The Perils of Backing Kickstarter Projects: Code Hero

[Crazed Rabbit]

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/12/13/code-hero-the-dangers-of-a-kickstarter-success-story/


"It's totally not abandoned," says Alex Peake, developer of Kickstarter project Code Hero, his face filling the screen of a Google Hangout window. Late on the night of December 12, Peake responds to comments on the Code Hero Kickstarter page, inviting backers and journalists to join him in a video chat if they have any questions, and apologizing for a lack of updates on the project.

In the chat, he answers our questions directly. "Code Hero is my reason for living. It's not like –"

One of Peake's friends jumps in. "I can second that," he says. "I can second that."

Peake continues, "No matter what, I will make Code Hero because that's why I live. That's my purpose in life."

Peake finds himself defending his commitment to Code Hero following a string of events that began when he established the Kickstarter late last year – events that, for his backers, represent some of the greatest concerns of Kickstarter funding.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/12/13/code-hero-the-dangers-of-a-kickstarter-success-story/

Coding tool is still in production, but former developers claim they went unpaid
Former Code Hero developers speaking under condition of anonymity have told Develop that many of them were either unpaid, or not paid as much as promised.
Code Hero vaulted into the public eye and raised $170,000 on Kickstarter this spring, but news of the project became scarce after PAX.
Yesterday a group of backers lead by Dustin Deckard began contemplating legal action, citing rumors that the project was out of money and development had ceased.
While Primer Labs founder Alex Peake later confirmed that development was ongoing, phone conversations with former Code Hero developers revealed that not only had many been shorted pay, but two teams had fallen apart during the course of development.
...
"I'm putting all my hard effort into it, and I look at my check, and you know, it was not what I was promised," he said.
"I talked to Alex about it. You know the guy, the whole time when we were developing, he was just playing video games and then coming up with ideas.

He's posted an apology on his website: http://primerlabs.com/developmentcontinues

CR

[TinCow]

Last year was the feeding frenzy, this year reality will start to set in. It's going to be interesting to see what actual products get released out of all those funding drives.

[Husar]

I very, very often wondered how they could ask for say 150,000$ and post a picture with a team of 20 people, announcing a huge project that would take the team quite a while to finish. Either they had to have some other funding as well or they couldn't calculate as I doubt their average programmer would be happy with 500$ a month.

[Sarmatian]

Indeed. Backing first-timers with huge amounts of money is usually a bad idea. Even companies who had years (decades) of experience in video game industry tend not to do their calculations properly sometime, but I believe backing projects like Project Eternity or Wasteland 2 is pretty safe.

Common sense would be to only back modest projects from first-timers.

[Husar]

Or to only back projects that post a complete business plan instead of some enthusiastic blabla. ~;)

[Sarmatian]

Or to only back projects that post a complete business plan instead of some enthusiastic blabla. ~;)

Even that isn't really safe, as inexperienced developers tend not to anticipate possible problems and/or underestimate them.

So, while on paper it may all look great, reality is something different entirely.

[Husar]

Yes, but first of all, no investment is safe and secondly if you don't like that maybe you should not invest.
The business plan does at least show that you have a plan at all and it forms a basis for further scrutiny whereas a long story about how you wanted to do this since your childhood wouldn't even get you an invitation from most serious professional investors.

[Monk]

A great article was written on this very subject at the close of last month, and was featured on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Titled "Kickstarter Successes: Where are they now?" Looks at the triumphs, the failures, the mismanagement and the still-to-comes of the crowd funding site.

linky (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/11/28/the-kickstarter-successes-where-are-they-now/)

I personally enjoy where the writer admonishes those who were putting their release dates super early after funding had finished when they hadn't even written a single line of code.

As for kickstarter itself it's a really tough pill to swallow for some, and I've always warned people to always expect the worst whenever they give their money to this stuff. Even the best plan can fall apart as life intervenes or problems arise that were never anticipated by the developers. Of course, the worst thing that can happen is you get scammed by someone who never follows through on their project and pockets your money, then plays the victim when called out on it. Which is happening quite a lot when Kickstarter is involved.

[Papewaio]

Well for $150,000 you can hire a contract project manager for 6 months.

150k could go a long way for developers in India, China or Hungry.

But really all $150k would be good for is helping publish a product that is ready to launch.

[Papewaio]

Well for $150,000 you can hire a contract project manager for 6 months.

150k could go a long way for developers in India, China or Hungry.

But really all $150k would be good for is helping publish a product that is ready to launch.

[Lemur]

The only Kickstarter I've participated in, Dead State (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70755535/dead-state-the-zombie-survival-rpg), is looking good.

Looks around nervously.

[TinCow]

The only Kickstarter I've participated in, Dead State (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70755535/dead-state-the-zombie-survival-rpg), is looking good.

Looks around nervously.

I contributed to Dead State as well. That was my first, and the only other one I've gone for is Project Eternity. In both cases, I contributed not only because I wanted to see the game become reality, but I believed the creators would actually be able to finish the project. For Dead State, I trusted them because I'd already been following them for about two years and knew all the work they'd already done on it. The Kickstarter was really just a way to get the game out faster and with more content; it was going to be made even without the funding. For Project Eternity, it's an established developer with an incredible amount of experience in creating games. While I'm a bit skittish about the quality of the final product, I never once doubted whether it would see the light of day.