Comment by waihtis
5 years ago
So let's lay down what's happened here:
1) Company proves there's a market for the product with collecting revenue with the equivalent of a slideshow
2) Raises VC money to actually build the product (Kickstarter page claims: "We know MMOs cannot be built with just $10K. We've secured the majority of our funding from some of the best investors in Silicon Valley. We know that we'll be able to deliver our Alpha and beyond with the money we already have!")
What exactly makes this different to any other Silicon Valley high risk bet?
Because there is no original thinking going on here. The idea is basically what a 5 year old would come up with if you told them to invent "the bestest most coolest game ever", with all the complete lack of deliverability that entails. Except the founders don't even seem to have game dev experience.
Silicon Valley high risk bets are bets made on market and solution.
In this case, all elements are well known: Market, distribution, effort, etc. It's a well established market with a lot of different players (indies to huge studios).
In this case, you will have to outperform the big studios. Basically you will have to compose a basketballteam and compete in the NBA. Good luck!
Any experienced game developer can see that this is the Dunning Kruger effect in action. Nothing new perse, but the new thing is that ycombinator is going along in this delusion.
Fair game. I don't know practically anything of game dev so I believe your explanation. The video itself seemed to be mostly critical about the lack of funding to fulfill their promise so thought that was the main problem here.