Root Double- Before Crime * After Days - Kickstarter launched!

[Decay]

Time to look at some cold, hard, numbers. From the time the vita version was announced, $3100 was raised. I don't think you could have honestly hoped for much more. That's honestly better than I was expecting, lol. This is going to drop off again pretty soon. If the tier was half as much, I wonder if they would have brought in enough new backers to compensate with it? Maybe not. I still think this is the wrong way to go about things, but at least some people are backing. It probably would have been best if they just issued the thing as a tier-independent add-on for an affordable cost. And also if it wasn't over a year out. Not much they can do about that one though, from the looks of things. 

[solidbatman]

14 minutes ago, Marcus said:

Sekai Project just sent out an email to newsletter subscribers to tempt them into backing Root Double at the $30 tier or higher. If your email subscription address and Kickstarter email address are the same, and you back it, you're automatically entered in to win these items:

• 5 Grand prize winners which include a Physical copy of CLANNAD, Physical copy of The Fruit of Grisaia, and a choice of 2 Steam keys from our pool of released games on Steam.
• 20 winners who will get 1 Steam Key from a pool of our released games on Steam.

This giveaway does not apply if you are not subscribed to their emails. Hoping they share the news on a Kickstarter update, but fans will likely do that for them. It would be super sad for people who pledged hundreds to not even be aware that they could win free stuff because they never subscribed to yet another newsletter.

This reeks of desperation, but I hope it works out for them and it boosts the numbers. 

[grim_tales1]

So we''ll never get to play this potentially amazing VN at all.
Sad

[Down]

It seems like this could even be illegal so things aren't looking great for them.

 

 

[Decay]

I really thought that sounded fishy but I didn't want to do the research myself, thanks jonjon.

[Deep Blue]

it's picking up the pace again, this is probably one of the weirdest campaign i've seen it goes from doing almost nothing to 5k in a day, btw i did not get that email im not sure if im subscribed to the email list or not... seems like i'm not but i dont even know where to check if i am

[ChaosRaven]

Considering how much money Libra gained in the last days, I'm still optimistic that Root Double will make it. It has 10 days less than Libra after all, so everything looks much tighter. But I'm pretty sure it'll get a heavy backing spike in the last days. *keeps fingers crossed*

[LightBladeNova]

This may go down in history as the most controversial VN Kickstarter ever...

@Decay, sorry for my overly optimistic viewpoint then...

[LightBladeNova]

Oh, I found this in the Neogaf forum:

"Hey all,

While ducking and avoiding your rocks, let me just first of say that I respect everyone's opinion on price and all that. I worked day and night for months to even get to this point, and we're not completely insane. At least I hope not.

I'm not here to convince anyone, but let me clarify something, regardless of what you think of it. We faced an obstacle here where people wanted Vita, and we wanted to do Vita. Our Vita development has gotten solid and progressing nicely with our devkits getting hot lately, so we were always eager. I began working on getting this done before the campaign even.

The issue is development and licensing. The whole dev team in Japan has to come back to refit the engine to work with the increased script size, voices need to be worked out, basically a bit ol licensing hootnanny. They were not easily convinced to go back to working on this engine just cause.

Regardless of what people think of the tiers and that stuff, that's something we have to meet in the middle on with the developers and such, and we try our best and there's tons of great content there. But with Vita, we are left with few options. RD is not some sort of huge anime franchise which soars past stretch goal after stretch goal. So either we have to guarantee the port at a loss to us, or not do it at all and be even more meany heads for not caring about Vita. So the only option is to include it with other rewards (the price of the Vita port is not 225 by itself) and let those rewards directly fund the development, or nothing. So the Vita tiers go straight to funding the development to make this port possible in the first place, not to jack up the price for Vita just cause.

Again, I am not asking people to like me by saying that, but its not just some sort of idiotic move made by me to screw myself over. I got everyone to agree to a term where we could offer Vita for sure without having to climb stretch goals, but rather that those who helps out the campaign and wants Vita gets it no matter what regardless.

