Kickstarter Question (V3 Development)

[Meiun]

Hi All. I've been doing some serious thinking about how the heck I can realistically change the current snail-paced development that Stick Online V3 has suffered from since it's original announcement a few years back. The problem hindering things across these years has ultimately boiled down to time. Time wasn't really an issue back in high school when I developed V2, but it very much is now in my adult life. I work full time as a software engineer/developer, and even when I do have an evening/weekend off I am typically too stressed, mentally exhausted, or just plain burnt out on coding to sit back down at the computer for round 2 of an already coding filled week. I do find time to dabble a bit, but I need a lot more than dabbling if I ever expect to be able to finish solo coding an entire MMO from scratch.

The main thing that keeps coming to mind would be how great it would be if I could somehow find a way to just take some of that time and energy I spend every week coding at my job, and find a way to devote  it towards V3 development. The only real viable answer to this that I can think of would be to do some sort of kickstarter to fund money for the games development. I know kickstarter has been tossed around as an idea here in order for me to get "some" of the development funded, but in order for this to realistically result in a finished product someday I feel it would be best to shoot for an all or nothing approach.

So here are the big concerns I have about doing a kickstarter...

My biggest concern with kickstarter is that no matter how I cut it, to realistically make this happen would require a lot of money. More money than sounds reasonable to me to even try for (or for me to expect people to be interested in funding). And here is where things start to get complicated. Not only would I need to essentially raise enough money to serve as a replacement to my current salary for the duration of development time, but I would also likely need to be paying artists as well. Money has not played a significant role in Stick Online thus far, so I have never really had any discussions with the current artists about money or payments. I do not even know what kind of expectations (if any) the current team artists would have in terms of money if a kickstarter were to be done, nor do I have much of an idea about what would be considered fair.

If I had one person who could reliably handle all artwork for the entire game, then I'd be perfectly happy just going 50/50 and splitting all profits with them. But the way art creation is split up currently is going to require a minimum of 3 different artists in order to get everything we need for a complete game, so the only approach I could realistically see working for this would be to have some sort of independant contracting setup in which I pay the artists X amount of money for X amount of artwork. Otherwise, I imagine it would just get more complicated, difficult in terms of business laws/taxes, and expensive than would be realistic (or something I'd want to take on in terms of responsibility).

So heres the big question. How much would people think is reasonable to ask for via kickstarter to fund the development of this game? My big fear here is that a lot of people might just take one look at it and go "xxx dollars for a stick figure game? Yeah right!" and not realize that just because the main character happens to be a stick in no way makes the other artwork or coding any more easy. Keep in mind that this is an MMO, so even if I raised enough money to "make" the game, it would still end up requiring far more support and money (servers, moderation, etc.) after launch than your average single player game. I would want to raise enough to at least guarantee it could keep things going for a little while after launch. I have some estimates that I've come up with myself, but they all seem quite high when compared to a lot of the indie games I see on kickstarter, especially when I factor in artists (granted none of the games I've seen are MMO's).

I guess I am ultimately trying to gather some thoughts and insight on the plausibility of a kickstarter and how to best make it work. Even if it didn't work I'd still try and make it happen another way, I just figure that a kickstarter would be the fastest (though also likely the most difficult).

[Sam|9801]

15,000? with stretch goals?

[crozier]

To be completely honest, there is no way this community alone would be able to fund something to fully compensate you for your work. You would really need to get your name/ idea out there in the indie community in order to fund something big (ie: over 50,000). Don't just rely on kickstarter regulars to look at your page/ fund your game, get your name out there.

Trust me guys, I love Stick Online 2 and I would gladly pay ~15 dollars/ what ever is required, but at this point, where a good majority of the community has left over the years, funding a kickstarter would be pretty tough. Sure, some of us have friends that used to play, and they have friends that used to play, and we would see some of the older members return, but it would be a really tough thing to do. It's possible, but Stick Online just isn't as popular as when it used to be (before the servers went down, or to a lesser extent when it became donor only).

What I personally would be in favor of is Meiun passing the torch on to one of the members of the community. I know there is a handful of crafty computer science people who consider Stick Online a good part of their childhood/ teen age years who would be willing to devote some time and assist you, Meiun. I know Stick Online is a really personal project, but I see this as a possibility. Because I know a handful of people would be more than willing to help you out.

But, yeah, the first thing to do would be to put your name out there in the Indie community (if you haven't already, that is). Joining forums like Tigsource, participating in game jams, and the like is a good way to get Stick Online out into broader audiences. So, that's my advice.

[KrazyMotha]

I don't really have an educated goal estimate but I do know that on kick-starter if u make a good video that gets people interested the money will come!  If u can put together good footage and have realistic but extravagant goals people will start to fund the project. And if u offered them a trail of V2 or something, I know the great community of V2 will be welcoming and help noobies explore and understand basic concepts of the game. Even tho V3 will be an entirely different project, V2 is a nice gateway for people to get interested.

