about Hiroaki Yura and this dude is just a violinist. He's not even really in game development. I can see why this shit failed. It's amazing how many people followed his every word knowing he's just someone that plays a musical instrument. Maybe it's just because he's Japanese and most JRPG fanboys from the west will look at him and think he's some kind of hardened game lead like Hideo Kojima.
Seems through his career as a musician, besides getting in contact with the Japanese high society and politicians (which his parents probably where already part of, shelling out 25k per year for his high school), he was also involved in several game projects over the years. Some really noteworthy ones actually but in these as well his roll was only that of a musician. The orchestra he founded was involved in the production of several game and anime soundtracks it seems - looking at his wiki and mobygames. One can only speculate why he did not just stick to his guns and instead decided to screw over random people with the Phoenix project. Looking at Tiny Metal it probably wouldn't have been a big deal for him anyway to get funding via his connections instead of using a platform like Kickstarter. I better don't write what I think about him…
Eventually, the only games left in the world are going to be FIFA and Raid: Shadow Legends, that's it.
We just have to pray RAID don't somehow use their dirty money to end emulation 😂 I'm out of modern gaming now everything is live service it doesn't exist to me
100k is more like a week or two for a small'ish studio now. Consdering they need all the hardware and software from day 1. Plus a team that actually works on more than just their main tasks, such as brainstorming, is really expensive.
I love that Raid is totally fine with creators poking fun at how much they pay and how aggressive their advertising is😂
How the heck did you not end this with" Maybe one day the phoenix will rise from its ashes?"
i imagine because he was conscious about not making people throw up?
"Phoenix rises from the ashes but extinguished by water" you say?
"It's just a demo" is my favorite game-backer copium.
Kickstarter: "You donated money for us to send JPEGs. We delivered what you wanted on JPEGs, a form of media. Thank you all for your donations. 👋"
Finally a new Kickstarter to court!!!
Been waiting for a new one
Lesssgo
I love how it's never enough. Scammers never just take their bag and disappear into the night. It's pathological.
Glad to see this series back again!
Must have been 10 years ago now but I remember Dan Geisler (Road Rash) wanting to put out a successor to it at one point but couldn't get funding and said that Kickstarter wasn't viable, guess he had a point... He is now working at Warner Brothers as a Game AI Software Engineer.
Man, road rash. On windows 98😂
Geisler said he'd need $2.5mil, I think right after DarkSeas Games launched their own $160,000 Kickstarter for their own Road Rash-inspired Road Redemption. While DarkSeas's Road Redemption did see several years of delays, it was eventually released in 2017 on PC and 2018 on consoles. Meanwhile, Geisler announced "Hard Rider: Back in the Saddle", which honestly may never have progressed beyond the announcement, as there doesn't seem to be anything online about it other than a couple of reports of its announcement.
@@BainesMkII top comment right here!
A strong reminder that you can defraud regular people and simply... get away with it. As long as you don't defraud institutional investors, nobody cares.
I just know I'm going to be watching one of these videos about The Bazaar one day. Crowdfunded in 2018 and slated for release in 2021, then delayed and delayed until the current release date of 2024. Over time it completely changed genre from PvP deckbuilder to autobattler and (who would've guessed it) in 2021 they decided to add in crypto.
Imagine jumping on the crypto craze but not getting the game out until the crypto craze has ended 😂
I think that at the time consumers were starting to get aware of the business side of games. If a game said it had a $10 million budget it meant at least half of it went into marketing. Extrapolating those numbers it didn't necessarily raise big flags when Kickstarter projects low balled the budget. No money towards marketing, retail releases and other corporate interference, so consumers wrongfully took it to the other extreme and believed you could make the next AAA game on a shoestring budget as long as there was passion. Personally I would've liked a breakdown of the budget. For instance a project's goal/ambition looks like a minimum of $500 000, purely dev side, but they're asking for $150 000. How? Government grants? Employing sweatshops in Buthan where children write the code for the game with the payment of one apple for 8 hours labor?
Kickstarter to Court is such a good series! Never tire of them.
