PlatinumGames Admits Wonderful 101 Kickstarter Had Nothing To Do With Raising Funds

... I knew it!
That kickstarter timing seemed odd when they just got the funding and then suddenly, game is already done and being pushed out.

I assumed they needed the money to finish things, I didn't know it was already slated to come out in a few months. What an idea though, using kickstarter to guage interest.

I feel like I should be mad but I'm too impressed to be.

Not surprised, but not angry. I mean, those millions funded is enough for about 4 runs of the merch and the development for those stretch goals. As long as we still get the final game, I won't complain.

So, it isn't being used to retroactively fund the game, but it is being used for all the kick-starter tier rewards, including additional content? Well okay then, not what I was expecting, but fair enough I guess.

I'm mixed on this, i see the logic used and it has made the game attract more interest then it would normally and its nice the money used will used on all the new content however i don't like the idea of Kickstarter being abused like this. Kickstarter is a great thing but the Shenmue 3 stunt and stuff like this brings down the good will the service has. As i said i get the logic and its paid off and i like they're being honest about it now but it does feel a tad wrong. Honestly stuff like this and this "games as a service" thing they're doing is making me worried Tencent is getting too involved and Platinum is becoming something no one wants it to be.

It should be noted that backers of the W101 Remastered game will get their copies two weeks early from retail release, and yes, any DLC is free for backers. With 4 days remaining, if you had an eye on this game, you’re welcome to back this. Admittedly, we backers do need some help with a social media mission we are having trouble with... Its not the money thats the problem... its the amount of backers and anyone else on those social media missions. Kickstarter campaign ends on Friday noon Pacific.

I figured as much from the beginning.

So, its a Shenmue 3 type situation, lovely. That means the actual publisher should be announced at some point.

It's not like, horrible they did this, but it's really not in the spirit of Kickstarter to just use it for marketing purposes. Oh well.

That kinda makes them seem dishonest. Acting like a game you want won’t come to fruition if you don’t back the Kickstarter when they knew from the start it was almost ready to ship...? Anyone else feel like that’s not the right angle to take with kickstarters?

At least they’re being honest now.

Honestly, I thought this seemed reasonably obvious from the beginning. It's not like Platinum is hurting for money.

The people who would have bought the game anyway got it through the kick starter. Plus the DLC. Doesn’t seem all that nefarious to me.

This is a good way to use Kickstarter!
Now someone buy the rights to the SHADOWRUN fps that was on Xbox360 and port it to switch!!!!! Amazing game and I’d love to play that again. It had an extremely dedicated fanbase and I’m willing to bet you could get quite a lot of support for it now on Switch!

I backed it but I also believe I'll be getting the game from them at a cheaper price than what i can get at retail so i'm not too worried about it.

If it isn't about the money, perhaps they could give everyone's money back? Perhaps they could have used change.org instead?

You're telling me I got blocked on Twitter for nothing?

@WallyWest They said the Tencent money isn't being used for this.

@TimboSlice I also want Shadowrun SNES

@Moistnado They're using the money to work on stretch goals and make all the merchandise they promised

Isn’t that really what Kickstarter is meant to be for though? Remember nobody is charged unless the goal is reached so yeah it doesn’t just ask average people if they want a product, but actually has them put their money where their mouth is.

@Snakesglowcaps to be fair, it was pretty much a certainty that the Switch release goal was going to be hit, after they set the goal for it ridiculously low.

To me, it always seemed like it was about gauging interest, specifically interest about launching the game on other platforms.

I'd also much rather back a Kickstarter like this, when you know that you're not going to be waiting forever for the game to finally release, and the quality of the game is already a known quantity. Especially when they've priced the game itself reasonably.

@WallyWest I think the important thing to note here is that they've admitted this before anything is locked in. If you're a backer and you don't like this, you can just remove your pledge, no problem.

@Snakesglowcaps Well the money is still being used to help with the game

Sure, nothing was kickstarted, fair to critique that. But how many legitimate, needy indie projects were also never actually kickstarted in the end because of mismanagement or dishonesty? I think people just want to finally back something credible that they know isnt going to end in a mystery with nothing to show. Can’t blame it.

@kepsux Not in the spirit, yes, but it's not being wasted.

At least it's not a outright scam or a incompetent mess like Yogventures or Might No. 9.

