> However, I think that's mainly because the scope of the game increased significantly due to way the Kickstarter blew up as it did - at the time I don't think anyone expected it to reach $3 million and as such, expectations are higher.
The excuse "we got more money, so expanded the project scope too much, so now we need even more money" does not bode well for their project management abilities.
Part of project management is knowing how far one can expand scope given additional funding. I problem I see with a LOT of Kickstarter projects, especially the video game ones, is that they do a very poor job estimating additional costs.
More than once I have seen a project say "and if we raise another $10k we'll port to every platform known to mankind!
I have even seen projects claim they will go from being a PC to adding iPad support!
For a few game genres, sure, that may work, but for the most part? The entire game balance chances, reaction times change, the entire UI changes, performance characteristics of your platform have changed dramatically! Engines like Unity may help, but you still have to tweak the ever living daylights out of any sort of reaction based gameplay to make up for the differences in control methodology, and that means a lot of game balance work. It is rarely as cheap as many developers make it out to be.
But that one (wide spread) example aside, Double Fine needs to provide some reassurances that they know how to properly scope out a project.
Being under the yoke of a publisher does provides one with a hard deadline, schedules, and someone who says no. That is often a useful attribute! (See: Why programmers have project managers!)
The excuse "we got more money, so expanded the project scope too much, so now we need even more money" does not bode well for their project management abilities.
Part of project management is knowing how far one can expand scope given additional funding. I problem I see with a LOT of Kickstarter projects, especially the video game ones, is that they do a very poor job estimating additional costs.
More than once I have seen a project say "and if we raise another $10k we'll port to every platform known to mankind!
I have even seen projects claim they will go from being a PC to adding iPad support!
For a few game genres, sure, that may work, but for the most part? The entire game balance chances, reaction times change, the entire UI changes, performance characteristics of your platform have changed dramatically! Engines like Unity may help, but you still have to tweak the ever living daylights out of any sort of reaction based gameplay to make up for the differences in control methodology, and that means a lot of game balance work. It is rarely as cheap as many developers make it out to be.
But that one (wide spread) example aside, Double Fine needs to provide some reassurances that they know how to properly scope out a project.
Being under the yoke of a publisher does provides one with a hard deadline, schedules, and someone who says no. That is often a useful attribute! (See: Why programmers have project managers!)