There once was a time when having little to nothing to show for a game seeking funding through Kickstarter would have had no problem reaching five or six digits but that was nearly four years ago. These days the discerning backer needs something to see to make him or her want to give their hard earned cash to a project. Even with a demo visual novel A More Beautiful World has next to nothing to prove its worth. And, for the record when I tried to download it I couldn’t. Maybe it was just my connection at the time but that’s certainly a cause for concern.
Here’s what we know about A More Beautiful World. Violetta is a witch in a world that’s all but forgotten about magic and she’s on a journey to meet new people and stuff. Other than that all we really know about the game is that it’s a “kinetic visual novel” that’s pure dialogue. The pitch video is just the trailer and there are no screenshots to show off at all. I had to go to the company’s Web site just to grab the couple shown here. For the most part the front page of the campaign is barren. It’s short and tells me nothing about what to expect from the full title. Even if I can download the demo I’m not sure I’m willing to sit through an hour for something I know nothing of.
I don’t want to be overly negative towards A More Beautiful World, and I’m sure it’ll be a great experience for those that want this type of story, but Afterthought Studios are living up to their name here. The pitch is little more than an afterthought. It feels like they did the bare minimal research on how to run a successful campaign. That said, if they were to maybe reach out to someone with a little more experience in the matter they might be able to garner more interest. I might even give them a second glance if they do.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The developers for A More Beautiful World had contacted me and thanked me for the critique. They made adjustments to the pitch and it does indeed look a lot better than it did at the time of this writing. They also provided multiple download links for the demo which I will take a look at. The last thing that I want is to give any indie developer a bad reputation. I apologize if this has offended anyone.
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Sketchy kickstarters are starting to ruin the name of “kickstarting”.
Your “review” or whatever I’m supposed to call it is biased to the level of “dirt”
I’ve checked their KS page and guess what. Screenshots are there so is downloadable demo.
Please make sure you know what you writing.
– A fan
At the time of my writing they didn’t have any screenshots. And I did point out that they had a demo but I couldn’t download it.
I downloaded the demo since day 1 of their kickstater campaign, it was working fine.
I understand criticism. It’s fine but writing such “whatever” this is? That’s utter bollocks of a reason firing bullets saying “how to not run kickstater” because you couldn’t download the game due a possible connection error?
You are the reason I don’t read game reviews cause they are bunch of biased shit spit out of peoples thoughts of boredom.
Not sure how this article could be considered a review, it seems to pretty clearly come across as editorializing on the fact that a campaign launched with some key elements missing.
I don’t think it’s wrong for people to raise their expectations with regards to new crowdfunding campaigns. Developers shouldn’t expect people to give them money in exchange for showing off a vague trailer and some text. I’m happy the demo link is working now and that some screenshots have been added, it makes for a much more robust campaign at this point, one that it wouldn’t be unreasonable for people to back. When it launched though? Definitely not.
Hope you enjoy the demo! With any luck we’ll get a chance to check it out.
You should have double checked it with someone else or take a look to see if it is available via mobile. Was it that hard? If the link was working, how does it become a cause of concern? This is not so far different from libel.
The both of you are clearly avoiding the point that the demo link was working fine for everyone.
Also, watch this Japanese visual novel trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCYeFsX7xB0
It is quite clear that the two of you have no idea what a visual novel is
I don’t read review myself (especially on steam). I like to watch Angry Joe though (i like the cosplay part..i must admit it..). Still this article rather made me think “i will never write reviews in my life”.
It’s crazy the whole hire you can get sometimes..for no good reason than exposing your opinion..and the whole bullying stuff..as if Serena was some sort of uber journalist working at NY times..and she had incomparable power of persuasion.
I am not saying who’s right or wrong. Still have some common sense, it’s not because you’re making a bad article on a game that you’re singling it out or bullying..or making things difficult for a game.
last time i checked, cliqist wasn’t Rock, paper, shotgun or IGN.
From my point of view, the article was a little aggressive for no good reason, but the reaction was overstretched.
I can confirm they didn’t have screenshots or much more content at the time the campaign was posted. The campaign still doesn’t say much about the story or characters beyond that you’re a witch, but I suppose that’s what a demo is for.
