jfrisby

His wife apparently totaled their car... (no injuries).. So I imagine that warrants postponing the marathon to deal with. I'm sure we'll get an update at some point.

I've been hoping that Ken & Roberta would send some kind words from their yacht in support of some of the old Sierra games projects -- I think I've even suggested over the last couple months that each project try to get them to film a video. Still, it feels amazing to hear from Ken after all these years! It's just damn near the most encouraging thing I can imagine. Really hits that tear-jerking nostalgia nerve.... "It's mom and dad! They care!" It's pretty hard to make much of an impact re-posting a short comment -- but I've tried... It'd probably be good if the Two Guys thanked them for their support and reposted it in an update... Or get them to film a video :)

The Tex fans are incredibly vicious... I can't quite think of another way to put it. They're pretty much in every forum bumping their threads and evangelizing. The widespread Spaceventure criticism prior to their launch feels something like a well orchestrated smear campaign at this point. Hope that's really just the paranoia. The video last night was great -- I guess the best thing to do would probably be to keep doing updates to keep the base pumped up and spreading the word, and push the interviews to try to spread the word (I'm not sure there's much chance of really winning the narrative battle). I would have thought the voice actors, mentioned in a press release, would have garnered at least a story in most places... The only possibly game-changing thing I can think of would possibly be a video of Ken & Roberta, or a series of other well-known game designers, saying they support the project and asking people to pledge. But that's a long shot.... otherwise, it's slow and steady.

Really excellent.. Think (and hope) it goes a long way to address the vague concerns about quality people have had. And on another note.. As someone who worked in airport security about 10 years ago I'm amazed you got away with that (in these extra-paranoid times). Brilliant.

Well, I'll just say that this campaign isn't going so badly as people seem to think. I think there's a ton of emphasis being put on the demo, which sort of turns it into a thing -- I think the best way to deal with that kind of instant crisis is probably to release a video on another subject. There's really been very little as far as video stuff released on this project, compared to others.. So that's a whole bag of tricks they haven't delved into you. I think it's a bit concerning that they're possibly deciding to "double down" on the demo... Instead of using all the other tools they have at their disposal.

Someone needs to put that on their gravestone... or at least a t-shirt.

Yeah, I'm in the small minority of people that sort of considers gaming dead-ends, and deaths, to be realistic and wonderful. I think games have gotten pretty absurdly out-of-touch with all the fancy checkpoint business that's happened in these later years -- I guess that's an attention span thing, with people wanting to master 3-minute sequences, rather than face possible cumulative consequences from an entire game. But Space Quest does abuse players, without telegraphing a lot of those needs properly.. but that's kinda great!

Yeah, the Kickstarter cross-endorsements would be helpful -- I've been pushing in the Double Fine forums for them to use their ability to [essentially] direct mail 87k backers via a KS update, to promote some of these other games (to that captive Kickstarter audience). I think it's a good faith sort of support of the KS fundraising model in general. Think all that noise I was making possibly resulted in the Gabriel Knight playthru we did being mentioned in their last update, but that wasn't the sort of powerful advertising I'd hoped. There's probably a higher probability of conversion when advertising to people already on Kickstarter, but I haven't seen much actual proof that it works yet. It'd be good if Tim Schafer or Ron Gilbert tweeted about Spaceventure (but it'd be good if there was more advertising in general). Looking at the newly launched Tex Murphy KS it seems interesting that they've broken $100k with only around 800 backers. The two $10k backers, and one 5k backer in the first 12 hours certainly gave their campaign a feeling of momentum. I don't know how far that momentum will carry them, but I think it's altogether a better position to have 3300 backers (Spaceventure) than 850... In traditional non-profit fundraising there's always an inclination towards "betting on a winner" in donations - I don't really think that psychology will begin to set in until we hit the halfway mark, though. I wouldn't say those incredibly early huge Tex donations were necessarily "fishy," but if I had $30k lying around, it'd be a good time manufacture some momentum for my favorite project.

I'm all for a Reddit AMA (and yes, make sure it's listed in their AMA sidebar).. Especially considering the press and public in general seem a bit fatigued by all the Kickstarters. I think it's pretty difficult to calculate the effectiveness of any press piece, since they're somewhat cumulative -- Right now we've got 3200 backers, and really anything that adds to those numbers increases the base to draw on for word-of-mouth (just generally), and possible up-selling to a higher tier (I'd say the word of mouth is more important). This is kind of the hardest uphill stretch of the campaign - the getting to halfway mark. I do hope Chris has some tricks up his sleeve, since it seems a lot of the Two Guys press hit before the campaign started (and that early peak may not have served them well). Seems like it might be worth flying the Two Guys around to the gaming news outlets for interviews (or at least getting interviews of some kind out there), since things have been relatively quiet on the press front.

Whoa, that's awesome!

It's probably a good idea for everyone to go and upvote the various Spaceventure threads on Reddit: http://www.reddit.co... from andromeda Tim Schafer & Al Lowe both did AMA's that made the Reddit front-page fairly late into their Kickstarters.. Might help boost early word-spreading-ness if the Two Guys did one sooner-than-later.

Yeah, I have to agree that it's a little funky with the digital and physical tiers -- and that awesome spreadsheet is crazy... It'd make more sense to just out and out parody the the pledge-tier-system with a crazy Microsoft Visio fueled org chart. Pledged $100 for now -- will probably upgrade to get the digital release as well (so I guess your tier-trickery works).

Love that video, drslashvohaul!