Can't be a TH-camr that covers ethics in gaming without ALSO taking money from gotcha games that predate on kids and those without impulse control.
No need to be apologetic on taking sponsorships. The more sponsorship you get, the more great material we receive. Its a win win for everyone🎉
Win win for everyone except the people who get nothing, sucks for them I guess
Kind of crazy to think about that we got Baldur's Gate 3 right now thanks to Kickstarter.
baldurs gate was a kickstarter project?
@@CaraCreations1000 I think he meant the developers - Larian Studios' success made it possible for the BG3 process.
@CaraCreations1000 im not sure but maybe larian studio became what it is today (and was able to create bg3) because Divinity: Original Sin II was partially funded with kickstarter. No kickstarter, no Original Sin 2, no popularity for larian, no BG3
@@happytimes10191specifically, Larian Studios wanted to develop Baldur’s Gate 3, Wizards of the Coast told ‘em nah, so Larian Kickstarted and developed Divinity Original Sin 2 in order to prove that the BG3 would be in capable hands. DoS2 goes gangbusters, WotC gives LS BG3, rest is history.
@@jeremytitus9519 yeah with DO2 and BG3 being some of the best RPGS and CRPGs quite literally ever lol
This is the first time I heard about this. So I googled the guy, and to my surprise most of his related stuff, his youtube videos, twitters, etc. remains highly positive. Like nothing wrong happened.
Yeah I did got caught in this one, this was so sad to see unravel but it did teach me about pledging on sketchy projects without existing product or demo and about the cost of game development.
Frankly, I'm happy this is Raid 's sponsorship rather than betterhelp. That's how low my standards are now.
Project Phoenix vs Yandere Simulator. Which game will be released first?
Whenever I hear the word "Kickstarter", ChronicLOL of Elyria always comes to my mind first.
wow never knew tiny metal had a history like this. i wishlisted the game but never bought it. i never played advance wars but the concept of the game wasn't lost on me and tiny metal looked fun
at least the guy knows now how difficult it is to make a game and how much resource you need to complete one. it is a big undertaking and requires time and money, and what indie devs who take to kickstarter doesn't know is that being on kickstarter doesn't mean you won't have a boss that dictates your creativity.
It just means your boss is now your backers, and they are a lot more demanding and less understanding than corpo suits who actually understand where and how their money will be invested in.
10:37 I had never seen this project before and the reveal made me chuckle 😂
You know a game and creator I'd like to see on kick starter to court is yandere simulator and it's creator yandere dev. There are some pretty juicy stuff to talk about. From taking 9 years to develop the game. To yandere dev's shady past. The mistreatment of volunteers. And using and wasting people money for the game for his own uses. While many people have already talked about it and the drama continues go on as I speak. I think it would be fitting for this series.
I would love to see a video like this made about Cryamore. Because hoo boi is that a story, and I still haven't been refunded the $100 I backed despite being told I would years back... Either way, it's a shame stuff like this has become a barrier for folks trying to crowdfund, but we still do get success stories from crowdfunded games like the recently launched Sea of Stars (which is very good!).
... Why would you pledge a hundred dollars for a game?
I’ll be honest, I really enjoy when Kira gets a raid shadow legends sponsor because he does little skits, which is refreshing for him!
I remember Yusuke Kozaki the man himself was trying to get us to give money to Under the Dog at his panel at Otakon I think it was 2014? The artist for Fire Emblem Awakening-what better person to endorse? I was too young at the time to have any money but I would’ve donated at the time.
10:36 What a revolutionary gameplay 🤣
My favourite part of this debacle is them calling the only update in years - the one where they say “right, THIS time we are starting and will get it done!” - Gearing Up To Finish Project Phoenix ^^’ since then years without an update, though they logged into the Kickstarter account once a few months ago
Blind upvote cuz I know this is gonna be fire
Yep, my man Kira an auto thumbs up every time
Almost always I upvote all videos I start watching. Gotta be a real fucked turnaround for me to change my mind about it after watching
That's literally the mentality on the Kickstarter scams. Not hating, just thought it was a funny coincidence.
