RE: Some thoughts (and advice) for EarlyNinja
Here is our message regarding the points highlighted by Mike Bithell (http://mikebithell.tumblr.com/post/156352150437/some-thoughts-and-advice-for-earlyninja). At this point, we believe that the last thing we can do to end this witch hunt is to be blunt and give the clearest answers possible.
You’re overestimating your service’s value to a dev. 15%. Really? You advertise this as half of competitor platforms. Let’s put aside that these platforms provide clients and hardware (your roadmap lists Q4 2017 as a hopeful date for a client, which seems optimistic, and will presumably not be as feature rich as GOG or Steam at launch). On a purely marketing level, do you honestly think you can bring a game on your service even 1% of the eyeballs of such a competitor?
Steam is not a competitor. Perhaps this wasn’t clear in the Kickstater campaign page. Developers will have both (or even more) streams of revenue, as we do not impose exclusivity. Do you really think that we’re arrogant enough to come up and stand against a giant like Steam? Steam is not our competitor, it is instead a driving force to strive for better. In this light, us charging 15% for the service is not an overestimation. Why would a developer discard an additional stream of revenue (with higher overall income) when they can also prove to the gaming community that they can abide to their own milestones? There is no need for us to mention developers that have not followed their own milestones... and it’s the consumer who pay that price.
I know, the sensei are where your value lies this is where, and I don’t wish to be rude, I worry that your team is unfamiliar with the existing games business. You’re describing someone who looks after a project and gives feedback to the team on how things are going externally. So a publisher side producer meets community manager. There’s a number of issues with that. First, experience. If I work with a publisher, I expect my producer to have experience and wisdom, having shipped a number of products. That’s an expensive person for you to hire (spoilers, you might get two for a year on this kickstarter amount, if you pay them very badly). Second, That producer is not someone I pay for, they are the publisher’s insurance on their investment in my game, and part of their running costs. Selling a producer to a game company as added value is like charging me for the plate in a restaurant: I accept that at least part of my bill goes towards crockery maintenance, but I sort of expect a plate regardless of if its being used as a selling point.
Senseis are not figures that replace a publisher. They have never been that. They are consultants that report information, mediate the conversation between EarlyNinja and the dev and provide project management consultancy when needed. Their formation is not covered in the Kickstarter and will not be until (if) successful funding, but rest assured that Senseis will be individuals highly proficient in project management and communication (there are people that actually hire people of this sort, we include this in our “absurd” 15%).
You’re using copyrighted materials and other people’s stuff to promote yourselves without permission you have grabbed a bunch of art from games you don’t own, and are using it in an attempt to get paid. I’d think you were being nefarious and picking on defenseless indies if I didn’t see Ubisoft IP on your mockups. That shows a lack of understanding on your part. No amount of caveats and small print about voting is going to make that legally or creatively ok. Stop it. I’ve seen devs tweeting you requests to stop using their stuff, your business will require good, trusting relationships with devs, this isn’t a good start.
We already released a blog post on this and we have nothing else to state in this regard. The only thing we can say is that all we wanted to do was to gather feedback from gamers, that’s it.
Ditto on youtubers you’re citing some pretty big names there… did you get permission? It’s considered a little rude to even use review quotes to sell a game without an OK first, but here you’re grabbing soundbites from two or three years back which on the surface look like endorsements. Youtubers are going to be a big part of your business, hell, they’re a big part of all our businesses now. Using their likenesses / avatars and logos without permission might not be a great idea.
We reported the quotes from YouTubers because they served as insipration for EarlyNinja's model. As above, we never wanted to hint that they endorse our model, rather the fact that early access is broken.
Holding milestone payments is one of those ideas that makes a lot of sense to a fan of games who’s never made one, and I suspect is the idea this was built around. Except it doesn’t achieve the outcomes you state. Crucially, milestone payments are front loaded, because in real game dev, the most important thing in the world (besides making something awesome) is steady cash flow. Even a month with no cash coming in can kill a team *gestures to every story about a studio shut down ever*.
Here is a passage from our internal documentation:
If a developer misses the delivery of a milestone that is equal to the double of the time set for the delivery of the same or if a developer does not meet two milestones (from the previous one, taking into account time shift requests), then players will be eligible for a refund.
