Concept art is not bad as such, after all it shows that you are doing "something". But first and foremost, before the average reader sees such a thing, they must know that you have successfully developed a game and that your games don't look like the prototype when they're finished. Don't assume that readers assume that. They'll assume what they see first.

Basically you must pull off a Richard Garriott (without being Richard Garriott). His hilarious $2M funding campaign started with "Behold the successor of my previous work" and everybody started running for their wallets.

This reminds me of the recent Southpark episode, "Go Fund Yourself"

Seriously..."all but death threats"? You're not trying to actually make this popular by playing the "victim" here, are you? What is this "death threats over the internet" thing lately, is it like an achievement or a badge of honour to get one? Why even bring up the words *"death threats"*?? I've read all the comments, none of them was even close to a "threat" of *any* kind. They were just making fun of a bad, bad KS campaign. You can't stop people from making fun of bad things, like bad books, or bad movies, or bad songs, or bad games. Geez. Concetrate on making something worthwhile instead, please.

Yeah, I made just a little bit too big of a deal over this. Before I had discovered this, I had been reading supposedly true stories about people getting killed over internet posts. That's what caused me to get worked up.

Thanks samoth. If I can bring myself together, I will be relaunching the campaign and making these changes:

Removing the tablet
Removing the snobby comments by me
Removing the concept picture
Adding a video of a previous work, 3 minutes
Having better, cheaper rewards
Minor tweaks in games to be launched

And maybe more.

I have a draft if you want to see it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200900860/2111262697?token=50f4c9f8

I wouldn't suggest relaunching it. Why? You can't yet deliver on your promises at a high enough quality level to actually do anything except accidentally rip off people who do contribute.

Hiding the poor quality is not the same as making some high quality. Making things cheaper does not mean making it a better value for customers.

Your game isn't finished and is unpolished, your hardware experience is non-existent, and your claims are made purely by guesswork and not real research. "Slated for delivery in June 2015" is either a fake date you made up or else .

"Very unique" is false, it's completely generic and sub-par. You are too close to your own work to understand that your skill level isn't yet at a point where people will pay you for stuff, so it comes off as a scam.

Also, "viral" means it spreads like a virus. Two threads does not count as viral. And it's not a "campaign against you", it's people saying, hey, look at this and let us laugh together over it. Cruel yes, but they aren't deliberately trying to "campaign" against you. They are talking around a couch in their own home (reddit) about something ridiculous they saw.

You have to actually take the time to actually complete something that actually is highly polished and actually is worth it to consumers. Actually. Not maybe, kinda sorta, in the future, after you pay me, I'll have something to give you that was kinda sorta half-way finished, unpolished. Not, "give me money so I can hire other people". Do the work yourself, make it better than the majority of everything else out there, or else don't charge people for it.

You are gambling with other people's money, and lack the experience and skill necessary to deliver. That's not fair to other people. If you gamble, you need to do it with your own money. Don't tell someone you have the skill and can deliver, when you can't. That's either intentionally and maliciously deceiving them, or else unintentionally deluding yourself.

Instead, focus on really truly gaining that skill (at your own expense) through hard work and study over the next couple of years. Don't try to invest other people's money, invest your own time in learning.

Spend the time to gain skill - don't try to shortcut it at others' expense.

Well Servant of the Lord, maybe this is different since this is a game development forum, but I'll tell you a little story...

I met a guy on the internet and we didn't start out the best of friends but sort of, kind of, became friends. He seems to greatly encourage me to follow my dreams, and seems to really encourage me to do a second campaign. He backed the Ouya and had no problems with it. He once gave me $50 and when my funding goal wasn't reached, and I offered it back, he declined. He also played my outer space game, and complimented me on it and said he wishes he could do that.

Now I think there are more people like him out there, that aren't quite as dare I say pessimistic as you guys. But there are also trolls out there - who if they were to fund my project, which they probably won't, they wouldn't be happy with almost anything I did.

