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So Jay Pavlina's game Super Action Squad and Yacht Club Games's Shovel Knight are both retro games that were funded on Kickstarter and are being produced by "indie" developers. I want to do a comparison of the two so people can see the clear difference between two indie games that were both funded on Kickstarter. Hopefully this will help backers in their decision of what games to back in the future.
Lets start out with Yacht Club Game's thoughts on the risks of developing an indie game;
"Making great video games is hard. Like, really hard! Art, design, and technology have to be blended seamlessly to create a cohesive experience. On top of that, it takes time to iterate and expand on ideas. There is a reason lots of awesome games take forever to come out!
The biggest risk is that Shovel Knight would take longer than anticipated. If production were to go late, cash would be the biggest problem. If catastrophe truly struck, our backup plan would be to pool our remaining funds and partner with venture capitalist or publisher to get the game done. This game is our livelihood, so we will do whatever it takes!
However, perish the thought of failure! Yacht Club Games has an experienced staff that has shipped more than 30 projects on more than 8 platforms. We work as a team, we have made games of this type before, and we know what we are doing!"
I at least think that this sums up the risks pretty nicely. Yacht Club adresses the risk and says what they will do in the case it happens. Jay Pavlina did not even acknowledge or discuss risks at all on the Kickstarter page for Super Retro Squad (now called Super Action Squad).
Missing the deadline is certainly one of the major risks in backing an indie game on Kickstarter. Both Shovel Knight and Super Action Squad missed their deadlines so let's take a good hard comparison of how both indie developers handled the situation.
It's pretty easy to see the situation and I'm actually not even going to say anything about the data, what do you guys think?