Serena mentioned doing a footnote, so good call on that. Believe she’ll be posting that soon. She’s also checking out the demo.
I just added a footnote to the end of the article to reflect that there has been an update to the main page and that I will look at the demo via new links provided. Thank you for confirming the information in my article.
Serena Nelson shows how not to write an honest review but demonstrates flawlessly how to needlessly bully an independent game for no discernible reason. The entire article seems to stem from her desperation to make a wisecrack about the name of the studio. The page has pictures, video and the download works fine. There are actually bad kickstarters out there but this isn’t one of them. I have to assume this article was written as either a bullying tactic or retaliation for something. Either way, there’s some significantly questionable journalism here.
I am far from being a bully. I tried to be as objective as I could given the lack of information at the time of my writing. There were no screenshots on the main page and I never said that there wasn’t a video. Just that all they had was a trailer. I also pointed out that while there was a demo I couldn’t play it. Not for lack of trying. I wanted to give it a shot but it was a bare pitch when I went to check it out. As I’m sure you know things can be changed up until the campaign ends.
I don’t see anything but bullying here. If your intention was to demonstrate the best way to run a KS campaign you could have listed the habits of highly successful studios along with common mistakes to avoid but that isn’t what you chose to do. You singled out a game, seemingly at random for ridicule. You didn’t play the demo, despite no one else having a problem getting it and there’s no evidence that it’s any kind of scam. Did you discuss any of your grievances with the developer before you decided to assassinate game? I’m guessing not. Did one of the developers say or do something terrible to you personally? Because from any other perspective this is just unnecessary, cruel and uncalled for.
Unfortunately at the time this was published there were no screenshots on the page and the download link to the demo didn’t work.
We cover hundreds of campaigns, and at the time this one fell into what we call ‘low information,’ which is a campaign that launches with so little information that people couldn’t reasonably decide to back it based on what was shown. Some people still back those campaigns, and that’s totally fine, but unfortunately low information campaigns hurt the platform overall (in my opinion) because it comes across as people just asking for money without showing any real reason why someone should give it to them.
That statement is so offensively inaccurate. There was more than enough information. As has been repeated stated. This article should be covering a failed campaign, not trying to create one.
Well, apparently if this article hadn’t come out to complain that the kickstarter page was missing all its information, they wouldn’t have bothered updating the kickstarter to include it.
You should be THANKING this article for pointing out what you were doing wrong so you could fix it.
What is wrong with you? This article didn’t help anything. It is about a campaign that isn’t over yet, so it is not possible to tell if it was being run poorly. And if it fails, the defamatory claims made by this site, in my opinion make it liable for said failure. If they wanted to write this article well they would’ve needed to pick a failure, not one in progress. There is only ONE reason to do that. To try to hurt a struggling artist. I mean, the author claimed the download link was broken, but it was never a problem for literally ANYONE else. At all. The author couldn’t be bothered to try the link from another computer, or OS, or in other words verify her claim in any way shape or form. This holds true of every single claim made by the author because she posted this article less than 24 hours after the kickstater went up. You can’t follow leads in that much time. This is irresponsible journalism at it’s worst. This site, the author and you should all be ashamed of yourselves. And this article should have a fucking retraction posted.
I suggest following Kickstarter projects a bit more often to get some perspective on things.
Greg you know nothing about me. Once again you have not done any journalistic leg work. Just wild unfounded accusations. You should be ashamed.
I like you. I hope you stick around. 😉
Why? You’re terrible at your job, and you have a terrible sense of humor.
As Greg mentioned there were no screenshots at the time of my writing. I had to pull from the limited pool on their Web site. They did add several screenshots to the pitch after the fact and it does look better.
And you’re right. I don’t have any experience actually writing project pitches. But, I have critiqued several both before and during a campaign. I also have backed nearly 300 projects since 2012 so I should know what I’m talking about.
They also provided alternative links to the demo which I will try out and give them “a second glance”.
