6 ms·

OMG. I can think of no stronger endorsement of a technology. take my money NOW

by miles932 12y ago

krick 12y ago
Even after "Clang"?
- Cushman 12y ago
  Clang just couldn't raise nearly the budget it needed... Neal Stephenson had a whole blog post about how it turns out that just because you're Neal Stephenson doesn't mean people will give you money to make a sword fighting video game.
  - dominotw 12y ago
    >just because you're Neal Stephenson doesn't mean people will give you money to make a sword fighting video game. Infact, that is specifically why I funded that kickstarter.
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      Did you receive any refund?
      - Cushman 12y ago
        They shipped something similar enough to what they said they'd ship that the project was a nominal success, but far enough from what people wanted that nobody's very happy about it. (AKA, a Kickstarter.)
    - Cushman 12y ago
      Yeah, me too... Unfortunately neither of us gave him nearly enough to make a difference.
  - teraflop 12y ago
    I thought the entire point of Kickstarter was to absorb the failure-to-acquire-enough-funding risk? If Clang failed because of a lack of budget, then the failure was on the part of the project owners to set their funding threshold appropriately.
    - Cushman 12y ago
      My recollection is the plan was to use the kickstarted funds to put together a tech demo, then raise funding to turn that into a game. That second part never happened for a few reasons; mainly, it is not as easy for a semi-famous author to raise money as people think. Of course that's on Stephenson, and he acknowledges it. He didn't understand the investment market. It probably wasn't a great plan in retrospect. But this seems like an odd place to complain when a risky investment doesn't pay off like you'd like.
  - pfisch 12y ago
    No. I don't agree with this at all. We had like 160k with kickstarter for Road Redemption and have made a game on early access that has sold enough to easily continue development. The problem 100% was that Neal Stephenson was incapable of doing the project himself and was just hiring devs to do it and then ran out of money. It was poorly managed because they had lots of traction and risked basically no capital on development. If you give me half a million dollars I would have no problem getting that project to an early access state. Honestly I could do it with half that. I can say that because I actually know how to make both the hardware and software side by myself if it came to that.
    - Cushman 12y ago
      This wasn't a game, it was an engine. A novel motion control scheme, more satisfying to wield than any one currently extant, and a realistic and historically accurate simulation which supports different sword fighting styles. I know a thing or two about motion controls, and game development, and sword fighting for that matter, and I am dramatically less convinced than you that this is trivial. (Even if you are able to donate a year of developer time, valued in the six figures, which in fairness to your point is not something Stephenson brought to the table along with his relatively modest personal assets. Semi-famous authors aren't as rich as people think, either.) I'm not saying I'm impressed with what they made, but I'm not too surprised either.
      - pfisch 12y ago
        I don't really think it was an engine so much as a peripheral with some mediating libraries. I would do that plus write a C# interop to make it compatible with unity so you could make your die by the sword clone quickly. What they were trying to make was basically a better wiimote, and a wiimote is essentially an arduino with a single accelerometer hooked up to it and a bluetooth receiver. I think without the budget restrictions of a wiimote you could probably use better/more responsive parts and then basically just mimic a wiimote with the wiimotion plus(which is just a single gyroscope) and call it a day. Or you could add several of each of those components and then average their output or do other clever math with their separate outputs. I think this would take a little more than a year if the person who was doing it knew what they were doing. Then you need to make the game/demo which you would do in parallel with a team of 3-4 additional people. "Even if you are able to donate a year of developer time, valued in the six figures" See this is where misunderstandings with kickstarter begin. We assumed almost no risk in making Road Redemption. In addition to salary we get 100% of revenue less distribution. So not only did we get to draw salary during development, now we get all the sales revenue and we own the IP. It is a crazy good deal, nobody needs to donate anything. It is basically like you get a bunch of VC money and also the VC's have no equity interest. The problem comes in when someone who is unqualified tries to middleman the operation and takes a bunch of money but is totally incapable of doing what they said they would do. Now they both don't have enough money to actually get the shit done at cost, and don't want to give away all the equity. The biggest problem though is that they are unqualified to discern who is capable of doing the task because they don't know anything about how to actually do things. So they fritter away the money and then the project falls apart.
- nkron 12y ago
  I wasn't sure what you meant by this so I had to look up some details: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/another-kickstarter-game-bites-the-dust-writer-nea/1100-6422442/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/another-kickstarter-game-bi...
hyperbovine 12y ago
"Having a product" comes to mind...
- efng 12y ago
  Oh my god grandpa, how 20th century can you be...
- miles932 12y ago
  Hence why I said "technology". If this gives Stephenson a jaw-drop moment, it's something I'd like to see turned into something we can all use.
king_magic 12y ago
... but, uh, what is the technology? What are you giving your money for? The website is pretty mystifying.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  They will basically replace customer's eyeballs with a couple of optical fibers wired directly into the visual regions of the brain. (just kidding)
- miles932 12y ago
  guesses based on analysis and conjecture: imagine a tiny projector which is tracking your eyes (and surrounding light conditions), and can project a 3d light field, rather than a 2d image onto them. With this device you could create the perception that you're looking at something in the real world which just ain't there. Hence the flying whales and tiny elephants n' such. It's a AR/VR/Display technology.

