[url=]https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3#about[/url]

What do you guys think of the crowdfund effort? They cleared their goal fund so fast. Game isn't coming out until Q4 2019 though. Personally I wouldn't donate this early for a digital copy. I've preordered a game before and waited a few months but 3 years?

edit: could someone fix my link I'm terrible at linking on GOG. And tell me how you did it for future reference thanks.

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3#about

Fixed. You don't have to add the url code and brackets. Just copy-past the link you want as-is and you should be good to go.

I don't understand why so many people mistake backer rewards for pre-orders. Totally not the same thing.

Good luck. I tried explaining that many times over a year or two. Nobody seems to be able to get that if they don't understand it immediately.

I backed it. Unfortunately, I was at work and unable to get on to grab one of the 3000 available $20 levels, but I picked up the next tier ($33, with a $5 loyalty backer credit for backing WL2, so $28 total). I enjoyed the hell out of WL2, so I have no qualms about tossing some money their way for this one. And I don't mind waiting. I've got plenty to play in the interim.

I got the two copy tier for $50; figure someone will want a copy when it comes out. I'd have paid full price for it anyway if I didn't back it, so it's a free copy, in my book. Always willing to support one of the few game developers out there who routinely do stuff I like (inXile, Obsidian, Harebraned, and Spiderweb are the only ones left, since Ubisoft wrecked the M&M franchise - in my eyes - and BioWare became just another name attached to EA games).

I keep getting game codes mailed to me from games I backed on Kickstarter years ago and then forgot. It's like my backlog refuses to die ;)

Can anyone help me understand the investment option? It's filled with too much jargon I don't understand...

From what I understand, you're buying a share of the game, paying X amount (presumably a large one) to receive a percentage of the game's profit. With restrictions, of course.

Shares are $1,000 each. You buy as many shares as you want (assuming, you know, there are any available) and when the game is produced, you get paid back an amount proportionate to how much the game makes.

So you give them $1,000 today, and the game comes out at the end of 2019. Assuming the game sells well, you get your money back and profit as well. Some of the most profitable investments returned several times the investment. But it *is* an investment. If the costs to produce the game suddenly increase, then the profit margin will drop. If the game sells poorly, there will be no profit. If the studio goes bankrupt, you lose the entire investment.

It's a simple introduction to investment. If you have a thousand bucks laying around you don't need, it might not be the worst way to get started on handling investments yourself as opposed to handing them to investment bankers. But, much like representing yourself in court, being your own investment manager is contingent on you knowing what you're doing, and chances are, you don't. If you think you do, then you almost certainly have no idea what you're doing. If you can prove that you know what you're doing with previous successes, then maybe you do. But people are dumb, and that means you and me.

EDIT: I should clarify the jargon, since those are details, right? Fig sells $2.25m of equity to investors. When the game goes on sale, inXile gets money for selling the game. They keep 69% of it, and pay 31% of it, up to 1.36 times the 2.25m, or in other words, 3.06m to Fig. After that point, inXile keeps 90% of the income from the game, and pays out 10% to Fig. Eventually, the game will start selling poorly. When the game starts selling less than $100,000 a month, a counter starts. When three consecutive months pass with inXile getting less than $100k (and keeping <90k and paying Fig <10k), then no more profit goes to Fig investors. From that point on, they no longer gain residual profit from their investment.

Whatever money Fig gets, they will distribute to the investors. The amount will be divided equally among shares, so if you have more shares, you get more money.

Was that any help?

SECOND EDIT: You know what I would have done in the first place if I'd been smart? I would have suggested you go look at the Fig page for Psychonauts 2, and then I would have included the link to the SEC filings for the investment in the game. Yeah. If you don't know much about investing, looking at a project that's underway and seeing their filings might help. There's a lot of good information there, at least. Look up the terms you don't understand. It'll take you the better part of a day to really make sense of an SEC filing, but it's time well spent if you intend to consider direct investment in your future.

But isn't an understanding of the extent of our own ignorance the mark of an intelligent person? My poor genius brain is now confused and conflicted ;) Yes, thank you! I can now see that there a many limitations placed on how much an investment could work for me both long and short term, regardless of market performance. It seems like too much of the risk is placed on the investor given the low return even in a best case scenario. But maybe this is just how the games industry rolls?

Edit: typo

No matter how a game is good, will be, should be, have been, whatever.

I pay for finished games. After the reviews from players enlight me and, more importantly, after months that has been patched.

I work hard for my money. If I have to squander them, I'll squander on real things, that I can use.

well for me the thing is - ya a) it's backing the game and not preordering - preodering kinda just means getting a given product at the earliest possible moment and hoping to get some useful preorder benefits (sometimes this preorder benefits are used to "force" you into preordering though nowadays as the preorder includes bonuses you don't want to miss) . But ya preorder rather means getting a "finished" product at a given date and you (hopefully ^^) should know what you will be getting.

Regarding backing you firstly backing an idea and hoping this idea becomes reality and hence somehow placing a "deeper trust" in the developer so it should be only be done if you trust the developer and the game they are proposing. By backing you give them the necessary capital to fund the game ex ante and depending on the amount of backers you actually may give him a higher amount of money than the needed for the base game which may need to a better game (if they already know ex ante the still got some money left additionally to the expected sales on release day). Providing backer money also gives them some kind of "independence" from their investors which will decrease pressure with release dates or dropping of features.

Well in the regard of inxile some may question if they really need crowdfunding as after their last sucessful crowdfunding campaigns and sales of their games they actually should have a good standings at investors and banks so why would you crowdfund? Obviously crowdfunding gives cheaper capital which either way increases profits or can be used on the game - so for them it's good. Well now you could be outraged and say "they threaten me not to make my game (if the crowdfunding fails) and try to exploit my money out of me 3 years in advance to increase their profits - that's a huge disgrace" - but well on the one hand they reduced costs aren't necessarily converted into profits but can be converted into an improved game as well and well regarding exploiting money - as a loyal/superbacker of their old games i could get my wasteland 3 copy for 18,85€ - so ya i get a huge huge discount for my "trust" so - for me in that case it's a win win.

I would actually consider the big-name Fig projects relatively low risk. You've got well-defined projects underway, run by groups of people who have successfully completed similar projects in the past. They have secured investment and demonstrated project management. They're producing a good that is in demand. They (seem to) have oversight provided by an investment service which exists solely for that role.

I haven't invested, and I'm not a financial investor (and I know that, which is why I let professionals handle my meager portfolio), but this looks like a much less risky proposition than, say, betting on individual stocks or speculating on oil or crops. Remember that a good investment returns around 8-10% a year (of course you can do better, but beating inflation in pretty much the practical definition of a good investment, and even big investment firms like Merril Lynch or Wells Fargo consider a 10% annual yield to be a good return on low risk growth portfolios) so if you think you'll get back $1300-1400 a share, then throwing a few grand at Fig might not be the worst bit of portfolio diversification. I dunno. Learn more and decide for yourself. And if possible, ask a professional for their advice and then ignore everything I said that they disagree with ^_^