firehose

Project runners who achieve their Kickstarter goals early should "tread carefully" when considering whether or not to add stretch goals, Kickstarter cofounder and head of communications Yancey Strickler wrote on the site's blog.

Stretch goals, typically added once a project reaches its previously outlined targets, attempt to keep pledges coming by offering additional rewards or features. However, Strickler warns that expanding the project too much can "change the creative vision," effectively putting the entire project at risk.

"As many creators and backers have learned from experience, often what seems like ‘extra' money isn't extra at all," Strickler wrote. "If a project has a funding goal of $10,000 but raises $1 million, does that mean its creator got an 'extra' $990,000? Not at all. More money means more backers and rewards to fulfill — and less margin for error.

"Many Kickstarter projects end up significantly overfunded, and creators often use those funds to improve the project's end product. More funding might mean higher-quality materials and other improvements that thank backers with a better-made thing. For other creators overfunding means the project turns a profit. Both are great outcomes. Stretch goals, on the other hand, trade long-term risk for a short-term gain."

Kickstarters such as Obsidian Entertainment's Project Eternity and Double Fine's Broken Age are but a few well known games that raised substantially more than their target goals. For projects that reach funding before their end date, Strickler advises creators to use the time to improve the project naturally and as the creative process happens.

"Make a connection that goes beyond funding," Strickler wrote. "Money gets spent, but a strong community will last forever."

The financial failings and eventual bankruptcy of Curt Schilling's game company, 38 Studios, is "the most devastating thing" the former baseball pitcher has ever experienced, according to a recent profile from The Boston Globe.

The studio declared bankruptcy in 2012, just before it laid off its entire staff. It would eventually default on a loan to the state of Rhode Island and leave behind debt totaling more than $100 million. Schilling said that it's still something he's "trying to bounce back from."

"It was so hard, because I had pushed and pushed and pushed," Schilling said. "I had 300 families [of company employees] I had to take care of, including my own, and it failed. And I've lost a lot in my life but I've never failed at anything. I was going to [win] but I couldn't get it done."

Schilling added that Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee did "absolutely nothing" to help stop the studio's downfall.

"We had a local investor who was going to pony up the money — he wanted us to do some things — and Chafee just waited us out," says Schilling.

Last month, Chafee decided to honor 38 Studio's bond repayments; Rhode Island's 2014 budget currently includes plans to tackle the debt. For more on 38 Studio's financial troubles and subsequent backlash, check out our StoryStream.

Yelp has built a hugely successful business around its millions of user-submitted local reviews. Yet prior to today, the company didn't allow reviews to be published from a smartphone. To the delight of its community, Yelp has finally reversed course on that poorly thought out policy. A newly released update for Yelp on iOS adds the ability to pen reviews for any local business directly within the app. Before, users were limited to posting brief "quick tips," requiring more thorough feedback to be published from a desktop or laptop. Now you can instantly tell the world about an experience, whether it was a meal gone horribly wrong or the best hotel stay you've ever had.

A sensible reversal that took too long

However mind-boggling the original decision may seem, it was a conscientious choice. Back in 2009, Yelp made the case that tips (and the option to draft reviews) allowed members to share "immediate experiences" with the community — even if they couldn't thumb out an entire review on the go. Almost four years later, the company has finally evolved its view on mobile reviews. "Nowadays, people are more mobile savvy and are becoming used to contributing long-form content directly from their device," reads today's blog post announcing the change. Further, Yelp acknowledges that in a "post PC" world, some users may never visit its website from a desktop PC.

But the company will still be actively taking steps to ensure the "quality" of full reviews. If a submitted review is too short, for example, Yelp will automatically convert it to a tip and keep it out of the proper review pool. "Yelpers can always go back and add in more detail later to flesh it out into a full-fledged review," it says. Yelp users on iOS can begin writing reviews today, and an Android update with the same functionality is "coming soon."

By John Walker on August 13th, 2013 at 9:00 pm.

