Now I see that you have cash for marketing. Every time when I scroll Facebook board I see your trailer. And today almost 50% of times then I see some advertisement on my mobile it is the same trailer of Phoenix Point. 
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Or an algorithm knows what you like.
But seriously times Facebook advertises to me something that I already bought is staggering and a bit counterproductive. PP has been popping up on myfacefeed regularly for quite a while now.
Thank God that they don’t know what you already bought. 
It even gets a bit creepy how much Phoenix Point ads Facebook is showing. Aside from a Like in PP’s page, I don’t have any comments, likes, or whatevers regarding Phoenix Point or Snapshot. How does Facebook understands I’m so interested in the game?
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That’s all what FB needs, you can watch and customize your commercial options in Facebook.
I still get a lot of PP commercial in FB too, but that’s much better than everything else I’ve ever seen there before.
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I hope the commercials and stuff help the game sell a lot better…as angry as I am at Epic for reasons everyone can understand, the more I see of Phoenix Point the more awesome it seems, awesome enough that I can even forgive the head honchos for going over to Epic ;_; So I can’t help but hope that the ads help the game sell better even on the Epic store, but man, I certainly hope the game sells a thousand times on Steam what it sold on Epic :[
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Interesting. I wouldn’t know. I never ever used Facebook. Don’t really know how it works either. After reading about “Brigador” i understand even more the importance of visibility, and thus, advertisement. I got my post stating my opinion about this Epic crap deleted it seems, along with the whole 6 months old/80+ anwers thread (i suppose i was i bit too honest?). So , no need for me to start over again… But well, i discovered that “good news” a few days ago. Good for Gollop he can manage advertisements. I fully understand his reasons. I fully understand the terrible precedent he created for others. And how he got things rolling for him in such a nasty way.
Good he can advertise now. I guess that taking the wind out the sails of other indies payed well. With this, the future of crowfunding is guaranteed, right? Well, i guess that once you get founded, what happens to others is none of your buisness after all. Commercials are incoming after all.
First of all a potential release was coming to a close, so it is natural that advertising would increase. That’s how it works, whenever the game is Epic exclusive or not.
“Taking the wind out the sails of other indies”…? Huh? What is that all about? One might do a dramatic declaration that they don’t go Epic exclusive for a cheap publicity. In addition, there is no indication that enough players care about Epic exclusivity to make a meaningful impact on anything. A claim that a danger that a crowdfunded project might go to Epic is a deterrent from crowdfunding is a theoretical claim. So far it’s all bark and no bite.
I can’t make sense of what you’re saying. I’ve seen two videos posted here.The one by the asian guy i think explains well how this will hurt the whole crowfunding system and each et every indie studio in the future.
I’ve read a lot of posts all over the internet regarding this. Pretty much all those who posted about crowfunding claimed they will probabluy never crowfund any other project from any developer in the future, or hesitate heavily before doing it again.
Claiming it is a theorical claim is dishonest i think. You can still see all over the internet things about past scandals and people speaking about them even nowadays, with the consequences anyone can imagine without me saying.
Still, i’ve voiced my opinion, well part of it at least. Last note… indie studio generally have no money to advertise. I never found any indie having the founds to advertise much, except perhaps Larian… Where do you think Gollop got the money?
First of all Epic deal offers “guaranteed sales”. That means they pay you for certain amount of copies sold whenever you sell them or not. After that you don’t pay you for sales until you fulfil the quota.
See:
Whenever this money is paid upfront or after the game launch I don’t know.
High profile crowdfunding games do get ads. Larian was one, Deadfire was another. If I understand the deal correctly, with Epic deal Snapshot doesn’t need to sell copies, as they will get paid anyway 
If anything it would be more beneficial to sell on steam or gog later on, as Epic will pay for initial sales anyway.
Asian guy in the vid is YongYae, speculating and reading angry reddit posts. I like the guy, but he has no insight into anything.
What I want to see is data: a reliable support to your claim.
Here are main:
Not an indie, but in spite of controversy upon controversy, most people simply don’t give a crap. And once they don’t give a crap and have Epic installed, why would it bother them if another game joined the launcher? A dude on reddit screaming in all caps might have not bought it… but who cares in the end?
Again, not quite a small Indie, but a sequel to older games, already fully funded, refusing to say they won’t go Epic, minimal pledge is $50, and without it actually needing money it is more of a pre-order for suckers then anything else. I have personally a lot of issues with this campaign. most people don’t, though. There was some complaining about Epic in the comments. It seems to be doing ok.
