GameMaker Yoyo Games based Crowd Funding

[Anomaly]

just a thought, but i think it would be cool to have an endowment fund or some such thing that would give licensees to people who have made a functional prototype out of their game idea...
And if their presentation and demo is voted on either by the community, or a panel at yoyo games.. then funding could be given for further production... ans yoyo could have a hand in the company's profits from that game.

i think this would skyrocket development of successful ideas whose creators are not that savvy at finance or business.

 

[TsukaYuriko]

I'm rather not so fond of the idea of funds that could be used for developing and improving the software itself being used for yet another attempt at reinventing a popular external service (which has already spawned a plethora of clones on its own already, anyway) that would end up being used exclusively by a limited portion out of an already massively limited audience.

We saw how that played out the last time. ♫


Obligatory sass aside, it has happened before that YoYo Games reached out to developers to support their project's development in various ways before (Hyper Light Drifter comes to mind as a recent example), so the essence of what you're describing already exists - presumably just not regarding funding, because Russell needs the money for his feckin strawberry milkshakes.

 

[Yal]

i think this would skyrocket development of successful ideas whose creators are not that savvy at finance or business.

You're in that category, I presume?

And I agree with Tsuka here... Yoyo tried copying Itchio / the Unity marketplace with the GM Marketplace, and Youtube / Newgrounds with the YYG Sandbox. And how did those things turn out? There's always the saying "the third time's the charm", but I'm having a hard time seeing a clone of Kickstarter getting anything significant done for anyone involved.

 

[Guest User]

I agree with @TsukaYuriko and @Yal . Unless YoYo Games develop something way better than Kickstarter (which I doubt) then there is no possible way of beating KS.

 

[andev]

give licensees to people who have made a functional prototype out of their game idea...

If they have a functioning prototype, then surely they already have a license?

yoyo could have a hand in the company's profits from that game.

There's no win-win situation with this. Most of the time, the game will never get finished, or it doesn't live up to pitch and resultantly doesn't make good sales (let's be honest here). This is a big loss for Yoyo, because I'm guessing 90% of the licenses bought meet this fate. Then there will be the odd case where the game takes off massively, and the developer loses a nice chunk of their income because they couldn't afford the $59 license fee.

if their presentation and demo is voted on either by the community, or a panel at yoyo games.. then funding could be given for further production...

Bar kickstarter, steam had a non-funding version of this, and we all know how sad the community was when that service was terminated.

 

[FrostyCat]

just a thought, but i think it would be cool to have an endowment fund or some such thing that would give licensees to people who have made a functional prototype out of their game idea...
And if their presentation and demo is voted on either by the community, or a panel at yoyo games.. then funding could be given for further production... ans yoyo could have a hand in the company's profits from that game.

i think this would skyrocket development of successful ideas whose creators are not that savvy at finance or business.

YoYo shouldn't pour their funds down money sinks that are too inexperienced to use real crowdfunding platforms and standard financing options.

If you're not "savvy at finance or business", you should educate yourself in finance and business, not asking others to make likely unprofitable investments in someone who doesn't know what goes where. If that means doing it on your own dime to start with, then so be it.

 

[Anomaly]

YoYo shouldn't pour their funds down money sinks that are too inexperienced to use real crowdfunding platforms and standard financing options.

If you're not "savvy at finance or business", you should educate yourself in finance and business, not asking others to make likely unprofitable investments in someone who doesn't know what goes where. If that means doing it on your own dime to start with, then so be it.

the concept isn't to have yoyo games do the funding out of their pocket.

thanks for your input though.

 

[rIKmAN]

the concept isn't to have yoyo games do the funding out of their pocket.

thanks for your input though.

You first post mentions a fund, and then you go on to say YYG get a hand in profits from the game if they select it / back it.

If YYG aren't doing the funding, why would they then get a cut of profits from the game? It doesn't make sense.

 

[Anomaly]

You first post mentions a fund, and then you go on to say YYG get a hand in profits from the game if they select it / back it.

If YYG aren't doing the funding, why would they then get a cut of profits from the game? It doesn't make sense.

because they'd be the ones that create, manage and maintain the fund and site.
a fund .. that .. like i said.. was created from crowd funding.... and voted on BY the fans / members.. as to which games get funded...and a portion would go back to yoyo to support the funding resources... that's how it would stay in existence...

...it's just an idea i thought this was the place to intelligently discuss it but its seems like a very very unpopular idea from the looks of it... and i'm sensing some strange agression in some of your responses so i'm gonna check out of this convo right about now/....

i'll just hit up kickstarter when i get a prototype game going.

 

[Nocturne]

No. I think this is a terrible idea. You know the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none"? I think YYG should stick to ONE thing (GameMaker) and do that exclusively to make it the best it can be rather than expand its resources to something that other sites already do better than YYG could possibly hope to.

 

[rIKmAN]

and i'm sensing some strange agression in some of your responses so i'm gonna check out of this convo right about now/....

I made one post asking you a legitimate question because what you posted doesn't make sense, and you got moody and bailed on the thread (unless you meant the replies as a whole, which also raised valid points).

Either way - your response and behaviour doesn't give off the impression you are ready for "intelligent discussion" on the matter.

 

[sitebender]

There are other ways to get money outside of Yoyogames.

- Governments and colleges will give grants.
- Kickstarters and crowdfunding will just donate money.
- Sponsors will give money to have say McDonald's appear in the game (Kickstarter has these tiers as well).
- You can get a bank loan if you say mortgage your house or car. Publishers will even give money and other aide.
- Larger game jams where you take what you've been working on for years will sometimes have larger prizes.
- Some publishers will give you money as well or have their own people make art and music since they have them on staff or discount and they have to do something.
- Private investors

HORROR STORIES

Meanwhile, there are other programs with other game development software that give out grants and in the long run I see the games with grants that have less than 10 reviews in 12 months so its obvious they'll never see that grant money return.

There's another game that made $100,000 in private funding and has less than 10 reviews after a year on Steam. The lead developer said even the $100,000 wasn't enough for 2 years of development with a 7 man team.

A game that received a $250,000 grant from the Canadian government and its 12 years later and they have little to show for it beyond what's been done in the past 2 years. There's all sorts of development hell with this one. Clearly that money was spent a long time ago. They went from 10 people in an office to 2 people working an hour or so a week.

There are endless Kickstarters that even 5+ years later, there is still no game. I was part of three of them. The games got Kickstarted and I never heard from the project leads ever again. Nor were the games finished beyond my prototype to get Kickstarted.