@@TheLittlekuribohfan hah good one but if you think about it, Kira has a portfolio of good vids, he's not a stranger on kickstarter with grand promises :D
Sammmeeee 😂😂
Ahhhh yes! The kickstarter that turned into Tiny Metal, and then Tiny Metal 2. Which i still enjoy to this day....Sucks about Project Phoenix, though 😂😂😂
A friend of mine is still pissed about this to this day because he backed it and was mad about the Tiny Metal Reveal.
Can't tell you how many times I start one of your vids intending to second screen it while I play a game on my other monitor, but then I just end up fully invested in the video. Thanks for another banger Kira! Never heard of this one either, crazy how much interesting stuff happened on Kickstarter.
You're one of the few channels I'll willfully sit through a sponsor segment for because you deserve it.
Same. ❤
Maybe he can clarify, but I would imagine any sponsor would be asking for video analytics and it's not a good look if your entire audience skipped the section they paid for, hence me trying to help him out. @@underleft
LoL I like the shots fired at Star Citizen. Nice work!
raid could fund entire games with what they're paying youtubers
Oh wow what a coincident, I just happened to do a quick check on what happened to the project like a few weeks ago! I was actually interested in the project when it popped up on Kickstarter but was skeptical due to its project goal amount, and the video does a great job to explain why. Thank goodness I didn't back it cause that demo they showed was just terrible looking, and then later on reading about their development issues just made it clear I dodged a bullet.
Might be an unpopular option, but I'm glad to see the sponsorship considering your luck with youtube monetization lately. You do great work. I hope you take more sponsorships in the future
Whether unpopular or not, I appreciate it. I haven't accepted sponsors for over a year, left literally 100s of thousands of dollars on the table. Not going to do that anymore when my videos keep getting demonetized/age gated. Just not feasible. If people are upset about that, they can just not watch!
@@KiraTV1yeah man please do start taking sponsorships. As long as you’re not promoting a straight up scam I don’t feel like people have a right to be upset with you for trying to make some money with your talents. I know that doesn’t stop them. But there are some reasonable people out there that are happy to see you take some sponsorships.
Thanks. Yeah, people will be upset about whatever they're going to be upset about. Realistically, I can't let that stop me doing what needs to be done. They don't contribute much to my life anyway, so their discontent shouldn't be important.
@@KiraTV1How dare you try to make money off of your passion, (not hobby!) Kira! Absolutely despicable : P
@KiraTV1 Get that bag man. Your stuff is good enough. There's people with a 1/5 of the worth to say making stupid money.
I'm impressed at your honesty with RSL. I normally get a little miffed when someone takes that kind of money, but you owned it and I'm okay with that. Just don't go picking up Established Titles or one of those "save the children" deals and we're good :)
I really can't judge a man for shilling something harmless in exchange for several thousand dollars.
Incredible video mate. The game After Reset has a similar situation. So much money was raised with enough art and a fake demo released, just for the dev to take the money and convert it into assets sold on the unity store.
Man your the hero that the people need. I love your honesty. Thank you.
Kira does such great work on the investigation, video and editing - I don't even mind the Raid ad!
Of course people dont mind him being an untrustworthy sell out.
@@cirescythe i wish the world was as simple as you are.
Disregarding the fact that $100k isn't enough to even fund half a game, you can kinda tell in the video the so-called dev is just reciting buzzwords. Idk how people didn't notice that at all.
I supported many projects on Kickstarter in the past and the ones that failed to deliver anything were mostly video games. I did get my Divinity: Original Sin 2 though.
I backed the game back then but made my peace with it when i noticed the engine swap. Because i basically treat money i give to projects as "gone" i have no hard feelings personally, i knew this could happen and i knew it was a higher probability in this case when i backed it but it is nice to get a bigger picture. Thank you for this video Kira.
Personally i believe he truly wanted to make this game a reality but was far too naive and inexperienced and when it all came crushing down and was backed into a corner failed to make the right decisions. That does not excuse anything of course.