Is it just me or are there other ways to gauge interest?

@nessisonett Good on you for only reading half the article

Well, I'm about to back it anyway. Want that free dlc

Well, we backers got the game cheaper and free DLC ... so.... who the hell is mad at this strategy? It’s a win-win for everyone

Considering the estimated delivery date for backer rewards was April, this is really to be expected.

The initial reaction is to be upset, but just realise that backers are getting the game at a cheaper price and the DLC. It’s a good deal. And the extra money is mostly being used on the bonus content? Great.

Soo...why not host a petition instead then?
While i'm not particularly mad about it, since, as many have pointed out, people haven't really been robbed here, is it really that hard to use these sites for their intended purposes and not as "interest gauging tools that also make you a pretty penny on the side"?

"Oh, and I forgot to mention. A very large portion of the Kickstarter funds will go to the Chinese Government. Cool, huh?"

@BloodyMurder looks like the Publisher is Nighthawk according to gamestop.com

Not surprised. Kickstarter has increasingly become nothing more than a platform for free advertising for large company. There are still a few small businesses who truly need the money to do a project, but that’s increasingly scarce.

And also not surprised to see Platinum doing it. They seem to be willing to do anything it if means getting free press.

Some companies sure have a weird way of gauging interest. Right now fans are screaming at Atlus for a P5 switch port and are even being told by the PR reps to keep asking. Same with Capcom. Though Capcom blamed fans for not being supportive of Legends 3 when the opposite was true! So when is enough, enough?

I’m not the least bit bothered. The company is amazing; their products are amazing. The fact that the game is getting a second life on the Switch is amazing.

@Einherjar “Also forgot to mention that the funds from Tencent isn’t being used for this game. Cool, huh?”
Now hush up

We didn't want people's money, but they sure did fall for it. Mauaahahahaha!

It's certainly not the first time a Kickstarter was run primarily just to gauge interest, rather than for the actual funds needed.

@Entrr_username What's your problem? Woke up on the wrong side of your mother this morning?

@Entrr_username Wasn't the Tencent deal always meant to enable Platinum to finally be able to self publish instead of constantly being dependent on someone to greenlight their projects (Sega, Nintendo)?

No issues with that really.

@ObsidianEleven I could have swore they didn’t confirm it’d be coming in May or whatever it was until after they got boatloads of money. That to me seems a tad dishonest since it was coming no matter what. They held out with the premise that the switch port may not happen until they’d gotten money to make it happen on multiple platforms. I may be incorrect but as far as I recall the game wasn’t confirmed until a large sum had been donated.

@Einherjar I don't know much about it besides what I said

@Snakesglowcaps Nowhere did they say it was coming "no matter what". That's clearly wouldn't be the case if fan interest was that low. Would have been a waste
@Moistnado A company using Change.org? You have to be joking

The nature of using money to gauge interest still doesn't sit quite right with me, but forcing consumers to put their money where their mouth is certainly sounds like something Kamiya would do, so I'm not really surprised.

@graysoncharles Funny how you read that part yet ignore literally the beginning of the quote. Shame

I don't really see a problem with this

I was getting the game anyway, so it doesn’t bother me supporting them through Kickstarter. Cheaper that way too.

@echoplex by definition they ARE an indie company. And even though they are a financially healthy company, they are an independent studio looking for growth.

These kind of success stories like PlatinumGames are pretty rare in the gaming world. Their games are top notch and if it takes a Kickstarter to keep them making unique games and independent until they become their own publisher, I will be all up for it.

@graysoncharles by taking money..... for a product.... uh? Isn’t it like... buying something?

@Entrr_username you’re kidding yourself if you think they had the port ready to go that quickly and didn’t 100% plan on shipping it regardless.

Platinum, you sly dogs

@ObsidianEleven how much is the game?

@Snakesglowcaps Never meant that

Kickstarter campaigns have always been about marketing and community building as much as fundraising. I think the Wonderful 101 kickstarter is novel and interesting in two ways, it was a means to kickstart Platinum’s self publishing career and it was in some indirect way Nintendo’s first foray into crowdfunding. Imagine a world where developers can take order dormant Nintendo IPs and revive them with crowdfunding.

@Saemon stop excusing their horrible attitude

Now do Viewtiful Joe...

