Keep a tight rein on fan input

[supergardie]

[Jellyfunk]

Fans telling the devs not to listen to the fans.

Quite the paradox.

[Taylor]

[NiloStudo]

Fan input is cool, just as long as the fans keep in mind that the developers have the final say on their own project and don't demand their suggestions be used. Which I haven't seen any fans like that yet - everyone seems pretty laid back and open minded here.

I would agree that fan input should be limited to social media and not made a backer reward though, unless some heavy quality control is involved.

[Prof__Yogert]

i 100% agree, its a sort of joke that we have with eachother, that people have no idea what they want, sometimes you have to read between the lines. while community input is very important, its also important to remember you are the designers, and we are the players.

[Taylor]

[EarthBound]

I think there are a lot of opinions but not every single one is valid. I mean, if someone came here and say: "Hey, Playtonic, put some cutscenes and turn-based combats", that jerk would be ignored. If someone else said: "Could you guys make a level in a magical ice volcano?", they could take this and appreciate if it's possible or if it fits the game atmosphere they want.

In other words: there are both stupid and smart ideas (and both stupid and smart fans), so they have to tell stupid ideas from smart ones and that's all.

[clanker]

Yeah! This is honestly my one big concern. Sometimes the loudest opinions aren't the best opinions

[Rasmusic]

[Rambi]

+1 for that, just trust your vision for this game.
If you like it, we'll love it.

[emayer]

I think my biggest concern is the possibility of the Kickstarter expanding the scope of the game beyond reason. There's the recent example of Tim Schafer and Double Fine launching a Kickstarter for their game, asking for $400K as their goal, and then raising over $3 million. The project then failed because Schafer, in response to the enormous amounts of money he had to work with, "designed too much game."

http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/03/doub ... r-debacle/

I have a feeling this Playtonic Kickstarter is going to get tons of support, and I hope they don't let that cause them to stray too far from their vision.

[Taylor]

[dotEXE]

I think the risk of "too much game" is small here.

They JUST released another bit (http://playtonicgames.com/news.html) that really highlights why I think it'll be a success. The game at it's core is: a 3D jump-around game, with collectible items, in themed worlds which will be unlockable (separated from each other) and expandable.

I know the expandable world aspect is something they wanted to do for ages, so I think that's going to be their core for innovation. Which I think is great.

If they can deliver a collectathon with 8-10 unique worlds and a bunch of moves, I'll be happy. And I think that's exactly what they intend to do. Their new article specifies that the intent of the Kickstarter is to guarantee multi-platform simultaneous release, and fancy collectibles for your shelves at home. Not to shoe-horn in ridiculous gameplay elements.

[Alucard]

But put some more bonus worlds via kickstarter isnt a bad thing I think. It would be just optional stuff.

[Jellyfunk]

Best scenario, this kickstarter makes over 5 million dollars and restores faith in other publishers to make these games again.

[polomi]

[emayer]

[Alucard]

[iggy]

[emayer]

The issue as I understood it was that Schafer, in expanding his vision in response to the Kickstarter success, ended up needing more money than the $3+ million that was raised. Ballooning of vision didn't align properly with the ballooning of funds. Admittedly, my familiarity with this only goes as far as the controversy that popped up when Schafer said his piece about designing too much game a couple years ago, so maybe it eventually worked out afterwards. My only point was that I don't want to see Playtonic bite off more than they can chew if they end up making tons more money than they need.