OMG. I can think of no stronger endorsement of a technology. take my money NOW

krick 12y ago

Even after "Clang"?

Cushman 12y ago
Clang just couldn't raise nearly the budget it needed... Neal Stephenson had a whole blog post about how it turns out that just because you're Neal Stephenson doesn't mean people will give you money to make a sword fighting video game.
- dominotw 12y ago
  >just because you're Neal Stephenson doesn't mean people will give you money to make a sword fighting video game. Infact, that is specifically why I funded that kickstarter.
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    Did you receive any refund?
    - Cushman 12y ago
      They shipped something similar enough to what they said they'd ship that the project was a nominal success, but far enough from what people wanted that nobody's very happy about it. (AKA, a Kickstarter.)
  - Cushman 12y ago
    Yeah, me too... Unfortunately neither of us gave him nearly enough to make a difference.
- teraflop 12y ago
  I thought the entire point of Kickstarter was to absorb the failure-to-acquire-enough-funding risk? If Clang failed because of a lack of budget, then the failure was on the part of the project owners to set their funding threshold appropriately.
  - Cushman 12y ago
    My recollection is the plan was to use the kickstarted funds to put together a tech demo, then raise funding to turn that into a game. That second part never happened for a few reasons; mainly, it is not as easy for a semi-famous author to raise money as people think. Of course that's on Stephenson, and he acknowledges it. He didn't understand the investment market. It probably wasn't a great plan in retrospect. But this seems like an odd place to complain when a risky investment doesn't pay off like you'd like.
- pfisch 12y ago
  No. I don't agree with this at all. We had like 160k with kickstarter for Road Redemption and have made a game on early access that has sold enough to easily continue development. The problem 100% was that Neal Stephenson was incapable of doing the project himself and was just hiring devs to do it and then ran out of money. It was poorly managed because they had lots of traction and risked basically no capital on development. If you give me half a million dollars I would have no problem getting that project to an early access state. Honestly I could do it with half that. I can say that because I actually know how to make both the hardware and software side by myself if it came to that.
  - Cushman 12y ago
    This wasn't a game, it was an engine. A novel motion control scheme, more satisfying to wield than any one currently extant, and a realistic and historically accurate simulation which supports different sword fighting styles. I know a thing or two about motion controls, and game development, and sword fighting for that matter, and I am dramatically less convinced than you that this is trivial. (Even if you are able to donate a year of developer time, valued in the six figures, which in fairness to your point is not something Stephenson brought to the table along with his relatively modest personal assets. Semi-famous authors aren't as rich as people think, either.) I'm not saying I'm impressed with what they made, but I'm not too surprised either.
    - pfisch 12y ago
      I don't really think it was an engine so much as a peripheral with some mediating libraries. I would do that plus write a C# interop to make it compatible with unity so you could make your die by the sword clone quickly. What they were trying to make was basically a better wiimote, and a wiimote is essentially an arduino with a single accelerometer hooked up to it and a bluetooth receiver. I think without the budget restrictions of a wiimote you could probably use better/more responsive parts and then basically just mimic a wiimote with the wiimotion plus(which is just a single gyroscope) and call it a day. Or you could add several of each of those components and then average their output or do other clever math with their separate outputs. I think this would take a little more than a year if the person who was doing it knew what they were doing. Then you need to make the game/demo which you would do in parallel with a team of 3-4 additional people. "Even if you are able to donate a year of developer time, valued in the six figures" See this is where misunderstandings with kickstarter begin. We assumed almost no risk in making Road Redemption. In addition to salary we get 100% of revenue less distribution. So not only did we get to draw salary during development, now we get all the sales revenue and we own the IP. It is a crazy good deal, nobody needs to donate anything. It is basically like you get a bunch of VC money and also the VC's have no equity interest. The problem comes in when someone who is unqualified tries to middleman the operation and takes a bunch of money but is totally incapable of doing what they said they would do. Now they both don't have enough money to actually get the shit done at cost, and don't want to give away all the equity. The biggest problem though is that they are unqualified to discern who is capable of doing the task because they don't know anything about how to actually do things. So they fritter away the money and then the project falls apart.
nkron 12y ago
I wasn't sure what you meant by this so I had to look up some details: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/another-kickstarter-game-bites-the-dust-writer-nea/1100-6422442/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/another-kickstarter-game-bi...

hyperbovine 12y ago

"Having a product" comes to mind...

efng 12y ago
Oh my god grandpa, how 20th century can you be...
miles932 12y ago
Hence why I said "technology". If this gives Stephenson a jaw-drop moment, it's something I'd like to see turned into something we can all use.

king_magic 12y ago

... but, uh, what is the technology? What are you giving your money for? The website is pretty mystifying.

CmonDev 12y ago
They will basically replace customer's eyeballs with a couple of optical fibers wired directly into the visual regions of the brain. (just kidding)
miles932 12y ago
guesses based on analysis and conjecture: imagine a tiny projector which is tracking your eyes (and surrounding light conditions), and can project a 3d light field, rather than a 2d image onto them. With this device you could create the perception that you're looking at something in the real world which just ain't there. Hence the flying whales and tiny elephants n' such. It's a AR/VR/Display technology.