I don't know whether it's possible, but I'd just like to suggest this thread be wiped for marketing reasons and possible incoming scrutiny in general (on behalf of all parties involved). It's gotten a bit inappropriate all-around for something near the top of the list of threads here. My apologies to Paul, for my joking-insinuations -- of course I have no idea of the situation. That said, this sounds like a subject that no one should be engaged in publicly, baited with Facebook comments or otherwise, let alone forum threads. Bringing this into the public arena [for any reason], the day after the LSL Kickstarter finished, can only serve to harm Scott & Mark (and really all future Sierra-related-esque efforts).

Definitely wasn't trying to say anything bad about Spaceventure -- only felt that Paul Trowe was a little bit iffy for his comments, and overall.. Doesn't really over-shadow the good he's doing, but still. Along with the letter/update he wrote a few days back, I have to say Josh Mandel has the right tone / fundraising-speak-style and best pitches from their campaign -- great closing video sends folks to Jane & the Two Guys when they launch:

I feel sort of bad for editing out a line about me "putting money on him being an out-of-control possible boring drug-addict" above :)

I'm sort of glad it's not a Space Quest (though I'd prefer some utopian scenario that returned the rights to them)... Why get muddled in all that politicking and corporate nonsense out-of-the-gate, when it's likely not essential to making an amazing game. Not really sure what amount of increased fundraising it would take to head in that direction, but it sounds 'less cool.'

I think all this takes is a brief look at Paul Trowe's marketing and person skills. The LSL Kickstarter struggled to find the right fundraising 'tone,' had mind-boggling grammar and formatting mistakes in the released copy, led to initial speculation that Scott and Paul we're working together (false), and many other failures and near-failures as a campaign. While probably "well-intentioned," he doesn't strike me as a strong canidate to revive anything (and I'm very forgiving). I actually lowered my LSL pledge amount after the podcast confirmed, in a way, that Scott had been frustrated by Paul's insinuations -- It's a campaign that did as well as it did by the shear force of Al Lowe and Josh Mandel (who wrote the only good fundraising letter of the Larry campaign).

I feel the same way -- Double Fine hit a very narrow 'novelty/nostalgia' Kickstarter "window" with their adventure, and I'm not sure it's possible to incite that level of over-enthusiastic giving again. To me, this puts a lot of weight on their game to actually "help the genre" in some way. Sure it was "Tim Schafer & Ron Gilbert and they're amazing," but not to the extent of the giving -- I've certainly seen a lot of posts from people who backed Wasteland "just because it seemed like a great idea, but never played the games." To me, this seems like there was an extension of that "Kickstarter-enthusiasm" that bled over, bolstering it beyond fanbase donations. Who knows whether that amounts to 10%, 25%, or more of the raised amount. I realized at some point that I was funding things I wouldn't have otherwise bought or played due to the addictive excitement of the pledge/campaign model -- then pulled the plug on some donations, and tried to account for this strange game-ification of the non-profit fundraising model. I guess I would advise Scott & Mark that by keeping the "goal amount" as low as possible they stand to spur a lot of magical-infectious-thinking. I think this is one thing that hurt (amongst many other things) the psychology behind the LSL Kickstarter. I think it's easier to raise money when aiming at a low "Oh, that's easily achievable" goal-amount, and then easier to raise money off of the "leveling-up" of the game after that's achieved -- opposed to the opposite, a goal which initially turns off would-be backers by appearing to be "a stretch." The same psychology works similarly in non-profit telethons and fund-raising, and it is a more traditional model to spur donations -- but I don't believe there's a more predictable method of recreating any of the Kickstarter successes that relied heavily on that impossible-to-recreate enthusiasm. Edit: I'll likely give between $100-$150 to Spaceventure, almost regardless of the above or revealed facts about the game -- but that's after a lot of review. I'm a sample of one, but I do trust Scott & Mark more than Tim Schafer (who I will say is incredibly likeable, high on charisma and marketing, makes broad but often confused games, and is overrated on 'trust meters').

Here's an interesting clue -- which may or may not even have correct dates.. A list of all of the "admin" posts on their page, would make it seem like the sites been in development well over a year -- or it's funky wordpress dating.. http://guysfromandromeda.com/author/admin/ Edit -- I have no clue how wordpress works... So this assumption seems to likely be wrong / made-up-date related.

Troels -- Sort of curious about Scott writing you to debunk all of the "Replay Games hinting" at various other franchises... Did you get the impression that Scott felt Replay was sort of was exploiting the SQ fanbase by dropping vague hints? Not about the pull the plug on my own support of the Larry Kickstarter, but I would be a tad disappointed if they were just dropping names for no real reason... Guess a lot of stuff is probably up in the air..

+1 Revitalized super Broomcloset! I've been checking these sites for years, thank you to all you site runners that kept the faith!

I'm amazed -- I'm doubly amazed that they reconciled - BRILLIANT!

Hello folks, This may deserve a new thread, but the Replay Games folks responded to SQ questions in the Larry Kickstarter comments -- Actual SQ NEWS!: ----------------------------------- Replay Games about 4 hours ago "@Perdition - we're way ahead of you!! Scott is ready to jump on board, we already spoke to him. Mark, however, can't since he works for Foundation 9, a developer / publisher and he would have a "conflict of interest" as he put it. Having said that, however, the last game, Space Quest 6, was all Scott & Josh (no Mark Crowe involvement) so we think we can hold pretty true to the SQ franchise with those two geniuses on board. We're in the middle of negotiating the rights for King's Quest as well as Space Quest & Police Quest too. ;) It all depends on the success of this first game, though.....everybody wants to see how much demand is out there." --------------------