Work Halted On Neal Stephenson's Kickstarted Swordfighting Video Game 124
An anonymous reader writes "Last year, sci-fi author Neal Stephenson and a team of game developers set out to make video game swordfighting awesome. They set up a Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of hardware and software tech that would make replace console controllers with something more realistic. Now, production on that tech and the game in which they showcase it has been halted. In an update on the Kickstarter page, Stephenson explains how they've sought other investments without success. The project is 'on pause,' and the team asks for patience. He says, 'The overall climate in the industry has become risk-averse to a degree that is difficult to appreciate until you've seen it. It is especially bemusing to CLANG team members who, by cheerfully foregoing other opportunities so that they could associate themselves with a startup in the swordfighting space, have already shown an attitude to career, financial, and reputational risk normally associated with the cast members of Jackass. To a game publisher crouched in a fetal position under a blanket, CLANG seems extra worrisome because it is coupled to a new hardware controller.'"
The Hidden Catch in Kickstarter (Score:5, Interesting)
But not so fast writes Kohler. "What shocks me about this particular update is that Subutai seems to be neither apologetic, nor realistic about what actually occurred in this case. Reading the update, it seems like the blame is falling everywhere but on Subutai's own decisions."
The Clang Team says that "Kickstarter is amazing, but one of the hidden catches is that once you have taken a bunch of people's money to do a thing, you have to actually do that thing [kickstarter.com], and not some other thing that you thought up in the meantime." Only after completing the whole Kickstarter did they discover the hidden trick to the whole thing writes Kohler, which is that you have to make the thing you took people's money to make [wired.com].
"Hey, Kickstarter creators: If you run out of money and need to explain things to your backers, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place and I don't envy you having to decide how to approach it. But I can say one thing: Definitely do not post an update like this."
They ran through $500K and no prototype? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is pathetic. They blew through $500K and they don't even have a demo. Reading through their stuff, it seems like all they really intended to do was a standard fighting game with a sword-like controller and better fighting mechanics. Nothing indicates that you'd feel a blow when you hit something, or when you got hit. A Kinect can do that. Even the old-model Kinect.
There's some handwaving about force feedback, but nothing about how to actually do it. It's not impossible, and you can do better than just putting a buzzer or vibrator in the sword. It would be amusing to put a gyro in a gimbal inside the sword. Normally, with the gimbals unlocked, the sword swings freely, but when you get a "hit", the gimbal clutches lock and you feel your wrist wrenched as the sword will no longer rotate.
And why the hell do they have a Tesla coil driving a Jacobs ladder in their video?
Re:Not a shock (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not so much the cost of the hardware. There's almost no use for it outside it's niche so there's zero chance any publisher or larger developer will be interested in using it. Up front they should have known they were on their own developing the product, complaining that no one else wants to support it shows total cluelessness.
For the sort of swordplay I like, with medieval weapons, $100 wouldn't come near providing any sort of realism. Restricting it to lighter weapons and sports like fencing removes any chance of wider interest from the gaming public.
Just need to be money you can lose (Score:5, Interesting)
No matter what, the money you put towards a project needs to be like any other unsecured investment: Money you can afford to lose. On Kickstarter you are investing for creative, rather than financial, return but the rules are the same. Obviously you want to vet what you invest in first, and if it seems like they don't know what they are doing, have a poor business plan, are scam artists, etc don't invest. However even if it is an established company, good rep, etc, etc you still need to be prepared to lose the money with no return.
I love Kickstarter, I've backed 10 videogames on it so far, but it is something I'm realistic about. Currently of those 3 have delivered as promised, 5 look like they are on track for release as promised, 1 is floundering badly and will likely fail, and 1 appears to have failed (the dev hasn't announced it, but there's been nothing from him in a long time and the game is in a very early alpha state). I'm ok with that. I only spent money I could afford to lose and I didn't expect all the products would work out, particularly since it was some smaller devs in some cases.
Re:Not a shock (Score:4, Interesting)
I always thought the combination could be incredible - kinect for large-scale position tracking, and wiimote for the subtle stuff. Coordinating the input might be challenging, but in theory it should allow for both accuracy and precision to improve dramatically.