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[TempAcc]

The worst thing That Which Sleeps has done is give itself deadlines... multiple times.  Missing all of em.

Pretty much this. Going poof from the internet after this is like throwing cups of cold water into a waning flame you're trying to keep alive.

[gimli]

Communication today is incredibly important to keep interest in game development projects, and even more so for kickstarter-born projects.

Even if the main dev/coder is having lots of troubles with the game, if he just had kept regular contact with the community, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have nearly as many refund requests to deal with.

The worst thing That Which Sleeps has done is give itself deadlines... multiple times.  Missing all of em.

3x +1

[Cruxador]

"Other development is worse" isn't really an argument in anyone's favor.

No, it's an argument that unrealistic expectations for a semi-amateur tiny team are unrealistic. It's like demanding that a college basketball player try and throw a 95% season free throw ratio when the top professional players are only throwing in 92% range. If professional groups of software engineers with combined decades of game development under their belt are taking twice as long as TWS has before they have anything to show for it than I'm not going to expect a small handful of people on their first real large scale software project to do better than that.

Perhaps the problem is that the top professional players don't actually need to be on kickstarter in the first place. Besides amateurs, people making video game kickstarters are failures, the "professionals" that people in the profession don't really want to work with, whether it be due to incompetence, dickishness, mismanagement, or some combination thereof. The notable exceptions to this are Wasteland 2 and now Bloodstained, where a professional dev fell out of favor for other reasons but was still able to get their act together, and people like Obsidian or Hairbrained Schemes, where they actually don't really need a kickstarter to succeed but used one to increase the scope of a game they could have made anyway.

What are these kickstarters people are part of that update so constantly that aren't... well... not very good.

Generally, they aren't video games. The first one that comes to mind is CodeSpells, and that's more of a teaching tool than a game you play for fun alone; it has a different developer mindset behind it. Even something like Sui Generis is pretty good, because although updates aren't super frequent, each one is substantial and they threw together Exanima to give people a shot at what they're working on.
Now, there's two other things besides kickstarter video games we can compare to for the sake of context, so let's look at both. First up, Kickstarter non-video games. FATE core is the big name from a while back, massively successful, it gave you the base digital product for a single dollar, and has had updates consistently ever since the kickstarter despite all the initially funded material shipping literally years ago at this point. Exalted is seeing substantial slowdown (much like a typical video game kickstarter) so we won't have heard anything about it, right? But that's wrong! It has monthly updates, each one with bits of content from the backers, showing what auxiliary content is complete (or mostly so) and what state the stuff from the main body of work is in. Hell, Song of Swords hasn't even launched their kickstarter yet, and yet anyone can go to their discussion threads and download the latest draft and ask the dev questions which will get answered.
But those games have smaller scope, one might say. So let's look at video games using other models wherein someone pays money before the game is available. The classic is the pre-purchase setup; generally this option is only made available a short time before the game is actually released, and in that time period, news is abundant. We also see the "early access" paradigm, so what do update feeds like that look like? Well, they tend to hold themselves to a minimum of one substantive update per month. Examples here would include Clockwork Empires and Subnautica.

40 Days isn't that long.  Guys need to chillax.

If we got a substantial update every 40 days, that would be reasonable. This is "the last record we have of the dev existing is 40 days old". This is a dev that planned a quick series of YouTube videos, missed deadlines on the first one, missed extended deadlines on the second, and didn't release anything gameplay-related since.

[Ludorum Rex]

Everyone please remember this is not a small team/semi-amateur studio/etc. It is a one-man show. Josh is the producer, art director, game designer, lead engineer, lead tester, lead writer, lead audio designer, and the list goes on. Believe me, I know, from being in a very similar situation, and I am not even spending time yet integrating 3rd party assets. As I understand it, he is also not funded to a point where he can support himself from the development funds, so he likely has a full- or part-time job on the side. That's a tough situation.

It is also his first game project, and game development is quite challenging compared to most other software development projects - I know there are exceptions, and medical tech, aerospace and several other industries have some extremely advanced software engineering going on. But most people underestimate how difficult game programming is.