- [insert a proof of crowdfunding failing or diminishing because of a possibility of the Epic exclusivity]
Can’t find any. The last crowdfunding project which peaked my interest (Solasta) seems to be doing fine. They did promise not to go exclusive. Would it do better if not for PP? I have seen people claiming they will never trust crowdfunding ever again. I have seen people buy indie games just because they said that Epic sucks. Either way, there is no evidence that things changed for better or for worse.
I have seen people claiming they will never buy EA/Activision/Ubisoft ever again. I don’t think I have to say what happens later. Most people are happily breaking their “promises” if the hype is there, even if they should know it’s just that, hype.
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This all Epic thing reminds me that in my country there are two main brands of kitchen robots - yes, kitchen robots - that perform exactly the same functions. You know, kitchen robots, both preparing delicious nutritious meals.
But go to any online forum about both machines, Jesus, people lose their f’cking minds fighting over those things! False claims, insults and yes, even death threats. Death. Threats. Over kitchen robots!
That’s why I don’t believe in any of this “oohhh, Epic is EVIL and Gollop is the spawn of Satan!”. Replace “kitchen robots” with “online videogame stores” and it’s the same thing. It’s this false idea that some consumers demand of belonging to a certain brand/tribe, and defending it until the end of times. It’s the same thing with Apple and Android, or why there was online campaigns to put the Avengers movie as the most profitable of all time - even when the movie had already more money than many countries GDP.
Interesting. Maybe one faction is afraid of Skynet knowing their favorite dishes?
“Again, not quite a small Indie, but a sequel to older games, already fully funded, refusing to say they won’t go Epic, minimal pledge is $50, and without it actually needing money it is more of a pre-order for suckers then anything else. I have personally a lot of issues with this campaign. most people don’t, though. There was some complaining about Epic in the comments. It seems to be doing ok.”
Fun, i thought the exact same things as you while looking at this. I was there “wooooat is this? seriously?” I thought it was fishy, but then, became too lazy to make further research the topic to uncover more about why i felt like this.
" I have seen people claiming they will never buy EA/Activision/Ubisoft ever again. I don’t think I have to say what happens later. Most people are happily breaking their “promises” if the hype is there, even if they should know it’s just that, hype."
Well, i can’t speak for others. I can only speak for me. I claimed in 2010 that i would never buy any games oustside GOG again (which includes Steam). And actually, i never bought any games outside GOG since 2010. That means i couldn’t get some games that never went on GOG.
“What I want to see is data: a reliable support to your claim.”
You want proof hu? Or will dismiss the idea that bad image and precedents like this really hurts the crowfunding model. Well… I’ve seen people do that before. Hum… it’s probably easier to take a photo of something you see than proving that something does not exists right? I can’t imagine i will find any source saying “We have proof such project failed because 40% of the people who could have backed it did not because of their lost of faith in the crowfunding model”. Hence, i’m sure you will understand why i find your asking for data pretty twisted. I’m not even willing to spend several hours on the internet just to look for “proofs” that people feeling scamed will generally think twice or thrice before doing things again. I can’t even see the point of questionning it.
In my case, again, same with what i claimed about my GOG only pocilies 9 years ago, i can tell for sure that the probabilities of me ever backing another project have drastically dropped. Even though i backed a few projects in the past.
But anyway, those who were rightfully angry left already. Only those who consider ok accepting one thing after the other because there surely is war and aids in the world are still there. I personlly think this way of thinking is dangerous. But once again, i’m not even talking of Phoenix Point, Gollop, or even video games or crowfunding here. It may be a detail, but it is WAY MORE than just a detail. I’m not expecting those still around to understand what i mean, and will now close the topic, too
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I understand that. I am not saying that there are not people who will not back projects after stunts like that. But here is the thing: I think we both agree that GOG is the most consumer friendly platform out there - I prefer to buy through them whenever I can. But it is not the most succesful platform.
What Epic does, is not “nice”, but what they do is savy. Making sure people will have to use their platform is a safer investment then trying to make people want to use thier platform.
I don’t treat independed developers as harshly as corporations - Snapshot did burn a lot of good faith by taking the Epic deal, and indeed if they go back to the crowdfunding well in the future, this will stay with them (and rightfully so!). But unlike a corporation, where anonymus heads make decisions, this is Snapshot, and more precisely, Gollop, who put their reputation on the stake. I, for one, have to respect the upper management for taking PR hit, to secure stable future for their employees.