[igufed]

The two major costs of this would be the graphics/artwork and your salary, since you're doing the coding yourself.  This post of yours made me calculate a few things for my own project to see what I would need.

Total cost for the resources (including 1 year of a dedicated server, pricing was taken from my current hosting as a reference point) was about $21,600.

This included:
Character sprites (idle, walk, 30 attacks, and a handful of misc actions) in 3 directions (possibly 1 direction for SOv3)
Monster sprites (same as character, only with 20 monsters.  each would cost more, but some don't have as many directions)
Tileset (everything, grass, bushes, trees, bridges, buildings, etc)
Icons (weapon, armor, misc, any lootable item that can go into your inventory)
GUI (everything static on your screen, every menu element)
Logo (1-5 images of concept art for promotions/splash screen/website/exe icon)
Sounds (every sound in the game from rollover effects to attacks/monsters/interactions)
1 year of a dedicated server

Won't break down each resource cost.  The costs for each came from what I've been getting quoted from the handful of websites I've been browsing and contacting people to get pricing on what I'd need.  These were on the higher end of the range since their quality was above average to excellent.

I know Cero was working with you on creating character animations for at least the attacks (one of the highest costing elements).  I'm not sure if you were paying him or he was just helping out, but, that could obviously be subtracted from the cost if he was very generously helping out.

Taking my projects cost and subtracting about 1/3rd because of the viewpoint of the game, I'd put it at roughly $15,000.  I'd bump that to an even $20,000 and then add in your salary for the duration you'd be off your normal job to cover any surprises.

I'm not too sure how exactly kickstarter works, but, figured I would give an estimated total cost since that information can be used in any scenario for funding.


TL;DR $20,000 + your salary.

[Midnite]

I would support it, and I know a lot of people could think it's cool. I tried a kickstarter and since my video sucked I only got $200 instead of my goal for $2000.

Maybe put the game on indiedb.com, twitter, and start getting followers and use #indiedevhour, #gamedev etc. to promote it. I don't know the secret to getting a kickstarter to work but I wish you luck. It's worth a try.

If you ever do this I pledge my support and I will spread it like wildfire to my community, my twitter, facebook page, etc. Even if I can't help that much I will try.

Midnite

[Matty_Richo]

I have a few thoughts on this.

Firstly, the actual amount needed to be raised should be a bit conservative, it should really come down to the absolute minimum you think you'd be able to do it with. From there you can easily set stretch goals and hope to exceed that amount but if you set the bar too high and fall just shy then it's back to square one.
As far as the artists go, that's probably just a conversation that you need to have with them. One of the ways that a lot of indie games on Kickstarter keep their budgets down is by making most forms of payment in back-end percentages. Given that (and I'm assuming this is still the case) Stick Online is a free game, it makes it a bit more difficult (and possibly worth exploring options to see profits coming out of it once it's publicly released).

When it comes to making the Kickstarter campaign successful there are a few key components:

• The video needs to be professional looking and it needs to interest people. It should contain everything from footage of the game to video of the team talking about the game and working on it (perhaps watch some videos from other successful campaigns for inspiration)
• Rewards - A large portion of people that donate to campaigns are just in it for the rewards, be it an exclusive T-Shirt or in-game content. The rewards need to feel worth while
• Something for people to try out - At the moment we have V2 that can quite comfortable work as something for people to check out and see if it's something they want to contribute to. In the long run, though, you'll most likely want to explore getting a demo of V3 out at some point (either during the campaign or soon after).
• Another big things for campaigns is that people like to donate to campaigns that already have a lot of support. If we as a community can pump in all our donations near the start of the campaign then people will see it, notice that it has a good chance of success, and want to donate (since they know there's a good chance they'll get the rewards and actually see something come out of it.

I think there is definitely a strong possibility that a Kickstarter for stick online could be successful. You have an excellent product, a strong community, fairly decent resources (I'm sure people in the community would be more than happy to help make the campaign video, advertise it around forums/Reddit/their friends), and a passion for this project.

Another thought I've had that I thought I'd throw out there (though I'm not suggesting it's the right road to go down) is looking for investors/publishers. If I recall correctly, Stick Online V2 had over 10,000 accounts created (I could be remembering that wrong) and that sort of number would be very attractive to an investor or indie game publisher. It would of course mean you'd have to take on a bit of influence from them which is where I'm guessing the idea wouldn't feel good for you. Just something to consider.