First impressions are pretty important. Especially when you come sauntering over to the PC after a year of absence. Spelunky, beginning as a PC game, upped and left for the 360 as an advanced version last July. And it was brilliant. It’s now back, promising an even more advanced version for PC. So how is the transition?

Like I say, first impressions. And they’re not good. I know what’s to come after them – I’ve spent ludicrous numbers of hours playing the game on 360 over the last year, and have absolutely adored it. But since I’ve already got my working 360 version on my nice big telly, finding myself faced with a selection of resolution options that don’t offer my native desktop, fail to include 16:10 options, and don’t offer a windowed mode for anything over 1280×720, smacks of the laziest porting we’re used to seeing from big-name publishers who just couldn’t give a shit. Why would a two-man indie team come across like they don’t give a shit?

It’s hard to think of a game more obviously suited for a windowed mode. It’s a game played in short bursts, a roguelike built of failure, where rather than extended engrossing periods spent buried in its world, you’re much more likely to need to look away every five minutes. Doing that on my machine led to the PC having an epileptic fit as it flailed between resolutions, and after three switches the game gave up entirely. Great.

So instead, I try to run it in the largest window available, and I get THIS on my 2560×1440 display:

Er, brilliant. Does Oculus Rift do binoculars?

Yes, it’s a big desktop (which I got all cheap on Alec’s advice), but even on my more standard 1920×1080 second monitor it still takes up barely a third of the screen. So why wouldn’t I just load up the 360 version on the TV behind me?

Okay, get over it, move on. Let’s set up the PC controls, see what it can offer over the 360 pad.

Oh.

While your mouse will work for menus, it’s not an option when configuring controls, so forget any obvious notions of aiming your whip and thwicking it with the left mouse. It’s all keyboard, or all controller. So, the 360 controller then with its obviously vastly superior analogue controls. Again, why is this on PC?

So, run in a miniscule window, using the 360 pad, I’m not exactly getting the PC experience I’d hoped a year of potential porting time would bring.

The tortuously slow opening screens are still unskippable. You’re still forced to play through the tutorial the first time you run the game (or twice through if it crashed the first time).

But then, into the game, and… Am I… am I maybe falling out of love with Spelunky, too? Not because of some lazy porting, but maybe because since my dozens and dozens of hours playing it last year, I’ve experienced Teleglitch, Rogue Legacy, Don’t Starve… Games that run with the same imminence of death, but twist on it, develop it, enhance it. Spelunky, as pure as one could argue it may be, feels particularly retrograde from this year-on perspective. Its deliberately clunky platforming feels like the source of too many deaths, and its blank-faced disinterest after failure strikes now as lacking in features. Why not let me try the same set-up again? Why not give me a greater purpose in playing?

Yes, yes, you’re screaming at your monitor now. You’re right – that’s not what Spelunky is intended to be, and there’s no reason why it should have to deliver any of it. I’m a terrible person for even asking. But the reality is, as I’m playing it now, I’m asking.

The big difference between this and 2012′s console version are the daily challenges. It’s a lovely idea – the game randomly generates a series of chambers, and offers it to everyone playing. You get one go at it, and see where you come in that day’s leaderboard. I died in the opening 30 seconds because, as I went to get something to throw in front of a spike trap, I walked in front of another spike trap. I suspect that accounts for about 50% of my deaths in Spelunky. But amazingly, Dan Gril did even worse today.

Okay, so I just spent another two hours playing it. Spelunky still has that. That crazed need to play again, and again, and again. And I’m rusty, and I never got out of the first location today. But I kept going, despite swearing at the bats which are FIXED, FIXED I TELL YOU, and stupidly blowing myself up, and caring only about boomerangs – they are all that matter. Spelunky still has that.

But then the truth is, just as I was back in the swing of it, just as I was accepting that yes, there’s still enough here, I had to switch out to respond to an email. “Error loading texture pack” it informed me when I tried to go back. Yeah, I’ll play it on my 360, thanks.