Godus Funding

I'm not sure it's because of the tinfoil hat, it might just be that you look like a walking piece of cheese.

Perhaps they should have set their target higher during the kickstarter, but it is highly likely that the project wouldn't have reached its target if they had. At least they have found some kind of additional funding so the project can continue.

What bugs me is the stretch goals. "If we reach this and this target we'll do 3 different multi-player modes." "If we reach this and this we'll do a Linux version." Seems apparent now that none of those stretch goals could ever have been realized with the amounts that were set for them. Without the additional funding the Linux version and multi-player modes and whatever other stretch goals there were would never have seen the light of day. That feels like misdirection to me. If the stretch goals hadn't been set the project might have still required additional funding but the goal would have been much more realistic.

This quote you posted on Steam...



...seems not really applicable to project Godus.

This guy talks about designing the game much bigger than originally anticipated. It seems with Godus that it's exactly the other way around. Peter had big big plans and over time they have had to be watered down again and again.

I would be interested to learn how much of his own money Peter Molyneux has invested into the project/22Cans and also how much other investors (if there are any) have put in to give birth to/sustain Godus and/or 22Cans.

I'm sure we'll never learn, but that's a shame. I think it might help make a lot of backers feel better about whichever amount of funds they have put up to help the project. I know Sam had 400 quid invested into it and I'm sure plenty of other 22Cans employees have put up generous amounts as well. But what if there are people who invested tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands or more?

Say about 10,000 backers provided about 500,000 worth of funds. Perhaps there are other investors who have another 500,000 or even 1,000,000 in the project between them divided over only a handful of people.

I would love to know more.

I don't think it's uncommon practice to use kickstarter to 'kickstart' a project and continue seeking funding elsewhere.  I don't find that dubious, personally, though I do think there are definite dubious marketing points we can talk about in regards to their kickstarter campaign.

Just to elaborate a bit on my response in that thread, their kickstarter funding gave them 526,563 pounds, which (to make it easier for me, sorry) converts to $884,626.  Kickstarter gets some percentage of that (I think 5%), and taxes must be applied, so that cuts into that amount.  Assume it doesn't, and you distribute it evenly amongst your employees while factoring in no overhead of any kind.  That's still only 40k a person, in a best-case implausible scenario.

So the justification would be, people gotta eat and pay rent/mortgages/whatever.

If I were ever to do a kickstarter for a game I would probably try not to have as much physical rewards. I think I've learned an awful lot about what not to do in a kickstarter by following this project. So thanks, I guess.

and any idea how you will fullfill the Kickstarter phisical items?

It's interesting you post a Gamasutra article from a year ago that talks about Godus and how questionable its funding was back then.  Remember, at the time of that article, the Kickstarter was green with a nice bit more than asked and they'd just announced their association with DeNA a few months back.  This was before they even went to Early Access.

The October one doesn't exactly state much that relates to Godus, well except this nice little tidbit:

I could sit here and crunch numbers all day but, in the end, what you're doing is trying to excuse things by technicality.  22Cans is supposed to be a professional company run by a long time expert in the field.  Either PM knows what he was doing and played fast and loose with funding this project or else he has no idea how to plan a project's budget to the extent that he vastly miscalculates how much funding it would need.  

The reality is that Godus is vastly underfunded, horribly behind schedule, and poorly planned out.  We're 1.5 years past a greenlit Kickstarter that had a working pvp prototype and the current pc version is little more than a shovelware port of a f2p iOS app.  Most of the game is still undeveloped, a good portion of which makes up the framework for all online interaction. The continued development hinges on funding that's sounding less and less certain all the time.  And we're supposed to just shrug when it turns out that funding for this project is starting to sound like a hustle.  

Somehow, we're supposed to believe that Godus will be finished and online before the money from Early Access and mobile purchases run out.  That's a hard one to accept the longer this goes on...

Hi,

First of all let me say I think its wrong to set a kickstarter goal that is less than what you need to complete the project. Now this doesn't mean you can't bring in funding from other sources (your own money, outside investors, etc) just that you have to have that secured and know you can finish the project on the budget. I also agree that agreements with investors should not compromise promises made to kickstarter backers.

Peter has suggested to future kickstarters that they set their target below what they need. I think this is wrong, if it was intended that projects get less than they need kickstarter would pay out at any level (not just target level and above). To pay out at a level below required is completely counterintuitive. I have to acknowledge that Peter is surely not the only one doing this. I was concerned how low for example universesims target was.

I think it was reasonable to assume that with the progress they'd already made it wouldn't take much to finish as pointed out by someone above. I feel like the development process was shoddy (see posts about iterative design in other threads) and mismanaged. The lack of design documentation has left the aimless and most of all the mobile development had been a massive distraction, suck on resources and time, and a limiting factor design wise. Surely if they'd constrained themselves to an interesting single player game on the PC they could have completed that based on the kickstarter budget. Once they had a successful single player game on steam early access that would have generated funding for a multiplayer addon and a mobile game if they wanted to go there. Everybody would have been happy. Instead they've gone for doing all three at once and we have a stinker (which will hopefully get less stinky next week).

It seems Sam van Tilburgh is not too happy with a certain conversation on Steam.