By the way i am pretty sure they raised even more money through their website. Not sure how much more tho i remember 1.3 million but could be entirely wrong.
Again; man- great video. Well produced, well spoken and narrated. Well paced, researched. Blah blah, I just got off a 9 hr work shift and wanted to just sit down and make some veggies and ramen and you helped me calm down greatly and enjoy relaxing learning about a crazy story of crazy video game/ kickstarter bs . So I thank you and, Kira dude keep up the good work!!!
❤️
The first minute is literally what pisses me off. Degenerates just took peoples money. Now you have big names like moist and asmon saying 'Don't put your money towards a game that's not out yet' which obviously sucks for games you wish to be made, but it's smart for the individual. Just annoying that no one ever deliveres.
We need kiratv video about kiratv accepting raid shadow legend sponsorship😂
Holy crap, I clearly remember this project, and almost backed it back in the day. That's one bullet dodged.
I love it. Dude finally did the RAID sponsorship we love so much to meme on lmao
Kira just knows how to captivate a viewer, thumbs up, top notch !
Tiny Metal was pretty good.
An opener with Ash swimming?? May the wonders never cease...😂❤
This isn't 2019 anymore, everyone knows what Raid is and nobody should be getting mad over it anymore. Raid sponsorships are just harmless funny memes these days. Glad you're getting paid for that! Videos like this are always fun to watch.
Found your channel through these Kickstarter videos. Nice to see you're still making them
Honestly, I somehow felt that Kickstarter was gonna be "Abused" by greedy people when Kickstarter idea came out. I think it gave me a bad impression when Mighty No.9 game was made. Also I always find it weird that in the highest reward where you paid the highest amount and get to pay them a visit. They always mention they will not pay for your travel fee. I mean if you paid 1000bucks to them, they could at least pay for taxi or a cheap hotel stay.
Oh hell yea Kickstarter to Court let’s goooooo!!!
I like the "Wait, they're offering HOW MUCH money???" at the start of the Raid ad. I can respect that honesty. 😂
I do believe most kickstarters are created for good reasons. We've all had that amazing game idea that nobody else has done and if we just had the money to do it we would make it. But ... reality kicks in, deadlines, online pressure, hate, backlash, impatience, realization of costs, time, working with a team and everything else happens and before you know it you've run out of money and have nothing to show for it.
Everytime I see these Kickstarter videos I always compare them with CoE and all of Caspian's shenanigans but basically no matter how fraudulent these projects, they seems to deliver more than Caspian could.
Your channel makes it more and more clear to me that I got super lucky when I helped fund Albion Online, that a game actually came out of it that's been going strong for like 8 years now. Though 100k to pay at least 6 wages for 2 years.. Surely people in 2013 could do basic arithmatic, there is some personal responsibility there. Not saying it's okay they got scammed, but at the point you can barely see the pitch through a sea of red flags, it is also partly the consumers fault.
12:33 The two backers who pledged 10,000 dollars when they saw the initial game play reveal.
Kickstarter where people have their money taken for pipe dreams. Look, i know there some legit devs on there but if someone is saying they make a game bigger then world of warcraft for 50k they are a scammer. AAA MMO cost millions to make. 50k or even a 100k is likely not covering monthly costs of development of AAA game. Make sure no one is selling you a pipe dream beyond what our current technology can create.
Well, either they are a scammer, or they legit don’t know it can’t be done with that low of a budget
@@HinataElyonToph i think that happens alot too. The Dev is not scamming because they intend to give the product they promise but they bite off more then they can chew. The devs find themselves in situation well over their heads and cannot fulfill the promises they made. By then it's too late, the money has been given and they spent it.
I knew from day 1 of learning about Kickstarter that shit like this would happen. Out of the few projects I put some money in, I did so knowing well enough the project may never see the light of day. Doesn't mean people like the folks the video mentions aren't shitbags. They most definitely are. That said, I do enjoy the irony of Kira sponsoring a game that does very questionable things for the almighty dollar.