Hope we are all still cool no matter how it all works out."

[Fred the Barber]

Let's not bury this one unless and until it's dead - particularly, give it at least a day before trying to measure the impact (or lack thereof) of today's announcements. It's only been a few hours, and not all of us are on our computers 24/7. But I will agree things aren't looking especially rosy.

Additionally, I have to agree that the raffle seems well-intentioned, ill-inspired, and likely illegal. I can't help but give Sekai Project kudos on achieving that particular trifecta

[ChaosRaven]

10 minutes ago, LightBladeNova said:

The issue is development and licensing. The whole dev team in Japan has to come back to refit the engine to work with the increased script size, voices need to be worked out, basically a bit ol licensing hootnanny. They were not easily convinced to go back to working on this engine just cause.

Honestly, what exactly did they expect? That they can just hold out their hands and collect the money without doing something?! If you want to sell something you have to work for it, that's just normal. I know this isn't your fault, but I think this statement shows exactly what's bugging a lot of people since the start of the Kickstarter campaign: A lack of dedication from the original developers. This is particular obvious since the Libra team showed exactly a lot of this dedication.

While I really hope that this campaign will succeed and also backed it pretty much from the start, I think things would look a lot better if you could feel a bit more interest and enthusiasm to let this whole campaign succeed from the original developers.

[Marcus]

So Sekai just sent out a correction email stating you can enter their contest by pledging $30 to the Kickstarter OR "You may also enter for free by mail to the address in the footer."

You can send them a ... letter in the mail to enter. As I'm not up on the legal aspects of giveaways, I'm not sure but this seems more legit because there is a way to enter for free. But, what the heck, sending LETTERS in 2016 to enter a contest?

Anyway, here's the info for anyone interested:

"NO PURCHASE NECESSARY to enter in our giveaways please mail your entry to the address below. 

Our mailing address is: 
Sekai Project
9415 Culver Blvd #166
Culver City, CA 90232"

[Decay]

Oh, sekai project....

 

4 hours ago, Marcus said:

You can send them a ... letter in the mail to enter. As I'm not up on the legal aspects of giveaways, I'm not sure but this seems more legit because there is a way to enter for free. But, what the heck, sending LETTERS in 2016 to enter a contest?

I'm no lawyer, but this is how most giveaways that primarily work off of purchases works. Like, you can buy a box of Oops All Berries cereal for a chance to win a sick Making of Paul Blart Mall Cop DVD, or they have an address on the outside of the box so you can write it down in the grocery store aisle and mail in a submission. The alternative free option is done by mail because nobody actually does that, giving people incentive to buy in instead. This is basically how everyone does it.

[Fred the Barber]

It's reassuring that they managed to legally cover their asses (or maybe "cover their legal asses" would be better?). However, even as credulous as I am, I don't know whether to believe the "we forgot about the free entry by mail" line... The only thing that makes it somewhat believable is that I find it even harder to believe they would have gotten as far as pushing that mail out without, just like this forum thread, somebody saying "Wait, isn't that illegal?".

Amusing relevant tidbit which I'm sure is not going to happen in this case: I've heard that it's also standard practice when operating a drawing like this to not actually look at the mailed-in entries. I mean, legally speaking, of course they were looked at. It's just that, well, when that random selection happened, none of those entries happened to get chosen.

[kyrt]

It will definitely happen in this case...they didn't even bother telling people when they would have to have a free mail entry in by to make it count. If that doesn't scream they will be ignoring those entries I do not know what does. This is becoming hugely negative PR for Sekai Project, just why they thought they could get away with this I'll never know. Libra only required you spread the word about the vn not that you actually made a purchase (same with Muv-luv) although if you did back you did get more entries. Why isn't Sekai Project doing this? It would be much simpler and would cover their asses. People would also have an incentive to spread the word about it and they would probably receive more backers because of it. Instead they opt for all the negative things anyone else (including myself) have already said. It's bewildering and greedy. This is going to have serious negative repercussions for Sekai Project even if they manage to make the goal. They've damaged public relations. Jast recently took a hit to PR as well...it seems Mangagamer is the only vn distributor that so far is doing things more or less right these days.