I'm just tired of this. I feel almost everyone on this Gamedev forum has a "mightier than thou" attitude sometimes. If you feel I'm going too far saying this, go ahead and lock this thread, so I can't post on this subject.

you come off as attention-seeking.

I'm just tired of this. I feel almost everyone on this Gamedev forum has a "mightier than thou" attitude sometimes. If you feel I'm going too far saying this, go ahead and lock this thread, so I can't post on this subject.

No, I think you're just interpreting critical feedback with a paranoid bias. You're viewing all feedback which is negative as if it were a strong personal attack, when it is not.

You will regret doing another kickstarter in the short term, I guarantee it. There need be no shame in what you've tried so far, provided you're willing to learn from it.

Well Servant of the Lord, maybe this is different since this is a game development forum, but I'll tell you a little story...

I met a guy on the internet and we didn't start out the best of friends but sort of, kind of, became friends. He seems to greatly encourage me to follow my dreams, and seems to really encourage me to do a second campaign. He backed the Ouya and had no problems with it. He once gave me $50 and when my funding goal wasn't reached, and I offered it back, he declined. He also played my outer space game, and complimented me on it and said he wishes he could do that.

Now I think there are more people like him out there, that aren't quite as dare I say pessimistic as you guys. But there are also trolls out there - who if they were to fund my project, which they probably won't, they wouldn't be happy with almost anything I did.

I'm just tired of this. I feel almost everyone on this Gamedev forum has a "mightier than thou" attitude sometimes. If you feel I'm going too far saying this, go ahead and lock this thread, so I can't post on this subject.

There was a 13 year old who messaged me about 2 years ago. He saw my project RuinValor and wanted to help me make models. I asked him to show me his work and see what he could do. His models were less than ideal, but I encouraged him to keep at it. He continued to work and look for my approval for 2 years. Recently, he creatd something and linked me the images. I was amazed at the quality compared to what he had done before in the past. Over the course of the past 3 months he has improved vastly and I would not be willing to have him work on some of my stuff.

This guy you speak of could be doing the same thing. He see's your potential and is willing to put forth some effort to watch you grow. Not everybody is like this and when it comes to selling a product even fewer are like this.

While I commend you for taking the giant leap of faith for doing a kickstarter (something I still have yet to do) you certainly were not prepared nor did you have anything of sound quality to warrent a successful campaign. The internet is a harsh and cruel world and it is not for those who are unprepared. Your ideas sound wonderful but you have nothing to show for it.

Take it from a dreamer, without a sucker to buy off on it all you have is a dream.

Spend the time to gain skill - don't try to shortcut it at others' expense.

This. This this this.

Come on Shane, now be honest, I mean you're not even trying very hard. You set up an extremely difficult goal, like creating a whole new portable console/game ecosystem, then

just offer a poorly written, poorly presented KS page, with some - frankly - very bad and, yes, funny images as "concepts" or "prototypes". I mean, I don't really feel bad for saying this to you, because it's very obvious you put zero work into them - you slapped some shapes and doodles into MS Paint and thought "that'll do". I mean, the "prototype" for the Cow game - seriously, what *is* that? The space game in the second page is good - for something a beginner with a long road ahead of him would made. That's it. Millions of people have done the same thing, do they all deserve to get funded? Don't depend on the "kindness of strangers", cause it's not going to happen, really. You have to view your work objectively and realize how competitive the whole thing is - indie games these days look like this(just a random choice because I bought it from Steam yesterday):

Ask yourself, does your work even come close to this? Mind you, if the guys that made *that* game came to me with a KS campaign about making a new gaming console I would still be very, very sceptical. Most probably, those guys can just pay their bills with that game, if they're really lucky. That's how competitive it is out there. And you come with some doodles and bad writing, ask for money, and proclaim "I'm sick of this" when you don't get it. Why should you, really? There are people that have put tons of work into their projects, and they still didn't get funded. You put virtually no work in it.

Just focus on improving your skills and building things. Nothing else. Kickstarter does not mean "free money", at least not when you're not a 'celebrity'. And that's that. Take it or leave it.