This article should have been titled How Not to be a Responsible Journalist. You absolutely viciously attacked an indie developer without doing any real leg work. You keep saying that “at the time of posting” all your statements were true. Maybe, but they were misleading at best, and blatant deformation at worst. You said that they should get someone who knows how to run a kickstarter, did you know that the person running this one has also helped run several other kick starters this year? All of them successful. How about mentioning that after only 24 hour they have been 22% funded. At that rate they will be making you look like a fool within a week.
You mentioned that they didn’t have screen shots on the kickstarter page, this was because all the art is currently pretty rough, and is going to be redone. Something that was clearly stated on the page. Did you even read it? That wasn’t being unprofessional, it was by design, they figured if you wanted to see it you could just look at the provided website. Where you got it. Next you claimed that had no developer video, just a trailer. What the hell is wrong with that?! The main Dev is from Singapore, and the american team may be camera shy for other reasons. Do you know the cost in making one of those stupid “We set out to change the way people look at” videos cost? Plus I have never seen one that wasn’t annoying and pointless. If a trailer, and description are enough to sell literally any triple A title, why are indie developers any different?
You article makes me wonder, were you bullied by indie developers as a child? Or did kickstarter touch you in a bad place? Perhaps you just never got funding for YOUR kickstarter, and you are now bitter. What the hell would motivate you to write something so poorly researched? Given that you posted this mere hours after the game went up, it’s not even possible that you could’ve done your homework. You should be ashamed of your self. You are a detriment to indie culture, gaming and journalism. Do you know anything about getting interviews? I’m not a journalist, but isn’t it common to at least request a comment prior to posting a story? I mean at least Fox News can do that much! Apparently you have lower standards. Did you even try to download the demo from a different computer? Because to date, you are the only person who has had ANY trouble with it.
What I seriously want you to answer for is, how do you justify what you did? Why would you do it?
I don’t think you should just apologize for this, you should post a retraction. Admit that you were wrong and walk away with some semblance of professionalism and integrity. Anything less is pathetic. Because every minute you leave this story up it could hurt some people who just wanted to create something.
Xander, I’m deleting your message due to some offensive remarks in your comments. Referencing “inappropriate touching” in a discussion about videogames and kickstarter is never ok. If you would like to post something more appropriate and constructive I encourage you to do so.
Well if only you had taken the time to monitor the articles on this site as well as the comments then you wouldn’t have this problem. I find this whole debacle pretty offensive.
This article should have been titled How Not to be a Responsible Journalist. You absolutely viciously attacked an indie developer without doing any real leg work. You keep saying that “at the time of posting” all your statements were true. Maybe, but they were misleading at best. You said that they should get someone who knows how to run a kickstarter, did you know that the person running this one has also helped run several other kickstarters this year? All of them successful. How about mentioning that after only 24 hour they have been 22% funded. At that rate they will be making you look like a fool within a week.
You mentioned that they didn’t have screen shot on the kickstarter page, this was because all the art is currently pretty rough, and is going to be redone. That wasn’t being unprofessional, it was by design, they figured if you wanted to see it you could just look at the provided website. Where you got it. Next you claimed that had no developer video, just a trailer. What the hell is wrong with that?! The main Dev is from Singapore, and the american team may be camera shy for other reasons. Do you know the cost in making one of those stupid “We set out to change the way people look at” videos cost? Plus I have never seen one that wasn’t annoying and pointless. If a trailer, and description are enough to sell literally any triple A title, why are indie developers any different?
You article makes me wonder, were you bullied by indie developers as a child? What the hell would motivate you to write something so poorly researched? Given that you posted this mere hours after the game went up, it’s not even possible that you could’ve done your homework. You should be ashamed of your self. You are a detriment to indie culture, gaming and journalism. Do you know anything about getting interviews? I’m not a journalist, but isn’t it common to at least request comment prior to posting a story? I mean at least Fox News can do that much! Apparently you have lower standards. Did you even try to download the demo from a different computer? Because to date, you are the only person who has had ANY trouble with it.
What I seriously want you to answer for is, how do you justify what you did? Why would you do it?
I don’t think you should just apologize for this, you should post a retraction. Admit that you were wrong and walk away with some semblance of professionalism and integrity. Anything less is pathetic.