Did Snapshot go against promises made during crowdfunding? Yes
Did they do it knowing that it will piss off the original backers? Yes
Did they treat they backers like disposable loans? Well, no, whenver you like it or not, the “apology package” is generous. I understand, why for some it wouldn’t make it alright, but snapshot showed no contept toward its backers.
Does this move hurt indie developers or other crowdfunded games? No, again. Nowadays, if a dev declares it will not take Epic exclusive deal, people will probably believe in it too. Afterall, it is not that Snapshot per say misled people when they promised steam/gog copies during the campaign - Epic exclusivity didn’t exist at the time.
Individuals like yourself might be more wary, but again and again reports seem to indicate that nothing really has changed. There is a loud minority of people really invested in the gaming politics but clearly bunch of people don’t mind, assuming they even know of those “scandals”.
Claiming that PP “betrayal” will have repercussions - I think it is more of a wishful thinking, then an accurate prediction, that’s all. That’s somewhat unfortunate, but it is what it is.
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That’s the auto-correct in action, right? 
Yup.
“Does this move hurt indie developers or other crowdfunded games? No, again. Nowadays, if a dev declares it will not take Epic exclusive deal, people will probably believe in it too. Afterall, it is not that Snapshot per say misled people when they promised steam/gog copies during the campaign - Epic exclusivity didn’t exist at the time.”
I know this will be a pretty risky post i’m going to do. I never studied politics and such, but it’s basically my own common sense. I won’t look on complicated websites in foreign language for weeks in order to deconstruct things and illustrate my point as if i were trying to write a conference for some kind of university. So, what i will ask for you is not asking for detailed proofs, but asking yourself if what i say may or may not bear some plausibility. It’s a shame that nowadays, including at school, however detailed your argumentation may be, you’ll always be asked to add citations of a third party. Meaning, in order to even be allowed to present your point, you’ll always need to find out a guy older than you that thought the same or no one will ever listen to you. I personnaly always thought it was stupid. That made me waste a lot of time, just to edit things i had already finished writting.
Still, i will try to keep things short from this point onwards. My point is… I definitely don’t think this Snapshot problem is self contained. I believe this is like a mini system which is connected to many other systems, themselves connected to even more of them, and so on. I believe Snapshot’s system is tied to many, many others. One of these systems which you cou could call “whatever” is linked to it by a thread connecting in a place where it’s stated “Others made worse in the world of buisness or politics in the past and somehow got away with it”.
Another sub system the Snapshot’s system could be connected with is the “Crowfunding is an alternative economic system which, amongst others things, tried to challenge the logic of world economy being directed by giant corporations”. This is a system where many little investors came together in order to help create things that Corporatists funds couldn’t acknowledge, showing that yes, even an isometric RPG had still a right to exist, even though the Corporatists logic was willing to force upon the world that it was not. The problem resides in the fact that the thread connecting the Snapshot’s system to this “Crowfunding” system is now “Since others got away in the past, we decided the risk to betray or crowdfunding campain promises is an acceptable risk considering or personnal situation”
Now, this crowfunding system is linked, too, to other sub systems like Snapshot’s systems. There were Double Fine sub system, but there are others, like Molyneux’s and such. But my point does not even lie there. If, ultimately, you follow the links, go through more sub systems, and reach finally the “Trust relationship between buisnesses and customers on the internet”. Or even the same system, not even related to internet, the “Trust relationship between buisnesses and customers”, and if you look at all these many, many micro systems linked to them all over the whole pictures, with their countless links, you will see these systems, themselves connected to many others, change colors depending on what is contained by and what name the links they are connected to other sub systems are.
I really can’t tell if could make anyone in this world understand what i’m talking about. I’m talking about responsability. Each and every move guys like Gollop make has some influence over the whole world system. And since everything is connected to everything, you can’t even be sure if maybe, after many bounds and ripples, this won’t have some effect on some Somalian family dying from hunger. You could argue that it is impossible to consider the consequences of one action this far. I would retort that it’s precisely why you should really care about what you do. Everyone bear responsability. Not just towards themselves or some people they happen to know. And even if Julian decided to betray his promises to his backers to get a more confortable sleep regarding his buisness and employees, the very fact that he could think “it’s ok” just because of the “Others made worse in the world of buisness or politics in the past and somehow got away with it” will only create a place in the Snapshot system where others around will link to it with the “Gollop did it, got backslahed, but got away, too”.