So even if it sounds weird: unexpected delays are to be expected. Now I do think there are some areas Josh and the other guy (who seems to have been active only during the founding phase?) could have done better:

• Reducing the frequency and depth of communication with the community will cause a backlash. Indie devs that do not have a full-time community manager need to be careful with the expectations they set. It might be unreasonable, but sudden radio silence will make some backers/fans nervous. A few will even feel betrayed, as the interaction with the developers is part of the "package" to these people, maybe even more important than the actual game. If a developer needs to dial down community presence, for productivity or morale reasons, the resulting backlash can be very hard to deal with psychologically.
• Be extremely careful about over-promising during crowdfunding. It was a bad call to state that the game was finished, and just needed graphical assets. Especially with stretch goals that change the scope of the project. Everyone who has ever worked with software development knows that estimating remaining work for anything but routine stuff is seriously difficult. As my first boss told me: "Once you have done 90% of a project, there is another 90% of a similar size to be done. Don't ever think you are done before you actually are."
• If you set an interim deadline for a crowdfunded project, and you can't deliver - deliver something else. Alpha isn't ready? Make a development diary or gameplay video? Beta isn't ready? Make an alpha build for the top backers. Stream a testing session. Show off some newly integrated assets.

Personally, when I participate in crowdfunding as a backer, I expect and hope the project succeeds to some degree. I may be extremely skeptical or completely confident in the ability of the team to deliver, but I never put in more money than I am prepared to lose. Because the risk that project fails, is always there. Most teams will over-promise on features and/or be too optimistic on deadlines. That's to be expected.

The best games are made by visionaries and dreamers. They are storytellers and idealists, and almost invariably bad at planning, realism, etc. They can sometimes be so passionate about their projects, that the line blurs between what is mental construct and a physical reality. Peter Molyneux is a good example - he has created some amazing games, but he has also passed off some serious pipe dreams as features in his games.

These people work best with other people to anchor them, to focus their insane creative energy and to shield them, and their fans, from disappointment. Now, I don't know if Josh is such a person, but I suspect it. For such a person the psychological pressure of having to present a game, that might not have every feature he has promised and described so vividly, even if it is a beta, and he still has time to add stuff, would be immense. I don't know how far he is with his game, but the fact that people are asking for refunds, drumming up negativity or outright attacking him, is certainly not helping him progress with the actual development.

I hope he is making good progress despite everything, because I would really, really, love to play the game. I've reached out to him on the TWS forums and offered to help out with sparring and advice on technical issues, if there are any such blocking him.

[i2amroy]

@Cruxador
Or maybe they're like the Mighty No. 9 team and are essentially creating a new company specifically for a particular product and need start up capital. Seriously, that team is filled with people like Keiji Inafune, the professionals on Kickstarter that I'm talking about here are not "failures", they're people and companies with tons of experience making games, and they still take longer than we've waited for this to produce something solid. Heck, even now Mighty No. 9 only recently released (yet another) "the project is going to be delayed" message a few months back to their backers.

You want to criticize the lack of communication? Go right ahead, and I agree with you that the lack of it has been a major problem. But don't criticize the rookies for the lack of something concrete after such a short amount of time, and don't criticize new people in the industry for making mistakes that even advanced professionals do fairly regularly (though you could criticize them a bit for their arrogance in believing it wouldn't happen to them if you wanted to).

I'll reiterate, my problem isn't with the people who are calling for communication (because I agree that that is a problem), my problem is with the people calling for mass refunds because the 1 man programming team hasn't managed to produce something concrete in half the time it took a group of professional software engineers to do so.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I'll reiterate, my problem isn't with the people who are calling for communication (because I agree that that is a problem), my problem is with the people calling for mass refunds because the 1 man programming team hasn't managed to produce something concrete in half the time it took a group of professional software engineers to do so.

I think part of the issue is that developer silence is exactly what is causing people to jump ship: as we already mentioned by another person on this forum, Toady maintained player interest through long development stretches through the occasional tantalizing hint or interesting bug. He also released a build of the game, though. A working build at that, if occasionally buggy.

