So, to preface this, this is NOT a Torment: Tides of Numenara (TToN) review. All that I should say is that’s it’s an interesting game assuming you go in blind (as in without all the kickstarter hype), and one of those few RPGs you can get through non-violently. For a more thourough review see here . There may be minor spoilers. If you haven’t already been spoiled, go play the game. . Most of that’s review’s point are true in my opinion, and this article is a reflection on what I see as the complex interplay of Technique, Art and Marketing that go into making a game.
Games are complicated. There have a tremendous amount of moving parts, and the length of games (even a “short” 5 hours makes it longer than movie) makes it exceedingly difficult for any one person to have a full grasp of what it takes to make a game. Technique can generally be complemented by more man-hours, allowing more to be done on completing graphics, programming, and testing; but art requires time, and reflection and putting more people on it won’t necessarily speed up the process. Added into this mix are people’s mouths and the various vagaries of marketing. TToN is an unfortunate victim of it’s own marketing.
Spoilers coming up.
For those who never caught on to the initial Kickstarter phase, TToN completed it’s crowdfunding campaign almost exactly 4 years ago. It made four times its initial goal, racking up well above 4 million dollars. It had grand ideals: it wanted to be a successor to the venerable planescape:torment, seen by many as one of the most endearing RPGs ever made.
The previous review I mentionned catalogues all of their missteps. They promised a tremendous amount. They got lots of people involved. I would say about 25-50% of what they seemed to promise actually ended up in the game. Most major game-related stretch goals did not make into the final game . I am honestly happy that development took 4 years since I had forgotten much of those stretch goals, and was able to enjoy the game much more because I had forgotten most of my expectations. It’s a good game, assuming you forget all they said would be in the game. The stretch goal of “longer and more reactive story” is particularly disappointing since it took me a mere 25 hours (doing all the side quests I could find) to complete the game, with very little observable playthrough differences. It may have some of the spirit of planescape:torment but it is not it’s successor; it is a mere shadow, as many castoff’s are to the changing god. Wasteland 2 (made by the same people) cost less, was longer, and only took about 2 years to develop.
The point I am slowly getting into is that the Kickstarter campaign suggested a much grander product than what finaly happened. Had I remembered all the stretch goals and the hype, I would have been bitterly disappointed. This disappointment is a symptom of Molyneux Syndrome; and unfortunately, even seasoned developers fall victim to it. I am fascinated by how much our expectations shape our enjoyment of the games we play. How much marketing, by showing their idealized version of they product, shape what we want from it to a point that its reality could never match.
I wonder how the developers feel about the game. There has been been some apologetic notes . And frankly, developers should know when to say that something doesn’t work in a game and cut it, or to take time to give it more polish. Considering the final result, I really don’t feel like that’s the case with TToM, though I would love some developer retrospectives in the future. It might give some meaningful insight. In the meantime, we will have to wait for a true successor to planescape: torment.
I’m also afraid that this might “poison the kickstarter well” as a source of financing for experimental ideas. Kickstarter is a nice idea; users financing products. But in the end, it’s more of a gamble than an investment. You can’t always know what a product will be before it’s finished. And no matter how many good intentions you got, if you cant deliver what you claimed people will lose trust, and be less likely to support you later. I did after a number of failed projects that never came through. Even now, if I do aid crowdfunding, it’s at the minimum level possible; quantities of money I have no fear about losing.
In conclusion, there are ways to mitigate Molyneux Syndrome symptoms, mostly for the user. Going into a story-based game blind is can reduce the effects. In my experience, the less expectations we got, the more likely we are to be pleasantly surprised. I myself have been avoiding most gaming press to avoid as much as possible the creation of such expectations. It isn’t perfect, but at least I won’t be overhyped.
As for developpers, it’s hard to say what can be done. In the context of crowdfunding, they are mostly selling ideas. So over-promising is easy. And unfortunately, there are no perfect formulas for game development, meaning even otherwise good teams (like InXile) can fail to meet what they claimed initially. I would love to hear if other people have ideas about how to reduce the odds of catching Molyneux Syndrome.
I’m also curious about other folk’s experiences with crowdfunding. Most of those I’ve seenhave been (in my opinion) a success (Shadowrun Returns, Wasteland 2, Pillars of eternity, Divinity Original Sin); but I did go into several of those after they were funded, so they may have their own unfulfilled promises.
