作者：Adrian Novell

我叫Adrián Novell，是MagicGuiso（一家年轻的阿根廷电子游戏公司，由4个人所组成）的创意总监。虽然我们的公司很小，但却不乏经验，因为我们已经致力于这个产业好几年了。

我们的第一款游戏（也是到目前为止唯一一款）是《SkyRider & the Journey to the AirCitadel》。因为我们的公司是围绕着这款游戏而诞生的，所以有必要去谈论这款游戏。

我创造了一个游戏原型并将其呈献给同事，他们都很喜欢它。一名美术师，一名程序员以及一名作曲家都表示：“我想要加入其中。”我们并不想创建一家公司，我们只是想要制作游戏。但这是一款PC游戏而不是手机游戏。我们不可能在三个月内完成这款游戏。这是一款较有野心的游戏，并且我们也拥有较高的游戏质量要求。

而这样的要求有好处也有坏处。一方面，它能够推动我们创造出一些优秀的内容，但同时这也需要投入更多时间，精力与迭代。同时作为一家阿根廷企业，我们还需要应对我们国家的政治环境：货币贬值，危机，不稳定。但对于现在的我们来说，我们拥有复活，战斗并发挥创造性的能力。

在2014年11月，为了全身心致力于《SkyRider》（因为我们需要有人去完成有关市场营销，计划，关卡设计和文件管理等工作），我辞掉了原来的工作。即我所扮演的是像制作人/执行制作人/游戏和关卡设计师的工作。

而在游戏获得资金前我将只能依靠一些储蓄去维持生活。我使用了一部分积蓄作为前往旧金山并出席GDC的旅费。但是因为这是与我想象中完全不同的活动，所以我并未为其做好准备。

再一次地，这也并不重要。因为这一次的经历真的非常棒，那些看到我们游戏的人都具有很好的反应。对于我们来说唯一的选择便是继续向前发展。而“前方”又是指哪里呢？我们的下一步是什么呢？

kickstarter(from webgame.5617)

我们的一致决定便是Kickstarter。为什么？因为我们需要找到最有效的方式去获得初始资金从而让我们所有人能够一起全身心地投入游戏创造中。我们同时也非常相信自己的产品与平台。

在面对来自Kickstarter的一些巨大阻碍（如我们并非北美公民）后，我们继续向前。这是一场让人兴奋的战斗，但却并不成功。因为我们本来打算凑集4万美元的资金，但最终却只有8千美元。

以下便是我真正想要谈论的内容。就像一些优秀的人跟我们说的一样，Kickstarter能够帮助一些小型企业获得一些资金去开始他们的业务。

我记得有些有趣的小公司的项目总是能够轻松获得资金。就像在阿根廷， Agustín Cordés在提出10万美元的预期资金后便为《Asylum》项目吸收到了资金。

而像Kotaku，IGN，IndieGames，Killscreen，Polygon等网站都会在Kickstarter项目之后对其进行报道。媒体不会害怕告诉人们一款游戏看起来有多棒以及它们需要多少钱。独立游戏领域便从中获取了巨大的利益。

但这里也存在一些问题。首先：通常这些游戏都是未完成的。而开发者所做出的承诺不一定能够兑现。此外，就像报道上所说的，在2009年至2012年间366个成功获得融资的项目中只有1/3的游戏在2014年做好了发行的准备。

而这一切都降低了小型项目的可信度，那些想要获得成功的人也是那些最终能够应对结果的人。

在我看来还存在另外一个问题，即Kickstarter所创造的淘金热开始吸引更多项目涌入进来。有些项目是好的，也有些项目是不好的，事实上绝大多数项目都是垃圾。大量项目在这里分散着公众的注意力与投资者的资金，从而导致少数优秀的项目难以在此实现自己的融资目标。

还有最后一个问题是，许多项目和人的目标是不同的，并且媒体报道也逐渐减少。也就是现在的媒体已经不再写有关Kickstarter项目的新闻了。虽然我们的游戏让一些媒体感到惊艳，但是我们得到的答案都是一样的：

“我们很喜欢你们的游戏！但我们已经不再报道任何Kickstarter项目的新闻了。”

因为各种原因，我们的Kickstarter活动经历了多次延迟。最近一次延迟便是因为我们不希望碰上E3活动。有趣的是，在上一次活动中，索尼接受了一个Kickstarter项目：《神墓3》。

这个项目本来的期望值是200万。但最终却获得了超过600万的融资。索尼只是想知道人们是否仍对这样的游戏感兴趣。《血污》项目的创造者Koji Igarashi便明确地在活动视频上呈现出自己使用了Kickstarter，希望以此告诉其他发行商人们仍然对这样的游戏类型感兴趣。

