and want to get a large amount of money (i.e enough to live on for a year or 2, hire some contractors for work outside your skill set). My 2 bits of simple advice are, build a community. Crowd funding is about getting the community to help you make a game that they want (both you and your community should be wanting the same game).
Thanks very much for the thoughts. I will set up a forum for a community at some point. I've struggled with this "make the game everybody wants" vs "make the game I want to make, and see who's interested" dichotomy, but am biased towards the latter. The direction popular gaming has gone in recent times does not interest me much. If I wanted to go where the market seem to be, for example, I'd make a $2.99 2D cell phone game, or FPS #90338932. I think I'd rather make something I want to make, though I know it to be a very small niche, and hope there will be enough people interested to support it. Just as you say, following one's passion. I'd rather make a little bit of money and do something I find cool, than the other way around.
demo of just ship to ship combat, nothing more
Ship to ship combat is in progress and coming along decently
If you don't have a "real" job besides the Kickstarter project, how are you paying your rent/food/equipment/etc?
It's my last few work years before retirement. I'm funding it out of my retirement savings, which is a dangerous thing to be doing, but I'd rather do something I enjoy doing even at some personal risk. I can do so for several years, but at the cost of living well below a poverty income level while I'm doing it. There are personal costs to that, such as forgoing even cheap vacations.
Kickstarter could (hypothetically) provide a safety margin. If some unexpected expense should appear, such as my (already old) car dies, it's quite possible the project could be completed with KS funding, but not without.
If you use the Kickstarter money for that, it's gone by the time you know you have failed.
Perhaps, but if my project fails I will find a few more years of a normal job, in which case there is a funding source again, some of which could be returned to the KS investors. It appears this doesn't fit into the model, which is fine. I just didn't know either way, before.
But I imagine that the KSs might be able to sue the developer for damages over his breaking of the contract.
I was pondering it more in a voluntary sense. Say for example that I, as a game developer, due to circumstances beyond my control am unable to finish the project I started. This happens quite often even with the best of initial intentions
I suppose in many cases the money is simply gone, but for me the alternative to my game project is finding a "real job", in which case I think I'd feel somewhat morally compelled to attempt to return people's hard earned money for a project that never came to pass.
"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs