Do you want give KI's dev team a bigger budget?

General Discussion
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Okay, so with all of the talk lately of how Killer Instinct is under-funded when compared to that of other fighting game franchises like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, I started to wonder if the fans of this game would be willing to start a public crowdfund for the game that we all seem to enjoy so much.

Many people don’t think Killer Instinct is a AAA title when it should be, so let me ask you this: what’s stopping us from making it into one? Someone, I think, should start up a Kickstarter or something similar, asking fans to donate money to improve the development process/cycle for the game. Now, I want to be clear - this isn’t necessarily to guarantee that we get specific features (such as additional stages) like many people have been suggesting (although that could potentially be a by-product of this crowdfunding), but to simply help our favorite franchise thrive and to show our appreciation. In turn, if we can get the devs on board, they can promise backers free stuff in the future, such as free KI gold, exclusive character colors, etc. The money that is donated could even be used for a 4th season or a sequel, or for other things, like simply to hire new talent for the dev team itself.

The fine folks at Iron Galaxy and Microsoft said that they would continue to support the game as long as we keep playing it. However, will we keep playing it if the game stops evolving? I’m not so sure about that. So, let’s show them that we truly care by adding to their own pool of already-existing resources by putting more money into their pot! I personally can think of no better way to truly show our appreciation for the Killer Instinct franchise outside of simply playing it.

If we do this, I think it should be run by someone relatively official that everyone knows and trusts within the community itself - but who would that be? Who’s willing to step up to the plate? The community manager, perhaps?

So, to put you to the question: Would you be willing to personally show your support by helping fund Killer Instinct’s dev team in exchange for a better experience/faster development timetable? Why or why not?

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maybe, maybe not, kinda a double edged sword … to make it a AAA budget, they need AAA buyers, meaning simplifying the gameplay (a la that button mash combo assist thing they put in)

IMO, keeping KI a niche game will allow it to have the perfect sweet spot of deep complex gameplay it has.

Do I think instead, Microsoft should give them a bonus to take a vacation after Season 3? yeah, why not. They deserve it.

IMO of course.

KI is finished (as in, the final brush stroke) IMO. Just give everybody their stages, and cutscenes, and patches and stuff. Wait for next gen to let the devs and fans get hungry for a sequel again … and for every gamer to find out just how deep the gameplay can go.

Answer:I wanna pay for new costumes and perfect my main, not play a memory game with a new batch of shadow move patterns and stuff in an S4

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Microsoft would probably own it, but why not give the devs the trust of creating a new IP now that KI has proven to be arguably the best game this generation?

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I invest in the game by purchasing the seasons. If MS gave me other ways to invest in the game (ie, by launching more costumes and KI-specific opportunities like announcers for reasonable prices… you know, the type of stuff every other fighting game is doing), I would happily do that. But they haven’t, so I can’t.

No, I’m not too keen on giving them “free” money with no promise of anything meaningful in return. I don’t know what the money would be spent on, and with no specific return for my investment, I don’t see the value.

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I’d gladly keep paying to support the game, I’ve already dumped in WAY more than anyone normally would for a single game and I have no intention of stopping there.

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That’s why i want another community fund, even if they set it at several hundred thousand dollars and gave us a month to complete it I’d be happy. Setup tiers as someone said, releasing costumes, accessories, stages, maybe the top tier being the season 3 bonus character.

Give us a goal to feed into, I’d donate to it for sure. Maybe give people who pay in an exclusive color pack or something, or a color pack for each season. 3 in total for $10 each or something, I don’t know. All I do know is that it would be a crazy success if the Shago fund is any indication.

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I agree, I think a new community fund would have huge success, especially if they threw in any number of awesome prizes (like legacy FG announcers) as your reward for buying in. That’s different from what the OP was about, which was just giving them money because we like the game without any promise or hope that the money will be well spent.

I’m seriously going to mention legacy FG announcers in every single post I make about this topic until I hope those in charge of the KI budget get the message.

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I know that running a game studio is hard and I’m not an expert in this area by any means. But I am frequently confused by the decisions MS does or doesn’t make regarding this and other games.

I honestly don’t know that a bigger budget would benefit KI. It has to be a bigger budget coupled with the time and the freedom to work on things that improve the game and may or may not make a big marketing splash. I have thrown plenty of money at KI and generally don’t feel like throwing more at the game without an understanding of what I am getting in return. Almost anything they make I will buy - but I don’t want to front them the money without expectation at this point.

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Accessories are easy wins. Many games predicate their entire business model off of selling character skins and accessories why this hasn’t been the case for KI is beyond me. I mean I spent 80$ on KI figurines for the skins (I gave the actual figures to my brother).

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What do you mean by “legacy FG announcers?” I don’t know what that is, but your enthusiasm has me curious.

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if they offer really awesome stuff, id be willing to shell out some money for them. just as long as it doesnt go all predatory and/or throwing ethics out the window like a certain crowd funded game cough star citizen cough

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Not true. What I was suggesting does give you incentive to donate - that’s what crowdfunding is good for. You get something for your donation in return if the crowdfun succeeds. That’s how Kickstarter works after all, isn’t it? That’s also why I suggested it be started by someone who’s relatively official, like a community manager - it ensures that we will get something out of it in addition to being more likely to personally involve IG or MS in the process. Otherwise, I would’ve just started it myself, but I have no idea what I could offer to everyone if it succeeds, since I’m not with IG myself.

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The problem with comparing IG with Capcom and NRS is that they make other games also. Now because those other studios make more than just the one game, they can afford to go all out on a game if they choose to. Microsoft could easily give IG more money if they wanted, but I imagine they want to see how well this does first. It took SF and MK over 10 years to get start to really grow.

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Both of those franchises grew already. You may see a spurt every so often, but they already grew.

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Personally, I’d love it if they were able to / inclined to go the DLC route in between seasons. More colors, accessories, and perhaps new stages or retro stages. I feel like DLC tends to be more in the “easy money” category as opposed to full modes and characters, etc. Just how easy it is overall… Well, that I don’t know.

If they released some smaller DLC packs (say… one new or retro stage, a new color and a new set of accessories for two characters) or even larger DLC packs (three stages, new colors and a new set of accessories for six or seven characters), I’d absolutely buy those. I think a lot of people would. They could even put it to a vote and say “hey we’re adding stuff, give us one new and two retro stages you want.”

Same goes for a community fund. If they said right now that Pretransformation Cinder or Kelvin (please call him Meltdown, IG), or Shadow Orchid would be the 9th character via community fund, I’d spend for that character in a heartbeat.

But I kinda feel like there has to be a more formal exchange here if we’re talking straight up donating. Would I love for the game to be AAA in funding? Sure. I’d love to be able to suggest things without having to wonder how financially feasible or whether time/man-power would allow for it.

Yet I can’t just throw money at something without any idea of what that money would go towards and I don’t know if MS & IG would feel comfortable saying “yeah, just send us money and we’ll keep working on this game.”

Now if they outlined a series of goals and how much money it’d take to reach those goals? Again, no problem. Count me in. Whether it’s a 4th season, DLC, community fund, or simply ideas that they know they could implement with X amount more dollars; some sort of tiered system inside or outside of the seasonal structure… I’m on board. I’m more than willing to contribute, I’m actually eager to contribute.

But there has to be some sort of structure to it. Some sort of “here are the goods and services” on their end.

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Right, but you can’t expect KI to grow to their size in just 3 years on one console.

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Agreed, there is however the PC community that has made the scene grow quite considerably. There were tons of people who hopped on KI for the first time, never playing the original KI or KI2. It may take a part 2 for that “mega” boom…

Who knows, IG may port KI to Japan, and all of a sudden it booms because some gaming news site reports that oversea players give KI the thumbs up, and everyone is buying the game now… I’m merely speculating, lol…

Getting more money (or years in) isn’t going to make a game go big. It’s really what’s done with said resources… Going back to SF and MK, look at what they did with the resources they had. Granted, some of that involved hitting people with the nostalgia truck, but it works…

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KI is in a unique position because the announcer is a large part of their game, and fighting games have long had memorable announcers, especially since FG players love nostalgia.

So I think IG should find the voice actors who did certain “famous” fighting game announcers of games past (my choices are CvS2, Alpha 3, 3rd Strike, and Soul Calibur 2), get them in a voice studio for an afternoon or two and record all the KI announcer lines in their voice, and sell them as announcer packs. I did a bit of fan research and found out that all those people were hired voice actors (ie, it should be possible for IG to work with them). Even just doing one of them as a proof of concept is an extremely low risk venture (cost of the voice actor, cost for the sound engineers to make it sound great, cost of the QA to put it in the game… considering the cost of characters, stages, and single player modes, this seems much, much smaller), and I think would sell amazingly well. This is the type of content I want (and all my friends, too).

If you don’t know what those announcers sound like, feel free to hit up youtube and type the game name + announcer and you’ll find lots of clips. It’s a huge direct play at the FGC’s nostalgic heart, and they would love KI for it.

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I think guest announcers would be amazing, especially if we could get Jeff Steitzer to do one.

For those who don’t know, he’s the guy behind the infamous Halo multiplayer voice.
Imagine the voice that says “Killing Frenzy” saying “Killer Combo”.

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Sure, the Halo announcer voice also makes a ton of sense. I’m speaking from a “how can we grow the game in the FGC” perspective, and anybody who has spent 1 hour in the FGC knows that the best way to do this is to appeal to their memories, so that’s why I would recommend they try at least one legacy announcer.

Basically, there are tons of possibilities, and all of them are good ideas. It’s a low-risk, high-reward thing. Sell announcer packs for $5 each, make sure they are well-coded (ie, don’t offer a competitive disadvantage because they don’t say “1, 2, 3” during shadow breaks slow or something), and I would buy literally all of them. And I know I’m not the only one.

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