Elite on Kickstarter...

[adam]

money with no strings attached is a great business model.

it isn't nsa though, if you say you're going to do something and someone else pays you, thats a contract

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

If you don't like it, don't back it - Wait for the (hopefully) finished product.

Zero risk for you.

[Firefox]

Hey Christian! Nice to see you again! It's been a while.

[gravy]

If you don't want to have faith in a game developer who's had years of finished project shipped, by all means, don't. Just keep in mind that you've wandered right out of skepticism and are now square in the middle of cynicism.

Shipped product is winners history. To make a call on their ability to deliver you need to have an idea of all of their projects including the failed.

[merman]

If you don't want to have faith in a game developer who's had years of finished project shipped, by all means, don't. Just keep in mind that you've wandered right out of skepticism and are now square in the middle of cynicism.

James

But this Kickstarter is heavily based on the nostalgia, and as has been stated more than once Braben has been promising a new Elite for years. Frontier were unable to fund and complete the impressive and forward-looking The Outsider, despite steady income from licensed properties (Wallace & Gromit) and other contract work. So yes, they have been (moderately) successful and (moderately) innovative (with projects like Lost Winds) - but given that track record, selling a new Elite to a publisher should have been a lot easier. The fact they have been unable to do so is evidence that the Kickstarter is in part a last attempt to get the game made. And even with the recent video (and Braben continuing to distance Ian Bell from his involvement) it feels almost desperate to me.

[Gnarf]

I think Kickstarter should be about artists getting funding to create something that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

Yes! For no particular reason, this or that funding model should only be used when such and such. It really bothers me that people want to fund this Elite thing and that there is a convenient way for them to do that.

[adam]

personally i don't mind how kickstarter is used, seems very freeing to be able to fund projects or sell things this way, having unsold stock hanging around sucks

[sack]

I get the feeling he's got the money and now he either wants the publicity or an excuse not to do it. If if doesn't get funded then he can just turn around and say he was perfectly willing to do the game he's been talking about for 15 years but not enough people wanted it...

[Darkflame]

What makes you think he has the money
You need enough money to confidently set probably most of their staff working on this rather then other (smaller) things keeping the company afloat.

Is Frontier is struggling to stay afloat?, or has it got so much cash it can self-fund a major game?
I suspect its closer to the first then the second.

[Jamesac]

I'm beginning to think Braben has kicked someone's dog/fucked someone's mother, based a couple of the thread replies here. Is there something in this guy's past I'm unaware of?

James

[pyroxian]

I get the feeling he's got the money and now he either wants the publicity or an excuse not to do it. If if doesn't get funded then he can just turn around and say he was perfectly willing to do the game he's been talking about for 15 years but not enough people wanted it...

I doubt that they've got the money hanging about - Frontier's a developer not a publisher, so they tend to have a lot less spare cash (hence the reason so many go out of business each year). Possibly the reason they're using Kickstarter is because no games publisher wants to fund a space-sim (Unless you wanted to call it Call-of-Duty in Space, and turn it into an FPS set in the space stations or something...), so they need another way of stumping up the cash.

[Dio]

Publishers don't want to drop a million quid to a developer on a game. It's no-man's land for them. It's unlikely to be an AAA title, it's not going to make enough profit to make a difference to their bottom line and there's no point in throwing an advertising budget after it.

My prediction is that this will be an important market in the future as the number of AAA titles drops down to a trickle (as the market won't support more than around one a month in the next generation as budgets double again) and that opens up opportunities for smaller developers to play in a £1-5m space sold by digital download at £10-20.

But right now it's a level of product quality that struggles to find a market.

[adam]

i remember all the hype when elite came out for 8 bits, £14.95 instead of £6.95, loads of advertising, special lenslock thing, i suppose at that point it'd already been a phenomenal success on the bbc so was being milked for all it was worth

i didn't buy it until it came out on the pc

i wonder if the attention span thing is partly a factor too, perceived need for instant gratification etc, also people bought on the strength of reviews a bit more than they might today, no playable demos then really, though you could probably have a go in a shop

[The ghost of raids past]

I'm beginning to think Braben has kicked someone's dog/fucked someone's mother, based a couple of the thread replies here. Is there something in this guy's past I'm unaware of?

James

His behaviour towards Ian Bell and the supression of the reverse engineered elite clone are two fairly good reasons.

[Darkflame]

The first maybe, but if (as some find hard to believe) he was trying to get this game made not having clones based on your code and using your branding bouncing about is pretty reasonable imho.Probably doesnt sit well with potential publishers either.
That said, it depends how close it was - I didn't see the details. If its more "X Beyond the Frontier" - cheeky reference clone, as apposed to a Zynga-style "rip everything" clone then it would have been unjustified.