Should SE Use Kickstarter to Fund Expansion Packs & Other Content?

[Airget]

Square Enix is developer AND a BIG publisher you spend money in releasing games like Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, Hitman etc.

Kickstarter is a site for development teams WITHOUT a publisher. Publisher do invest the money into development teams in order to develope a game. thats what kickstarter is for.

and not for big publisher companies like SE ^^


and on the other hand we already are going to pay a monthly fee. i know games like AION and Lineage where you paid a monthly fee the expansions have been totally free and you didnt need to buy them.

ya but you completley leave out monthly fee mmos that charge for their expansions, most notably World of Warcraft even though they rake in the cash they still charge for their expansions lol. Then of course the long line of Everquest expansions that came out were set witha price tag upon each release. Then there is also Rift a new mmo which charged for their newest expansion. The list of games that charge for expansions on top of monthly fee is a lot higher than those that haven't.

Plus if we are talking about current times those two games you mentioned also use cash shops I believe at this point in time which makes them more of a cash cow than games that could charge for their expansions overtime. Especially if they offer items that are needed in order to get anything done, but I honestly haven't looked at the paid content for those 2 games so I wouldn't know exactly.

As for the kickstarter idea, would it really be bad, I mean maybe this is the root developers have to take so they can actually be creative. just take a look at the current market of games, the only games being made are ones that the developers know will sell, why do you think there are so many Call of Duties. Think of it like this, why hasn't capcom tried to do that with megaman legends 3, if they simply offered something like 20, 30, 50, etc etc bonus for contribution where 50 dollars gets you the game and wanted something like a 500k investment for the game, they would get that investment/profit for a game that people want. I honestly don't see what would be wrong with big publishers using kickstarter in such a way because at least then well one would hope that you know they can get the job done.

Expansion wise, I mean like if SE took the time to see how much it would cost to implement each part of the expansion they wanted, they could ask for help in players deciding with their investment and offer them things like maybe 1 month free, 3 months free, free expansion +3 months free etc etc. There is nothing wrong with kickstarter if there is a bonus to investing in what they would offer but I will agree if big companies just use it to earn cash and offer nothing in return then there is no reason they should be using it.

Also take Double Fine for example, they are a pretty well known company but they know that the era of point and click adventures is somewhat sailed off, it's not as popular as it once was. In order to continue making those point and click adventure games they need to know there is an audience for those games, in order to have said audience they need to know that people will invest in their product and of course thy offer benefits in return.

In my opinion, kickstarter isn't something that should only be for indie gamers but rather a way for customers to be able to obtain products that might otherwise not be made because the big companies might not see profit in it. If the big companies can see that people are willing to speak with their wallets then the game will be made, but since everyone wants a game that will sell 1mil units, the games that only sell a few hundred thousand or less won't be made because they don't profit as much as carbon copies of call of duty or the latest sports game of the year.

[Abriael]

As for the kickstarter idea, would it really be bad

No. It would just be a PR disaster.

[Blackpearlguy]

No. It would just be a PR disaster.

Depends how you spin it though. Kickstarter is a really interesting market research tool when you have such a large fan-base. It would make sense for FFXI 2.0, that idea that one guy had was really interesting. Also based on the amount of subscribers/people who still have interest in that type of game. With that being said I think the amount of respect Square Enix tends to garner, as well as why they are re-making FFXIV, points to it probably would never ever happen. Buy shares if you want to invest in their future.

[Abriael]

Depends how you spin it though

A publisher cannot spin its nature. There's a reason why EA tried to "hide" behind Obsidian (and got refused anyway).

The whole core of the Kickstarter userbase is extremely hostile to publishers, and that includes SE.

[jwang]

This thread's question should be rephrased as "should I give Donald Trump money to further enhance his Twitter account?"

[Pseudopsia]

This thread's question should be rephrased as "should I give Donald Trump money to further enhance his Twitter account?"

LMAO. Good analogy.

[Valmonte]

Ironically, commercial companies use kickstarter to see interest as well as basically "give us money if you want us to make it..then you still buy it."

As for this..hell no. Let us see if ARR even survives it's first year before thinking about Expansions first off lol.

it wont make it a year without an expansion.

[Quesse]

This makes no sense whatsoever.

Its a case of take X fad and apply it to Z.

[Alhanelem]

OP has 1 post. Has not responded to his own topic. Is clearly trolling or does not care about the topic he started and just wanted to see the fireworks.

[Yrusama]

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it's dead. Unlike FFXIV, FFXI servers are still up. As a matter of fact the 5th expansion comes out on Mar 26th.

Yes. Not only are they releasing a new expansion, they're expanding heavily on the crafting side and other content that they haven't really done much with since the game launched. Most XI expansions just added areas/jobs/missions, but this new one looks like a whole new game!