[TrashMan]

.. for all the Kerberoes haters.

As for the rest...I honestly think there is no need to bash or disrespect people who do not like our games.

People are allowed to have opinions. One of the opinions they are allowed to have is that a certain game or company sucks. I don't have to agree with them if they're saying that I personally suck...but I have to understand that they are entitled to think for themselves.

Please don't feel the need to be combative about this stuff, or to call these opinions "hate". If people DO want to support us, that's fantastic! And if they don't, we should appreciate the fact that they checked out our pitch and gave us their honest opinion, and move on.

--Arinn

We appreciate the concern about morale, Pandesmos. I won't lie--it's hard to know that the people you care about do not think well of you, and don't want you to continue to create.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of honest opinions in that thread--it's not just personal acrimony.

They're not wrong. It was a bad launch. And we were responsible for our part in it. We did not disagree with our critics that the launch of SotS 2 was a disaster and that the relationships and business models that would produce such a disaster were obviously NOT working.

We've done everything we can to apologize and atone for past errors, and we've changed our entire way of life and business model accordingly. That's not because we disagreed that we were responsible for our mistakes. It's because we respected the point of view of our players, substantially agreed with them on many counts, and were willing to make enormous sacrifices and bleed--not only to try and improve the game that was out in the wild, but to change our way of doing things so that we could never find ourselves in that position again.

Starting over with nothing is not easy. But it was and it remains the right thing to do. And sometimes you can't show respect to your critics with nothing but empty words. You have to do it with your actions.

--Arinn

Recently a very good friend spoke to me privately about the current Kerberos crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Specifically, he was telling me that he was not surprised that so few of the people who had supported our Kickstarter Campaign were following our team to support our game on a different crowdfunding platform.

I had said that I couldn’t understand why less than 20% of our former supporters were still willing to pitch in, when we had actually found a way to offer them a better deal for their support. And what he told me…truly alarmed me.

He said that people didn’t actually believe that we needed their support.


Our Kickstarter failed, and we found a reason to persevere and came up with a new plan that would still allow us to make a game. And they assumed that because we were willing to do that, it must mean that crowdfunding doesn’t really make a difference to us!

He also told me that this false assumption was specifically my fault. Because I misspoke myself somehow, in an interview. I was too positive about things. I was trying to find a reason to be happy or upbeat about something pretty awful--a failed Kickstarter. But by putting ANY positive spin on a bad situation (“It’s a good promotional opportunity for a small team like us!”), I had somehow convinced people that their crowdfunding dollars were not needed, that Kerberos would be just fine without them.

No, folks. We are not fine without you.

Without your support, we suffer a great deal and we have to rack up debts to continue working.

We have to take on side gigs that take time away from the games we want to make for you.

And we have to slow down the whole long road to recovery, the process of getting out of debt and getting enough revenue coming in that we can go back to making the more ambitious games that you remember from the past.

Please try to understand the economics of what we do. When we departed from Rockstar in 2004 and began working together independently as a team to make the original Sword of the Stars, it took more than half a million dollars of our personal funds and volunteer man-hours to make the game.

We still had to partner with Lighthouse Interactive to give the game its finishing touches, particularly the sound, voice-acting and music, and to get the game onto store shelves and into the hands of consumers.

When we broke with our last publisher in 2012, we had to start over again…and this time we had less than nothing. After eight years of brutally hard work and sacrifice, in other words, we were actually WORSE OFF than when we started! We had been driven into debt, and had to work steadily for months to get out of it.

Our plan is working, it’s true. Our new games are good, a return to the quality of our past work. And we’ve refused to give up, no matter the pain and the cost.

But the price we’ve paid has been very high. We have to live incredibly close to the bone, all the time. And when we ask for as little as we possibly can for a crowdfunding campaign, and we still can’t get the minimal budgets we ask for…it is very painful.

Times are hard. The team and I have been staying as positive as we can over the past couple of years. Despite the pressure we’ve been under, we’ve done our best to stay strong and upbeat, to do the best work we can, to remain creative and engaged, and to be true to ourselves, our audience, and whatever crazy cock-eyed Muse makes us believe that games are Art, and that we should devote our lives to them.

We’ve done our best to keep the Stiff Upper Lip and the brave face on, not to give in to bitterness or to complain about the tightening of belts or the reductions in salaries.

But the fact that we haven’t complained doesn’t mean that we don’t feel pain. And it doesn’t mean that eventually we won’t run out of steam, spiritually AND financially, if people are never going to be willing to show faith in us and fully support our work.

I’m sorry if we somehow gave you the impression that we were invincible.

No one is invincible.

We need you.

--Arinn

lol why are you even giving them an ounce of recognition by reposting this trash? This isn't Kerberos hate, its internet twaddle. You could replace Kerberos with "ford" or "NY rangers" or "guns" and get the same blather

[Scotty]

I just want to say before this crashes and burns that your timing is truly fantastic, Trashman.

I also want to say that if this topic even starts getting warm it's getting locked.

[The E]

Our plan is working, it’s true. Our new games are good, a return to the quality of our past work. And we’ve refused to give up, no matter the pain and the cost.