"Don't lie to people. Don't post information you know is false, misleading or inaccurate." "Projects can't mislead people or misrepresent facts".
These are direct quotes pulled from Kickstarter's rules.

I won't go as far as to imply there was malicious intent, but regardless of how they put it, Platinum LIED to their backers. They said they were crowdfunding a game (and a Switch port) that already existed and was pretty much ready to ship, and are now claiming "this will fund shiny merch!".
Every reward tier guarantees a copy of the game, yes - but notice the lowest tier is $37, and you were able to pledge anything below that, starting from $10, for no reward. THAT is essentially free money Platinum got, and they got it for lying. For every backer that's okay with it, there is a backer that will feel scammed - and I wouldn't blame them. They paid to get this project off the ground and make the game happen - NOT to fund merchandise they will then have to pay more for to actually own! Just imagine the likes of EA or Koei Tecmo noticing this and thinking it's an acceptable practice!

I'm very interested in how this plays out. I wonder if this is grounds for Kickstarter to pull the funding.

This is one of the reasons why I stopped backing kickstarter projects. Kickstarter has either: a too ambitious goal by the creator and they can never actually deliver (if at all) what they promised. (See Mighty no. 9, Bloodstained, etc) OR they had enough money to begin with and just use Kickstarter for publicity. Right now I've actually seen one game that actually delivered on the kickstarter promise. And that was Shovel Knight.

Did...did I just get manipulated into funding a PS4 version!?!

I'm glad it's coming but this doesn't feel in the spirit of crowd funding...

Exploitative.

@Dwarfette We've seen multiple instances of this happening. And Kickstarter is usually okay with it. They take their cut of the money.

I would like star fox zero without motion control please x x

You must be new to Kickstarter if this is surprising to you in any way. Every time a bigger company is doing a Kickstarter campaign it is to "gauge interest", especially for video games . Even if the game isn't already finished when the campaign starts, it is more useful as bargaining chip with investors/publishers than for the actual money. Even if you get a million or two through Kickstarter, that isn't enough to fund a mid tier game and a huge chunk of it is eaten up by paying for fees and physical rewards.

In addition most backers treat it as a glorified pre-order anyway. I don't have a problem with developers doing the same.

@sanderev Welp, there goes that possible outcome Those damn games, always just an illusion of choice!

If you didn't know what was going on when you saw the $50,000 Switch goal, then you're probably out of the loop on a bunch of other stuff too including your girlfriend "hanging out" with her straight male "best friend" named Chad.

I donated simply to show support, but the game was already done for the Switch by the Kickstarter.

Why don't they just open a merch store?

I could save money and buy exactly what I want when I want

It felt more like preordering a game at a reasonable price than backing a project to me.

I think they did kind of use Kickstarter for the wrong reasons. But I don’t feel used. It was the first project I’ve backed as it seemed very low risk I wouldn’t get the game.

This goes well with the nature of Kickstarter. Kickstarting the relaunch, rather than demanding your most dedicated audience pay for the whole party.

Too bad, demand and success on Kickstarter doesn't mean jack. 😕 I don't know, what PG is expecting sales wise, but I still believe the game will "fail". It will surely sell more, because it's releasing on 4 platforms, but it's just not a game for the masses and around 80% of the sales will be on Switch either way.

@BloodyMurder Could you fill me in on Shenmue 3?

I backed this for the physical copy. I've not been charged yet. I assume they'll send out emails to finalise it.does anyone know if this is correct?

i kind of like it, a sure thing for a discount, not sure how much the discount is though...

might be a interesting way around setting the price, physical vs digital

@fafonio does this mean the 2nd dlc level is a sure thing?

@graysoncharles
They are essentially taking pre-orders for the game and ensuring that they are selling enough copies to make a re-release viable.

Nothing wrong with that imo.

@PlayedNSlayed

Of course

@PlayedNSlayed With kickstarter, the money is not taken until the period of time is up, to make sure they are successful before taking money.

@BloodyMurder They’re self-publishing as far as we know.

Wherever the money goes, there is no scam in here : people pay for a game, they got their game delivered (and for a time, not an eternity after the purchase). So it's all good to me.
And indeed, this move clearly put some light on the game.

Personnally I didn't "kickstarted" it, but I'll sure buy it when I'll see it in stores.

@Darlinfan I guess I was wrong in thinking that kickstarter was for people to donate towards kickstarting things. I suppose there were no false pretenses then. Do you regularly laugh your a** off at things like this? Perhaps it needs to be more firmly attached?