The communication between developer and platform (Sensei): Our Sensei will periodically try to communicate with the developers to monitor their progress with the development. If developers are unavailable to communicate and do not reach back to the Sensei in a brief period of time (we are not talking about days…but not months either), then the Sensei can choose to put the game into “Zombie”
Games in Zombie Mode will be refundable and will be highlighted in the store for the inactivity of their developers. The refundable state is not reversible. The refundable state is therefore not automatically triggered and users can choose to keep the game in their library even it is in refundable state.
We did not think this level of detail was necessary in the Kickstarter page (which is long enough as it is), but apparently it is. This is not ransom. This is a system build to protect the consumer in case something goes wrong with the development, and we all know that gamers were scammed by early access developers. Sorry if a few messed up the whole. This simply prevents it and the same time allows a hard-working developer to stand out from the clutter of the market (can you do this in greenlight without any marketing activity?).
The point is that an individual developing a game is also an entrepreneur. It is true that EarlyNinja’s team does not have specific background in game development, but we can boast great successes in digital and media marketing (and a very vast knowledge as gamers). For this reason, we believe one of the reasons why EA has its issues is because there is great coding knowledge but limited resources and time. And this is where management skills can come in hand.
Milestones work pre-release and in private because there is room for both parties to work together, adjusting plans, so that a game actually comes out the other end. Publishers don’t generally use milestones as ransoms, because it’s in their best interest to get a game out at the budget planned for. Your system doesn’t encourage that, you are genuinely asking a studio to hand you the power to shut down their production immediately.
We are no publishers, but we aim to work closely to developers to ensure that their product has the maximum potential at launch. How do we do this? Through the Sensei.
Have you spoken to a lawyer about the contracts? No really, this is a big one. Your milestones are going to have to be maddeningly specific if you want to cut a project off from their cash, or you’re going to have to make the contract favor you so much as to be genuinely predatory. Assuming good faith and a genuine desire to treat devs well, you’re going to have to put together some massive contracts, and each dev is going to have to get quite a bit of legal aid to parse and commit to what you’re asking for. That’s going to cost them. Good news for industry lawyers though ;) … also consider the complexity of international deals.
All of our documentation is perfectly fine from the legal standpoint and we have dev contracts ready to be signed if you are interested. EDIT: to be clear, we are referring to the contracts that we would be signed from developers in case they’d want to join EN.
Is your price going up once you have a client? So, it’s 15% right now, and I give you steam keys. A bad deal for me, but let’s say I do it.. I think you’re worth that cost. I give 15% to you. Once you have your own client, your value to me goes up, because now you’re providing all those awesome services. Willing to commit to keeping at that price point?
Steam key integration is work in progress and there’s nothing to speak about, as it does not even pertain to our current funding goal. The price charged from EN will never vary in this respect.
None of this makes early access games better. Not even a little bit. Right now, shitty early access games are caught and mocked very, very quickly. They die on the vine because the PC community is a beautifully communicative lot. That’s good for consumers, because it’s genuinely tough to buy something without knowing it’s bad (and refunds can be sought if a game sucks.. a fact you kinda don’t mention anywhere). Projects fail or succeed quickly, and everyone moves on.
Yes, trash EA games are mocked and taken care of quite quickly, but that doesn’t mean gamers won’t be throwing their money in the toilet during their selling time. About the refund policy, EN’s refund policy is explained in the reply regarding milestones. The only way a user will ever get a full refund is when he requests it during the first 15 days from purchase. Out of curiosity... what are Steam’s refund policies?
I don’t think you’re bad people, you all look lovely in your team photo, but this idea seems riddled with misunderstandings about game production, and some ill thought out choices in terms of promotion. I’d encourage you to step back, readdress some of the core ideas that got you here, and relaunch with something badass that the development community and gamers can really get behind. Those of us who work hard to make great games (and occasionally succeed) will never shy away from a service that genuinely helps us to do so :)
Thank you for your kind words. We are looking for constructive feedback to help this project come to life. We believe in it and we’ve worked hard for it and we remain open to all suggestions. Feel free to reach out to us if you are interested in conversating with us.