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I seriously lost like 2000 words by accidentally hitting the X instead of a button near it...
General gist:
Its stretch goals. Tides has nebulous ones (Reactivity! Extra Writers!) that seem like wheel spinning to burn up all the extra money they got. The depth is not there for such a linear game.
*Sigh* I had such a good reply worked up.
Really, stretch goals are the problem with Crowdfunding/Patronage Projects. They pull the focus of the project away from the initial scope, creating a chimera of the vision you sold your patrons and the vision they're forcing onto you (though this has been a patronage model problem since the middle ages). For every Pillars of Eternity, you have a Pathfinder Online; for every Wee Beasties Bedtime, you have a Sailing the Starlit Sea. Some manage to keep their stretch goals manageable, some let them get beyond their grasp. If a kickstarter project is super successful (Take Ultimate Psionics as a good example), the endless stretch goals spell doom for either the creator (Ult Psi ran out of money from not factoring in shipping, and physical rewards have been trickling for 3 years), completely nuke the project, or draw it out into the never ending future (I can point to three projects in my list missing their release by over 2 years).
In the end, narrow your stretch goals, or eliminate them. I'm sure a part of this is the idea that you shouldn't be profiting off of a Kickstarter funding, but honestly, the Patronage model should be completely geared toward helping the artist or creator generate their piece as best as they can. If they have funding left over, great, they can either polish their product (a bit, not for 2 years), or push that money forward toward their next patronage. It does neither the creator or the patron justice to spend funds just to spend funds on promises that will never be delivered.
Eh. Stretch goals aren't the only problem with Numenera. They cut a bunch of core stuff as well, like more foci and more companions, that were promised in the original brief. But those were also cut. And then inXile doubled down by not admitting it to their backers, and it got outed by people poking around the files. Again.
And I disagree with the OP on this: this wasn't a game not living up to hype (there wasn't much). This was the developers failing at a lot of the basics. The initial kickstarter success happened due to the devs oversmashing the nostalgia button, but they made no attempt to follow up on it.
I'm curious where most of that five million dollars went, because frankly if it actually went into the game, it was grossly mismanaged.
In the end, narrow your stretch goals, or eliminate them. I'm sure a part of this is the idea that you shouldn't be profiting off of a Kickstarter funding, but honestly, the Patronage model should be completely geared toward helping the artist or creator generate their piece as best as they can. If they have funding left over, great, they can either polish their product (a bit, not for 2 years), or push that money forward toward their next patronage. It does neither the creator or the patron justice to spend funds just to spend funds on promises that will never be delivered.
I agree with this sentiment. That is how I go into most kickstarter projects these days. "hype" may also no quite be the right word; it's more of a "saying we want to build a mansion, but it comes out as a house". I have not come up with a good word for that yet.
I'm curious where most of that five million dollars went, because frankly if it actually went into the game, it was grossly mismanaged.
I'm wondering about that too. I tend to try to look at the positive side (IE, assuming they did try their best), but it does seem like quite a poor game for 5 mil & 4 years
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Five million is pretty low budget for a video game.
If you're funding four years of development, that's $1.25m per year. How many programmers, artists, managers, writers, designers, testers, translators and so on do you think you could hire for that? Taking overheads into account, you're looking at a team of maybe fifteen people at any one time.
GTA 5 had a budget of $265 million and about a thousand people worked on it.
Yeah, this isn't GTA 5. The engine was licensed (which drops the number of necessary people quite a bit), and there are times I'd be surprised if inXile had 15 people on a single project.
Translators are an interesting point though, since that was one area that got cut (among other languages, Italian was a stretch goal, and got hacked out). But translators aren't often part of the team, especially for a small studio. You contract that out to one or two people and say: Here's the script, get it back to us in <language> in a few months.
Testers generally get paid peanuts, so having a half-dozen or so for six months is barely a burden. Especially since they pulled the 'early access' model and convinced the backers and the eager to do a lot of the 'testing' work for free.
Five million is pretty low budget for a video game.
If you're funding four years of development, that's $1.25m per year. How many programmers, artists, managers, writers, designers, testers, translators and so on do you think you could hire for that? Taking overheads into account, you're looking at a team of maybe fifteen people at any one time.
GTA 5 had a budget of $265 million and about a thousand people worked on it.
I'll admit, the budget aint huge. But they created a much bigger game for only 3 million in 2 years-Wasteland 2. It may not have been exactly the same people, but it was inXile.