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Timmy
"My face is too sexy for you." - TehSlapHappy

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Newgrounds: The Forsaken City

Posted by Timmy - June 18th, 2012

With just 10 hours to go, and still $12,000+ to raise, it doesn't look like the Forsaken City project is going to make it - at least not through Kickstarter funds.

Maybe the creators will follow the same route as the Waterman group, which opened up a PayPal page to accept donations after their Kickstarter failed. I don't know how successful that turns out, though, since obviously the Waterman movie still hasn't been made.

This brings some questions to my mind.

Was the goal pledge amount just too high, at $30,000?

Is the economy taking its toll on users' wallets and generosity?

Did the project simply not capture peoples' imaginations? I know I was excited about it, and from the various comments I've seen on Facebook and the BBS, others were excited as well.

Or is the average user of Newgrounders these days too apathetic to fund a project of this magnitude? Let's face it - the primary support for this project was to come from our community - "Newgrounds" is right there in the title. Have we failed the creators of "The Forsaken City" by not rising to the occasion?

Or have we, as a community, become mistrustful after the last Newgrounds-supported Kickstarter - "Everything by Everyone" - was successfully funded, but has since vanished from our collective radar. And I don't mean to suggest that Nathan, or others associated with the "Everything by Everyone" project, is slacking in any way - rather, I just know in this digital age, when you can pay for goods one day and have them arrive on your doorstep the next, the average e-consumer is not accustomed to waiting months for a product they have already paid for (or "supported").

So I guess I'm wondering whether the NG userbase still trusts Newgrounds-promoted Kickstarters? And if they do not, is that the reason why "Newgrounds: The Forsaken City" failed?

Why did we forsake "The Forsaken City"? *bah dum tssh*

Newgrounds: The Forsaken City

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MrGcCc

Looks like everyone in NG is poor.

Timmy

It's definitely a possibility.

I don't think NG has the content to attract millionaires and wall street businessmen.

Maybe we need to add a stock ticker to the banner?

Sheizenhammer

For the evidence of ability offered, I'd have to say the amount was just too high.

They got, what, $16000 pledged for it? That's a lot of money by any standard, so no, I don't think the times or the apathy of the website has much to do with it. Which just makes it look all the more ridiculous to think that it somehow wasn't enough.

Thay shouldn't have asked for all 9 episodes' worth of funding straight up. Instead, they should've made a kickstarter for just the first episode. After making the first one (if it actually lives up to expectations), the publicity from it should be enough to raise the money for the second episode, which in turn would raise publicity, and enough money, for the third, and so on.

One of the issues I saw was that quite a lot of people were skeptical and / or reluctant to hand over money to a group of filmmakers who have little renown or proof that they could actually do what they set out to do, and reducing the amount to an episode-by-episode level would've enabled the skeptics to put down their reservations and help out (or indeed confirm that this wasn't worth the money after all; you never know).

Timmy

That's a pretty good idea - maybe, after this Kickstarter fails, the creators will adopt that 1-episode approach.

I also appreciate your optimism about NGers' apathy.

As for the skepticism regarding the filmmakers themselves, I assume that a lot of that was dispelled by Tom Fulp vouching for their group. Plus, looking at the sneak peaks they released (the short film clip and the alien hominid sculture), I was convinced that they could do what they set out to do.

Though of course it is always a risk that a Kickstarter group will take the money and run :P

ZJ

Timmy, I work at Home Depot for eight bucks an hour while going to a nice college. I don't have the cash to throw away on silly little cartoons. Only t-shirts and video games. Jeez.

Timmy (Updated )

Yes, that's another possible answer - that the average user is a student and/or jobless, and therefore doesn't have the extra income to give to kickstarter groups.

Also, I wonder how many don't have a credit/debit card of their own, and are reluctant to explain to their parents why they need to borrow their's.

"I want to donate money to people I don't know on the internet who are making a movie about a website I like, mom."

And ZJ, you aren't poor - you've bought twice the NG stuff I have. :P

Malachy

I believe they tried biting off more than they could chew and asking the funders to do the same. Sheizenhammer is correct - asking for a full 9 episodes, at the cost they wanted to fund each made the total too much to swallow for donators. They should try re-doing the kickstarter at a lower level and try for fewer episodes. They can still ask for their dream amount of money to produce each episode, like they did originally, but only shoot for half the number of episodes.

They should also try to show us what they can do. Give us all an idea of what we can expect. You can donate a whole lot and get a sci-fi channel movie. They should self-fund a first episode and then ask for funding based on that.

Timmy

Well, hopefully they have been working while waiting for their Kickstarter to come through (or not, as is the case) and will have something to show users before posting another Kickstarter page.

I would be interested if they will be able to raise even $13,000 again, should they try another Kickstarter - I wonder how many people who have donated on today's Kickstarter would be interested in re-donating on a half-season Kickstarter.

I hope that the failure of the first Kickstarter won't take too much wind out of the donator's sales, and people still support the project if/when they ask for donations again.

For some reason, I fear that a lot of donors will abandon this project once this first attempt fails.

Luis

I think the initial trailer just wasnt convincing enough. The first day or two of a kickstarter is the make or break moment. I think the trailer was just too mysterious and too vague for anyone to get excited over it, that and not much happens in it. I think as I saw the animatronic and other stuff, i started to get more excited about the project.
I think it just wasnt ready to be kickstarted when they presented it. I would have waited a bit to get more content before putting it on the kickstarter stage. I think that should have been the case for the Newgrounds documentary too. Yes, in the end it got funded but who knows when and if that ever will come out. Who knows, maybe that rubbed people negatively and as a result a project like this got the cold shoulder.