而媒体也只会为这些项目做报道。我们能否责怪他们呢？不能吧，因为从他们的角度看来有这么做的必要。我们能否责备那些越来越不相信小型项目的人？不能，因为他们同样也有这么做的理由。我敢保证有很多促成这种境况的原因，但最重要的还是对于那些想要获得独立平台或实现梦想的人来说，所有的一切都太困难了。

所以这种努力需要Kickstarter的帮助。

“但是Adrián，你们所做的一切都是对的吗？”当然不是。我们也犯了许多错误。我认为最大的错误便是在进行Kickstarter活动前我们并未拥有一个强大的用户基础。我们并未花几个月时间到处发送电子邮件并在各大论坛上呈现我们的游戏。虽然我们尝试了，但是力度远远不够。

我们天真地认为只要有自己的生活圈以及家人的帮助，我们便能在活动开始几天内实现20%的目标。但事实上我们并未做到这点，而这并不是因为缺少朋友和家人的帮助。他们都很善良，有些朋友和熟人甚至提供给我们300度美元（我们真的非常感谢！），但在阿根廷，我们并不像美国居民那样拥有足够的财政能力和资源。

关于活动本身我们也未能做好准备。但是因为我们未过度地关注于细节或因为种种压力而忘了这么做而导致我们遗漏了一些基本事宜。

举个例子来说吧：我们忘记说明游戏所面向的平台，具体的开发阶段，关于奖励的更有趣的图像（如T恤或画集之类）以及“为什么我们想在Kickstarter寻求你们的资金帮助”。

Kickstarter的一个优点便是它能够提供各种机遇。我们开始能够与一些发行商以及想要帮助我们完成这款游戏的人进行交谈，我们将在不到一周时间里完成Steam的greenlight过程，同时我们也见到了像《StarrMazer》的开发者等优秀人士。

我们从所有人身上所获得的支持也会让我们永生难忘。因为虽然我们没有将其当成目标，但是却有很多人发给我们满满的有关爱与支持的信息。而这也是我们从Kickstarter中所获得的真正有价值的内容：所有人都相信我们并给予我们继续前进的最大鼓励。

我们真的想要感谢所有愿意与我们分享自己关于《SkuRider》看法的人。我们将会继续完成这个项目，因为我们知道有很多玩家以及其他人都想要看到这一故事的结局。我们自己也是如此。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Kickstarter, Problem?

by Adrian Novell

Hey there! My name is Adrián Novell, Creative Director of MagicGuiso, a young argentinean videogame company, formed by 4 people. Small but with experience, as we′ve been working for years in the industry.

From left to right: Roberto Andriuolo (Musician), Adrián Novell (Game Designer), Damián Fernández (Artist), Federico Barra (Programming)

Our first game (and the only one as of right now) is called SkyRider & the Journey to the AirCitadel. It′s important to talk about the game because the company was born and formed around it.

I made a prototype, showed it to some co-workers and they liked it. An artist, a programmer and a musician said: “I wanna be part of this”. We didn’t want to make a company, we just wanted to make a game. And we still want to. But it is a PC game, it isn’t a mobile one. We can’t do it in three months. It’s a relatively ambitious game and we are really demanding about the quality of the games that we do.

This is at the same time good and bad. For one side, it allows us to generate really good stuff, but also demands more time, dedication and iteration. Also, as any argentinean entrepreneurship, we have to struggle with a lot of the political conditions of our country: devaluation, crisis, instability. But something that we have in our favor regarding all that is that we now have the ability of resurging, fighting and being creative.

In November 2014 I quit my job in order to be available full time for SkyRider as we needed someone to take care of everything related to marketing, planning, level design, documentation. Something like a producer / executive producer / game & level designer.

I was going to live off some savings till the game got funded. I used good part of those savings in order to travel to San Francisco and assist the GDC. I failed, it doesn’t matter. It was a very different event than I imagined and I hadn’t properly prepared for it.

Again, it doesn’t matter. The experience was great and the few people that saw the game reacted very positively to it. Only option was to keep moving forward. And where was that “forward” heading to? What was the next step?

We decided almost unanimously that it was going to be Kickstarter. Why? Because we needed to find the most friendly way to get some initial funding that allow us to work full time and together. It became something necessary to have the game ready in a good and fast way. We also believed in our product and in the platform.

After fighting with some huge barriers that Kickstarter have to non North-American citizens to publish, we were on our way. The campaign was live, but it wasn’t successful. Of 40k usd that we wanted to raise, we only got 8k.