This too should be considered as a solution to the complicated one man game: Toady, and back with Cataclysm, Whales (before he abandoned the project to the community) opened themselves to the community for patient bug testing, fixes, suggestions, mods etc. The games grew from this in response.

When the developer goes silent and has never so much as released a buggy and broken build, in the age of numerous broken alphas which sell on the open market, people will rightfully get suspicious that the whole game will just never materialize.

I am not clammoring for a refund (didn't kickstart, bought it last may) yet, but if you sell a product, you really cannot back out of it and expect people not to hold you responsible. 

[Egan_BW]

I think the best think for him to do would be to just release the beta, even if it does randomly crash a bit.

[forsaken1111]

I think the best think for him tondo would be to.just realise the beta, even if it does randomly crash a bit.

I don't think that would be a good idea personally but what do I know

[Sergarr]

I think the best for him would be to finally start releasing those YouTube videos that he was talking so much before, this time without deadlines, because it's pretty clear that deadlines mess with his mind.

[Neonivek]

Everyone please remember this is not a small team/semi-amateur studio/etc. It is a one-man show.

You know what is weird? It is the exact opposite situation

IF he was a professional studio NO ONE would question his silence for 40 days. They wouldn't question his silence for 6 months. I am sure a year could pass without a single news story and people would sit in their seats.

It is because he is a one-man show that they demand so much of his constant attention.

[ndkid]

Everyone please remember this is not a small team/semi-amateur studio/etc. It is a one-man show.

You know what is weird? It is the exact opposite situation

IF he was a professional studio NO ONE would question his silence for 40 days. They wouldn't question his silence for 6 months. I am sure a year could pass without a single news story and people would sit in their seats.

It is because he is a one-man show that they demand so much of his constant attention.

If a major studio kept communicating times that demos/betas/information would be out on X date, and X date passes, and major studio says nothing, and then continues to say nothing for 40 days, you seriously think nobody would be up in arms?

If the major studio just says "we're going to go make this game", no release date, whatever, great, sure, they get months of radio silence, no big deal. That's also true of a great many Kickstarter campaigns... I can think of a solid half-dozen that are really, *REALLY* slow to show anything, and there isn't a big negative push against them.

But when you keep promising things, keep missing them, and then go into a deep radio silence, you're going to get pushback, regardless of size.

[Neonivek]

If a major studio kept communicating times that demos/betas/information would be out on X date, and X date passes, and major studio says nothing, and then continues to say nothing for 40 days, you seriously think nobody would be up in arms?

Experience tells me no.

[nenjin]

If a major studio kept communicating times that demos/betas/information would be out on X date, and X date passes, and major studio says nothing, and then continues to say nothing for 40 days, you seriously think nobody would be up in arms?

Experience tells me no.

Experience tells me you're wrong. As if XCOM2 missing its release date and going radio silent for 40 days wouldn't have caused the internet to collectively lose their shit. How many years have people been making Half Life 3 jokes despite it never even officially existing?

[Neonivek]

If a major studio kept communicating times that demos/betas/information would be out on X date, and X date passes, and major studio says nothing, and then continues to say nothing for 40 days, you seriously think nobody would be up in arms?

Experience tells me no.

Experience tells me you're wrong. As if XCOM2 missing its release date and going radio silent for 40 days wouldn't have caused the internet to collectively lose their shit. How many years have people been making Half Life 3 jokes despite it never even officially existing?

To be honest I didn't even notice.

[Cruxador]

@Cruxador
Or maybe they're like the Mighty No. 9 team and are essentially creating a new company specifically for a particular product and need start up capital. Seriously, that team is filled with people like Keiji Inafune, the professionals on Kickstarter that I'm talking about here are not "failures", they're people and companies with tons of experience making games, and they still take longer than we've waited for this to produce something solid. Heck, even now Mighty No. 9 only recently released (yet another) "the project is going to be delayed" message a few months back to their backers.

Mighty No. 9 is criticized quite harshly. The only thing saving it from more criticism at this point is that, after the last two delays on top of the character design debacle, many people have already written it off. Also, if Keiji Inafune wasn't a failure in some respect there would have been little reason for him to leave Comcast. While we can't know the real details, his record reads as more of a "right place, right time" than a business wizard.