Its unfortunate if this project doesnt get funded though. I did like the creativity in interpreting the newgrounds lore and its characters.

Timmy (Updated )

I agree with you that I really like this project, but I have to disagree with your assessment of the initial trailer - I found the initial presentation of the project to be a lot further along than that of most other Kickstarter pages that I've seen.

Most "Update 1" videos contain the creator/artist sitting in front of a webcam explaining what he wants to do and what he needs, with rough ideas on both ends. The fact that the "Forsaken City" already had a polished trailer on Day 1 really impressed me.

Granted, the larger scope of the project - with the sculptures and animatronics - wasn't released until well into the Kickstarter campaign, but I was already sold on the project from the first moment I saw it.

I can see your point that, had the animatronics and other stuff been around from Day 1 of the campaign, it may have grabbed a lot more attention from the NG and Kickstarter communities - and may have succeeded.

Sadly, I guess that will have to remain a "what if".

I hope that the absence of Nathan's Kickstarter Documentary did not rub people the wrong way - but if it did, I really hope that this disappointment has not tainted the NG community against Newgrounds-promoted Kickstarters in the future.

If that's the case, then Tom's endorsement of a Kickstarter may be the kiss of death u_u

Pride

First off I don't honestly believe that everyone in NG is poor......

I believe that a lot of the issue was actually that most of the users who could not donate are just too young and don't own credit cards. A lot of users complained that their parents wouldn't let them fund the project. Besides 30k is a lot of money for a small community like this, and generally only other successful artists and creators can afford to make a grandiose pledges. I also couldn't find out that much about the studio and their previous works, which made me skeptical.

Another aspect was that I did not feel that comfortable with the trailer they released. For a movie about Newgrounds, they really did not properly introduce any of the characters that we know and love (which is why many of us were not as excited). Sure there was concept art, but it just doesn't take the place of seeing the characters come alive. I believe if they were only asking for a smaller pledge to fund the initial first episode, this would've happened.

That being said, I still chipped in a pretty penny for this project. Only because Tom felt so strongly about it though. Otherwise I wouldn't have been as convinced to donate on the studio's merit's alone.

Timmy (Updated )

Sounds like Tom vouching for the project carries a lot of weight with you - enough so that you looked past your initial skepticism of the project creators. I wonder if this holds true for a lot of users.

And I agree with the credit card issue - I remember when I was a kid and purchases that required a credit card always annoyed me because I had to debate the merits of the purchase with my parents first.

I can definitely see how "donating money to an unreleased, unknown and untested online series producer" would be a tough sell for many users. Such is the cost of being young, I suppose.

I guess we'll have to wait and see whether "The Forsaken City" reappears on Kickstarter, this time with a smaller goal amount.

Knights

This is why people need to stop relying on Kickstarter so much, or at least not have it as your only way of acquiring funds for your project. Just because a majority of things on Kickstarter are funded doesn't mean your project is going to get backed. Hell, Tim Schafer only got his project backed so fast was because he is a well renowned player in the gaming industry. That leads me into my second point: exposure.

One of the main reasons why I think this project didn't get backed was because it didn't get a lot of exposure outside of the Newgrounds community. And the reason for that is because this is a project that only appeals to a Newgrounds demographic, having no appeal to people of NG to begin with. Sure the creators could have just slapped the gimmick that this was some sort of dystopian future movie or something, but that's not guaranteeing success here.

What I think the creators should do is revamp the story to appeal to a larger audience while at the same time have it relate more to Newgrounds and its mythos, if only to hopefully obtain more money a second time around.

Timmy

That's not a bad idea - maybe they should just title it "The Forsaken City" and have it be inspired by characters from Newgrounds, rather than so closely tied to the site.

Though I have to imagine that there are a thousand other web shows trying to get funded right now - The Forsaken City still needs something that will make it stand out amongst them.

InputUnknown

Wow! Not sure how I missed this post. Thank you for believing in us. I know that that when fairly new faces show up on the scene and ask for something like helping to build capitol on a media project - one can be hard pressed to step up and commit. I want to start by letting you know that while we didn't reach our goal, we definitely didn't fail. Newgrounds has been a creative home for about half of my life. I love this place. There are a lot of things that we feel we might have been able to managed better as far as the campaign went. But that is behind us now. The future is bright. The Forsaken City isn't done with, or dead, or abandoned. We've put so much work and care into the story and the characters and the creative development that one way or another, it will get made. We are so lucky to have had the support from Tom and a large portion of the NG community that we did. And for the nay-sayers, I don't blame them. What I can promise is, should TFC ever come back on the chopping block for public funding, Studio Firelight will be much better known for the quality and the entertainment of our work. Thank you, again, for your interest. You rock!

-Chase

LukasExemplar

Am I the only one who think they were just really bad at viral marketing? :O

LukasExemplar

Also, it's not about "relying" on Newgrounds guys. Newgrounds is simply a tool to get you, well, kickstarted, and not fully funded, or not most of the time. Take Freddie Wong's web series Video Game High School for example. They set the goal at 85.000 thousand or so, and they got 200.000. After that they paid out of their pockets and got sponsors. That landed the budget at around 600-700.000 dollars in total.

Did you also know that of the hundreds of films, both big and small, that were screened at this year's South By Southwest Film Festival, over 40 of them were funded through Kickstarter and IndieGoGo? And even more of the tools, like camera sliders and independentaly made cameras were funded through crowdfunding.

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