@Entrr_username yes, I was.

It was obvious the base game was pretty much already complete when they only asked for $50,000 for the Switch version.

@Bunkerneath Yes thanks,I did think this would be the case. I assume it will be sometime soon too if the release date is close

Seems dishonest to me. I didn’t back the game so it doesn’t affect me, but I feel like people would be extremely pissed about this news if it came from any other studio.

I'm still gonna count this as one of the good Kickstarter campaigns. If generating interest was what it was meant to do, then it succeeded. Now I have to make an important decision; Just back it enough for a physical copy, or pay double for Hideki Kamiya to ban me on Twitter...?

I figured as much since the delivery date was April of this year. I just didn’t know if it was going towards publishing costs or not. Sounds like it isn’t. No big deal, I’d prefer they be honest.

@PlayedNSlayed

Yep, they still have 4 days left, but after that you should get an email. They’re close to cracking 2 million, we’ll see if they hit it.

Yep people speak with their wallets. Then get disappointed once the buzz wears off.

101 comments... Well, I'm sure someone else will break that. Anyway, yeah this was obvious. I also didn't think it was just going to the extra content and kickstarter reward productions. Some clearly will help them with their new office and self publishing efforts.

https://media1.tenor.com/images/491516f11829b00fd7fb178a3fc83843/tenor.gif

@Darlinfan I'm not sure you read anything at all. Maeki Yasutaka in the 101 campaign video said "we don't have the money to do all that porting". The campaign clearly matches sums of money the act of releasing the game on different consoles. 50K is required for a Switch release, 250K for Steam. This article suggests that this was not what the campaign was for, considering the game is ready to ship in May and Atsushi Inaba made some statements about gauging interest. I concede that nintendolife has a habit of making things seem juicier in the title than the actual article but Platinum appears to have been a little misleading. Anyway, I'm not going to quote the article to you or explain what the words on your screen mean. Figure it out for yourself.

lolol suckers!!

Great! Now let’s start one for Scalebound on Switch!

Now that's some scummy clickbait.

Kickstarter was an interesting idea, but then people take advantage of it to not do what it was used for. I'm feeling pretty burnt on a couple things I've kickstarted that are either straight up dropped without product coming out (Riven) or stuck in development hell it feels like(Camelot unchained). I have seen some success (Timespinners was great, and Bloodstained is a pretty decent game with a shoddy starting port to switch). Overall it's bloated and abused now so I probably won't be using it unless something really catches my eye. Things like this especially though I don't want to support when they straight up lie.

@Spoony_Tech Yup. Could've just had people take a survey or sign a petition for free instead of making people speak with their money. I feel like that's pretty shady of them to do a kickstarter for a game that's already basically done and by a company that doesn't need the money. Glad I didn't back this.

@AstralSoul64 What's funny is I've been against it since day one. Something just seemed off with the whole thing. To me Kickstater is intended for smaller companies just starting out with their first game. Not a larger company that has been in business for as long as Platinum and doing well mind you.

@Spoony_Tech Agreed and that's what Kickstarter is supposed to be. But I guess not anymore. :-/

Good to know outsiders looking in are willing to stupidly write this off as a con or cash grab without knowing jack.

This is exactly what I said in my comment on the original news. I'm a fan of Platinum, but I'm very glad I didn't back this.

@Snakesglowcaps

The Switch goal was $50,000, which they were always going to hit. We knew it, they knew it. They clearly already had it ready, or about ready, to go. The game coming out (at least on Switch) was never really in doubt.

Also, as far as I recall, they said from the start that it was expected around end of April.

Kickstarter was clearly targeted for two reasons; to create hype, and to gauge interest in the IP on other platforms. Quite a few people called it from the start.

As for price, I guess that depends where you are in the world. I backed at about £35 for the physical copy inc. shipping. You seem to be in Canada, so about $60 CAD according to XE. I don't think that's too unreasonable really.

@ObsidianEleven usually games are $80 before tax here. If it’s $60 that’d make it better and more worth it

I see to many nice comments. Just because you like the game doesn't mean it is ok to mislead fans. I would have been ok with it if they had stated that from the beggining.

This is just a shameful move on behalf of Platinum. It destroys what crowdfunding is met to be