And here is what I really want to talk about. Kickstarter, as some good people told us, helps small entrepreneurs get some funding in order to start their business.

I remember some interesting projects of small companies that easily got funded while asking thousands of dollars. Without going any further, in my country, Agustín Cordés got his project, Asylum, funded after asking for 100k usd.

Websites like Kotaku, IGN, IndieGames, Killscreen, Polygon, etc, covered Kickstarter project after Kickstarter project. Press wasn′t afraid of telling people how good a game looked and how much money they needed. Indie game scene was highly benefited from all of this.

But a few things happened. First of all: the games weren’t always finished. The promises weren’t always kept. Even more, as this report says, of 366 successful projects between 2009 and 2012 only a third of them had the game ready in 2014 (http://evilasahobby.com/2014/01/18/kickstander-only-around-a-third-of-kickstarted-video-game-projects-fully-deliver-to-their-backers/). And at this sheet anyone can check how the projects are going in real time. It′s groundbreaking how much of them don’t keep their promises (some even don’t send their rewards!) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFW2sjShHriYRsyuVZx4Se8Qxjw38VJk4g-7cls8cpg/htmlview?usp=sheets_home&sle=true#

All of this reduces the credibility of small projects, and those that want to do things right are the ones that end up dealing with the consequences.

Another problem, in my opinion, is that some kind of “Gold Fever” was generated at Kickstarter as people saw the money in it and then a lot of projects started coming. Some were good, some were not that good, and the vast majority was trash. This flood of projects scatters the public’s attention, and a few good projects don’t reach their funding goal because money is divided among all, the good and the bad.

The last problem I can see is that many projects and people are not having the same reach, the press coverage was lesser or non-existent. The press stopped writing about Kickstarter projects. Without going any further, our campaign amazed some of the press, but the answer was the same:

“We love your game! But we don’t cover Kickstarter projects anymore”

The start of our campaign was delayed several times for different reasons. The most recent was that we didn′t want it to overlap with the E3. Curiously, at the last edition of this event, something really strange happened. Sony revealed a Kickstarter project: Shenmue 3.

It asked for 2 millions. Got more than 6. Did they need them? No. But Sony wanted to know if people were still interested in a game like that. The Bloodstained project creator, Koji Igarashi, explicitly says in his campaign video that he is using Kickstarter to show some publishers that people is still interested in games of that genre.

The press only gives coverage to these projects. Can we blame them? No, it makes sense from their point of view. Can we blame people of believing less and less in the smaller projects? No, it also makes sense. I’m pretty sure that there are thousands of reasons that drove everything to this situation, but the most important one is that things are difficult to those that really need the platform to go independent, or to achieve their dreams.

Those that get up early in the morning, go to the office, come back late, have some coffee and work all night till dawn, sleep one or two hours in order to start the cycle again, Those without free weekends. Those that lose friendships because they invest most of their time in something that fills them with passion.

This is the effort that needs a kickstart. Shenmue doesn′t need it. Bloodstained either.

“But, Adrián, did you guys do everything right?” Of course not. We made a lot of mistakes. The main one as I see it was not having a strong fan base before launching the campaign. Not spending several months of sending emails everywhere and showing the game in every forum. We tried, but we should have tried harder.

We felt, innocently (or stupidly) that only with the help of our inner circle and families, 20% of our goal could be reached within the first few days of campaign, something really important to our aspirations of getting funded. We didn’t reach that percentage, but not for lack of will of our friends and families. They had good intentions, some friends and known people even helped us with 300 dollars or more (and we can′t be thankful enough with them!) but in Argentina we are far away from having the financial possibilities and payment resources that we could have if we lived in the US, for example.

We also failed at the preparation of the campaign itself. Basic things that had to be there but weren’t because we lacked attention at the details or forgot because of the pressure.

For example: we forgot about speaking of the platforms that the game was gonna be developed for, the actual development stage, more interesting images of the rewards (t-shirts, art book) and the “why are we asking your money in kickstarter” section.

The good thing about Kickstarter though, was the opportunities that came from there. We started having a dialogue with a couple of publishers and people that want to help us make this game a reality. We went through steam greenlight process in less than one week and we also met really cool people like the StarrMazer guys.

The support we received from everyone is also something that we will remember. Because we may not have made it to the goal, but a lot of people flooded us with love and supportive messages. And that is a really valuable thing from Kickstarter: everyone that believed in us gave us a bigger kick to really start.

We really want to thank everyone that share our vision of SkyRider. It′s a project that will be completed because a lot of players want to see how this story ends, but, they are not the only ones. We also want to see how this ends.（source：Gamasutra）