[TANK]

I've seen so much stuff im not interested in get funded on kickstarter, Sometimes even things that are only concepts. Even though there aren't many of these types of games I still believe you have a way better chance than anyone else who goes on there and gets funded. Go for it I think 15k - 20k is definitely do-able. Then you can do stretch goals, maybe take down public access to v2 again and give that out if you reach 20k(cheap but who gives), maybe at 30 an early demo or something. People who donate more can get wacky cosmetic hats. Got to remember that, I've seen it plenty of times, people don't donate unless they feel like they are getting shit that others wont have when the game comes out. Maybe you should go to the next level and just charge for SO3 too if its necessary.

[Mr Pwnage]

$20,000 + your salary.

After attending numerous hackathons, talking to people actively applying to y combinator, seeing people form kick-starters in the latter... Yes, this seems like a pretty accurate projection for a startup to get the ball rolling.

Social media is a powerful tool for attracting donators, as obviously our small community can help you get to that goal but we can't make it the entire way. You may want to spend some money advertising your kickstarter, spend time to make a genuinely appealing video, explaining how stick online was and what you have planned for it. I think the concept will cater to a lot of people if they understand it, but you have to make sure people don't see it as another stick figure game and actually see your vision you have planned in the short video you make for it. Our community can probably also aid in word of mouth, I know many including myself that have advertising connections to spread word of your kickstarter quickly. Just make the donation process appealing and make your video concise and attractive. You know your own cost of living and salary. Also for server hosting you can get very powerful servers for not much cost. I host many minecraft/web/teamspeak servers off digital ocean, and in addition a good friend of mine owns a server hosting solution in DC which he lets me use for free. I could help introduce you to some affordable connections early on and deals could be arranged.

[Matty_Richo]

Also for server hosting you can get very powerful servers for not much cost.

I'll also go ahead and assume that, at least for starting out, the server requirements would be minimal as the game server no longer uses Game Maker to compile and would therefore allow for something much more budget-cautious as the game is starting out.

Social media is a powerful tool for attracting donators, as obviously our small community can help you get to that goal but we can't make it the entire way.

I just had a quick check and it's worth noting that there's actually a Stick Online Facebook Page (I'm not sure who set it up) that currently has 190 likes. I'm not suggesting that everyone on that is about to jump up and donate $100 but that page could help connect with some people that have since forgotten about the game and spark some interest.

You may want to spend some money advertising your kickstarter, spend time to make a genuinely appealing video, explaining how stick online was and what you have planned for it.

I'm not sure what the current situation's like but if there's any money left over in the donation pool that could go towards creating the Kickstarter video or something, it could be worth closing down the V2 server for a little while in order to have a small budget to work with there. The flip side of that is that you then wouldn't have V2 available for people who are considering donating to try out.

[Matty_Richo]

Eeek, double post.

Crozier's recent topic seemed to spark a fair bit of interest and we haven't really heard much for a while.

If I recall correctly, we never reached (or at least Meiun never mentioned) a decision on whether or not to go ahead with a Kickstarter.
I was, and still am, a strong supporter of the idea and just wanted to bring the potential of it up again.

After hearing the responses from people on Crozier's topic I'd be interested to here where the rest of the community are at and, of course, it'd be great to hear where Meiun's head is at in it all.

[Meiun]

Eeek, double post.

Crozier's recent topic seemed to spark a fair bit of interest and we haven't really heard much for a while.

If I recall correctly, we never reached (or at least Meiun never mentioned) a decision on whether or not to go ahead with a Kickstarter.
I was, and still am, a strong supporter of the idea and just wanted to bring the potential of it up again.

After hearing the responses from people on Crozier's topic I'd be interested to here where the rest of the community are at and, of course, it'd be great to hear where Meiun's head is at in it all.

I still like the idea, but as it stands now, I do not see how doing a kickstarter would help to solve any of the problems I face with the game. The main way I could see it helping is if it bought me more time that I could devote towards working on Stick Online, but the only way it could do that is if I made enough off of the kickstarter to actually substitute for my current job (for a note-worthy amount of time). This would require a pretty sizeable amount, more than I think people would consider reasonable or ultimately be willing to donate. Additionally, to make a succesful kickstarter I feel that you typically need enough finished of the product to have an impressive amount of content to show backers on your kickstarter page, but if I actually had that done already I feel I likely wouldn't be needing a kickstarter to complete the project to begin with.

[ARTgames]

Is it possible to get a less grand Stick Online 3 and maybe just a smaller nicely upgraded game. Something possible to finish in a much smaller scale and time.

[HeroicHero]

Is it possible to get a less grand Stick Online 3 and maybe just a smaller nicely upgraded game. Something possible to finish in a much smaller scale and time.

This sounds pretty good.

[KrazyMotha]

Could you do it like how you did V2. Started with Noobland. Then it slowly stretched to Bandits and then the arena and then temple etc. When you make or complete an area then add it to the game. The updates would keep the game (even if its small) interesting. That would give people something to play and also provide you with ideas. It would get some excitement going about V3.