But the price we’ve paid has been very high. We have to live incredibly close to the bone, all the time. And when we ask for as little as we possibly can for a crowdfunding campaign, and we still can’t get the minimal budgets we ask for…it is very painful.

Seems to me that, if you want to make money in crowdfunding, you gotta demonstrate that you can make good solid product first. SotS2 shot a hole in that impression, and while their followup titles may have been solid, the fact that the SotS2 debacle happened is still a factor people are going to consider when they make the decision whether to back a project of theirs or not. No amount of them saying "our new games are good!" will convince me that they are worth my money, that's something I want to hear from reviewers I trust. Then I'll make a decision on whether or not to buy their stuff.

[Colonol Dekker]

I likes SOTS, in that it was semi-original. This looks like it could be a run of the mill android game at best imo. And that wasn't a rushed opinion either. I used fair judgement based on multi-decade gaming experience and a wide knowledge of the current casual gaming market.

OTTTD and Godzilla Smash seem a bit more fun per buck.

[Lorric]

It was an interesting read. This Arinn seems to be saying the right things with some class, if he's telling the truth of course.

I just want to say before this crashes and burns that your timing is truly fantastic, Trashman.

What's so special about his timing?

[FrikgFeek]

I'm sorry, but this just looks like a speech from some cheesy sports film. Am I supposed to feel touched because these guys are human beings with human problems? I mean, that was pretty obvious because games are made by human beings, not game-printing machines. While that's very nice and sentimental I don't think they deserve my money until they show some actual results.

[TrashMan]

It was an interesting read. This Arinn seems to be saying the right things with some class, if he's telling the truth of course.

She.
Arinn is ms. Dembo, the lead writer and one of the designers.

I'm sorry, but this just looks like a speech from some cheesy sports film. Am I supposed to feel touched because these guys are human beings with human problems? I mean, that was pretty obvious because games are made by human beings, not game-printing machines. While that's very nice and sentimental I don't think they deserve my money until they show some actual results.

You can't make results without money.
It's kinda like finishing college and applying for a job to get some experience, only to find out that all jobs are looking for prior works experience.

There is a reason why their last 3 projects have been simpler (but still very fun) games that don't require as much resources.
AAA-looking titles cannot be made from good wishes alone.

[Lorric]

Whoops. Sounded like a male name, like Aaron.

Luckily for Kerberoes, they've proved they're still capable of generating investment from crowdfunding to make games, they've already passed the biggest test by getting their first game crowdfunded.

[The E]

Luckily for Kerberoes, they've proved they're still capable of generating investment from crowdfunding to make games, they've already passed the biggest test by getting their first game crowdfunded.

Well.

Kaiju-a-gogo failed at kickstarter. Ground Pounders failed at kickstarter and indiegogo. Sword of the Stars: The Pit failed at Indiegogo. So no. Not a single one of their crowdfunding ventures actually succeeded in raising money.

[FrikgFeek]

You can't make results without money.
It's kinda like finishing college and applying for a job to get some experience, only to find out that all jobs are looking for prior works experience.

Supply and demand. If you can't find a job it means your education is either something useless that nobody wants or that too many people are already in that field and employers can find enough people with previous works experience to employ.

This applies to crowd funding too. Star Citizen succeeded because a ton of people wanted to play a space shooter and very few were already on the market. Games from respected companies(like double fine) succeed because people trust them. Sequels to long-forgotten franchises(like Tex murphy or Broken sword) have a dedicated fanbase they can rely on.

Kaiju-a-gogo doesn't really do anything ground breaking as far as the mobile market goes. I mean, it could be executed really well but you can't know that until the thing is actually released. Just about anyone can claim that their game will be really good.

[NGTM-1R]

It was an interesting read. This Arinn seems to be saying the right things with some class, if he's telling the truth of course.

Arinn also shilled for the need to release SOTS2 in the state that pretty much destroyed Kerberos' reputation, and was a dedicated apologist for it. One can blacken personal reputations as well as those of companies.

[TrashMan]

Kaiju-a-gogo doesn't really do anything ground breaking as far as the mobile market goes. I mean, it could be executed really well but you can't know that until the thing is actually released. Just about anyone can claim that their game will be really good.

Last time I checked K-a-g is a PC game, with mobiles being a maybe.
But in general, you are true. You never do know, regardless how nice the trailers look and what reputation the company has (ME3 anyone?) It's always a gamble.

With Kerberos I kinda put my chips on their games being fun. They may be buggy on release (tough that was a SOTS2 issue mostly. I don't recall ever having any bugs or problems with SOTS or The Pit, and I modded the living s*** out of them), but bugs can be fixed.
Bad gameplay/universe/story/mechanics are a lot harder to fix.

Arinn also shilled for the need to release SOTS2 in the state that pretty much destroyed Kerberos' reputation, and was a dedicated apologist for it. One can blacken personal reputations as well as those of companies.

News to me.
I'm hanging out on Kerberos forum and I don't recall Arinn ever saying anything different than what she is saying now.