And then new links will be created, and create others which will influence the creation of others and so on, and will ripple all to way to India where a baker will create a place where other could link the “I had cockroaches in my flour, but who cares, some others got away with it”. Even though said baker won’t have a clue about the Gollop incident in the Snapshot’s system, or even who the hell Gollop even is, this incident will have contributed, along with many others, after time and many ripples to create this new place for a corrupted link for this indian baker.
I’m sure i’ve lost everyone right? Or that 90% of the people here just think my view of things is fucked up. I believe it’s not. The world goes for the worst for good reasons. And most of these reasons are not tied to just a few influencial assholes. I’m talking about responsability. And i say it was Snapshot’s responsibility to protect its integrity whatever the cost. Because Snapshot had the moral duty to set an example to follow. Everyone has somewhat this duty, but i believe it’s more important in a system where people willingly give their own money, over the sole base of trust, in order to help other people achieve a dream/cherished ambition. The whole relationship implied here was extremely precious to me, because it implied that even in this over capitalistic world, you could find such simple, precious things. This has been sullied once more. It will ripple through the systems for a long time.
I hope you will be forgiving. I seriously struggled to write that in a language i’m not even fluent with. So please, do me favor, if you’re to retort to this, don’t play on words.
No, I absolutely understand where you are coming from. Being a fan of isometric RPGs, crowdfunding brought back to life games I have never thought to play again. And I can understand, that making a change like that undermines the core promises of a crowdfunded game - as a backer you hope to get a “pure” product, “untainted” by bussiness considerations. I don’t think Epic deal is bad in that regard - it doesn’t undermine creative integrity of the game, which is the most important aspect for me, but it does tarnish the very appeal of the crowdfunding.
And yes, if backers get burned regularly there is a possibility that the system will collapse at some point. Also, if backers will continue to accept outside influences to their “crowdfunding projects” (ekhm, ekhm Homeworld 3) the motto “funded by players, made for players” can become obsolete - exclusivity now, microtransaction in the future etc. I don’t hold anything against people who decided to refund their pledge for PP and never support the project. I understand that.
Now, I don’t believe, that crowdfunding has been as pure as you suggest for a while now. There have been good apples, there have been bad apples. Shenmue3 was a dodgy case years ago, having corporation backing, stage on e3 and asking for donation. They also accepted Epics deal, and if I remember well, weren’t very nice about it, even to the point of refusing refunds, at least initially. As I mentioned I take issues with Homeworld3 - a game which claims to not need money, has backing of gearbox (whenever it involves money, and therefore creative control, or just distribution of the game I do not know), offers those early, risky investments at no less then a full price and the only carrot for backers is feedback - just no. There might all good will from developers but things are stacked too heavily against backers.
I also don’t believe that crowdfunding allows developers to make games they want to make - in some cases it’s true, but having a nostalgic fanbase to appease, can be just as creatively murderous as publishers who stick their numbers and statistics. Crowdfunding is a business model - yes, it can be used to make dream projects come true, but I am willing to bet that a lot of creative ideas get canned in order to make a game sellable to backers.
Whenever Snapshot “gets away” with the deal remains to be seen. I do believe it will follow them. It is impossible to judge if it was a good decision (not only in business sense, but also in term of delivering the best game to backers they can) without knowing the insides. I don’t believe though, is is in Snapshot’s duty (or anyone elses) to preserve the holy sanctity of crowdfunding. Because I don’t believe it ever existed. The “you allow us to make a game we dreamt of making” is marketing most of the time. It allowed for some great games to come out, but in the end it is just another way of funding the game, with its advantages and disadvantages.
Backers were never investors and never had control of the end product or the company. Once you give your money, that’s it: you may never see the end product (looking at you Mandate!) or it might not be what you hoped for. I think, what really terrifies people in situations like that, is that they realise they were never in control. Snapshot has responibility to its backers but it also has responibility to its employees. If employees are busy applying to new jobs, instead of shipping the game, it doesn’t seve backers well either. Situation is unpleasant, and it is not 100% fine, but nor is it a scam or destruction of indie scene.
I think it is telling that some of the most succesful companies in this field chose to be part of Microsoft, rather then stay independent and reliant on backers’ contributions.
Awww… I worked so hard on this post an UV unlisted the thread. Probably a good move, we are way past the “Epic deal” phase.
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