[Decay]

Wait, you're assigning that much weight to the giveaway? I think you're vastly overestimating how much people will care about or even notice SP forgetting to include a free option for an hour.

[Daverost]

16 hours ago, LightBladeNova said:

Did people decide that just now for Root Double? This is the worst possible time for people to give up on SP... save it for some run-of-the-mill VN, not Root Double... gahhh.

This has been going on for a loooooong time. There's been a ton of controversy for SP continuing to use Kickstarter as a platform for new releases (and dovac generally being a passive-aggressive asshat about everything) for a while.

And it's not just this KS either. Of their last three, one failed, one cleared the goal with only two days left, and this one could go either way. The fact that this is the highest profile of the three really isn't helping to prove that they haven't outstayed their welcome.

[Basileus777]

For all the doom and gloom, this bump hasn't stopped yet and they're nearing 8k for the day.  It'll need some legs from here, but the project being funded now is hardly unthinkable.

 

And no, this raffle isn't going to cause a stir, no one cares.

[Decay]

Turns out we were the fools all along.

Who are we to question dovac's grand plan?

edit: Some more additional information: The vast majority of pledges after the giveaway start are below the Vita tier. The Vita release produced a small bump that was leveling out just as SP announced the giveaway, which caused a new much larger surge that's still ongoing, although slowing down a little.

[kyrt]

29 minutes ago, Decay said:

Wait, you're assigning that much weight to the giveaway? I think you're vastly overestimating how much people will care about or even notice SP forgetting to include a free option for an hour.

Nah was talking about the whole damn kickstarter and the way various aspects of it have been handled from announcement to present, of course people won't give a shit about the giveaway. Hell as much as I would like to say fuck it to this Kickstarter it's quite possible that I'll back at the 30 dollar tier near the end of it despite how many complaints I have. I do want to play this visual novel and I think most people will probably come around near the end if they fear the game never getting released. This game can only be good for the popularity of visual novels as a whole. If it manages to make goal before I come around though I have no issue with waiting for it to release normally. 

[Basileus777]

So final count for the day, 9.5k and 129 backers. Which is enough that if this bump has any more legs there's a good chance this gets funded.

[kingdomcome]

I've dished out enough negative thoughts about this kickstarter.. SP may not be the one at fault (but I don't know for sure), it seems they are stepping up now.

PLEASE give us a physical copy of the Vita version. I really don't care that there's 2 discs, but a physical copy means so much more to me.

[jetpack003]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news for anyone who wants a physical copy of the Vita version but that might be difficult to obtain. If the file size is over 4GB then you may have to get the digital copy in the end.

From what I've heard, Sony only made two types of NVG (PS Vita) memory cards for retail which were the 2GB and the 4GB ones. I've heard that they were planning to make an 8GB one but there's hasn't been any news about it since then.

If you guys are saying that they should use an 8GB one then you'd have to ask Sony about that since they've never release them. If you think that being able to put them into two separate chips just for one game, I'd say it's possible by using two 4GB NVG cards or one 4GB and one 2GB. However, you're wasting your money just for that convenience and you're also wasting empty space on the chip as well. I've never seen a company who would put a game into two separate chips just for the Vita. If it was a disc then yes, it would be possible since they're cheaper to produce than the Vita ones.

Implementing games onto a chip/cartridge is not the same as placing one onto a disc. The cost makes a major difference in this matter.

[WinterfuryZX]

Most of the content must be copypasted in both cartridges in that case. The voice acting is the only thing that can be splitted in half. I don't even know if 2 4GB carts would be sufficient.

[Vorathiel]

14 hours ago, LightBladeNova said:

Well... on the plus side, guys, the gameplay video is amazing:
 

 

This whole system looks horribly daiting-sim-ish. Really dislike it after this. Everything else seems to be great, but...I don't know, start is really heavy, and sudenly cute childish sprites. Kara no Shojo spoiled me in that matter it seems...