I've backed 4 projects. All of them have announced delayed releases (to the tune of several months) and all of them are using the same reasoning... stretch goals.

Now, I'm not bothered by a pushed back date. I'd much rather have a polished product. Always.

But I can't help but wonder... doesn't the extra money go to developing the product on time?

If they were able to finish game X for amount X in amount of time X...

isn't an extra $100,000.00 enough to cover the costs of extra maps in the same time frame? The amount to reach stretch goals is quite substantial... especially when the original game development is what costs the most time/money and was already covered before the stretch.

Its a given that some stretch goals are unique, however, my assumption is that the developers understand this too when they announce the goals.

Just curious on thoughts. Also:

Given the push back of games due to stretch goals, would you rather the game not reach the stretch goals and be released sooner? Or would you rather the game take another 6 months for various odds and ends to be added?

Projects of all kinds often don't meet their deadlines. Game projects for sure miss deadlines. It could be as simple as the developer is using the stretch goal as an excuse and they are just behind in production overall.

To answer you questions, I would want them to reach the stretch goals in general. Maybe not so much if the goal didn't add anything to my pledge tier or something to the project in general. And delays to add odds and ends, should be done as a patch or a free add-on, if the game is basically ready to ship then they should release it. It would depend if it was still in a beta or alpha state then they should maybe hold off release, but maybe backers should be given an release as a basically beta version, if possible.

No, it goes to adding/implementing the stretch goals. More money does not equal less work, or more people working on that project. The same group of people who might have been able to get the base goal done by the projected time can now be paid to work longer on stuff they didn't initially plan to do.

Each new item and feature you add to the game on the top of existing ones will also add development time. You need to make sure, that the new stuff you add won't break the existing design. There's also the additional time needed to write, code, do the art etc., so that all needs time.

Adding a room in an adventure game for an example might sound simeple task, but if you want to make sure, that the room works correctly you just can't do it in a day, especially if you have a lot of interaction in the room, like several hotspots, a puzzle to soleve etc.

As for the devs reaching their stretch goals, I'd say it depends on what the goal is. Does it add to the game or is it something unnecessary. I'm always for more game content, especially if it means a fuller experience, but the goal also gas to fit in the existing game design.

Sometimes it translates to being able to afford more people working on the game. Other times, it means the same people are being paid for more work. As long as I have other things to keep me busy, I will always prefer a more polished product. It won't be any less enjoyable if I played it 6 months from now and it is likely that the polish will make it more enjoyable.

But stretch goals are added work. For example, Broken Sword (was that the one that sparked this post? They just announced a delay today) had as its stretch goals "exotic new locations," and inserting new characters into the game. So now they have money to do that, but they need to create new art for the regions and characters, think up new puzzles, write and record new dialogue, etc, and code the whole thing, which is what's taking the extra time I'm not going to run out of games any time soon, so my attitude is always that it's better for them to take as much time as they need to produce a superior product. If it were really "odds and ends" then I might roll my eyes at a six month wait, but stretch goals are normally pretty substantial.

How likely is it to get sponsored for a project via kickstarter?

Kickstarter wrote up an article about this not too long ago. It's quite common and, in fact, expected that the popular projects are going to be delayed based on statistics that Kickstarter has kept track of over the years. There's simply much more to do than the project creators had originally anticipated, even if they don't have stretch goals because there are many more goodies to manufacture, to move around in storage, and to ship than they realized. Even if it's only digital goods, they still have to keep track of tens of thousands of people who pledged and deliver a polished product to all of them. I read Steve Jackson had to rent a bigger building to store all of the Ogre games in because the storage that they had in mind to use when planning the project wasn't big enough anymore for all the orders. It is a problem, but like Steve Jackson said, it's the good kind of problem to have.

Some of the projects that already have a lot of the work done might not have as many problems with delays though. I don't think FTL had many delays, did it? Can't remember for sure.

I wouldn't worry to much about delays unless you helped fund a small project that barely met it's goal and the creators don't seem like they have much experience in what they're doing, more of a dream they had. Most all of the best projects are going to have some delays so, whether we like it or not, some patience will be necessary. I can understand though, I wanted Wasteland 2 to be here several months ago already.

When it comes to schedules every human I ever met was way to optimistic. It seems to be in the human nature. Also it might be that Kickstarter project owners fear that a long time towards release might scare backers away, so they go for a somewhat shorter period. A few months you can always explain. I don't think it's really the stretch goals, most of the time they proposed the stretch goals right from the beginning and calculated the minimum pledge sum so that some stretch goals will be fullfilled for sure. And if everybody is doing it like this there is little incentive for a single project to be honest about the time period - the customer will expect a delay anyway.

So a few months are okay, if it gets longer it might be a sign of bad management. They should give a more specific reason then. I would like them to give more meaningful estimates from the beginning but if a delay happens I would like them to take some months more and polish it.

Interesting. This is more or less what I assumed, but didn't know of that article. I figured the stretch goals were a "positive excuse". Yes its delayed, but you get more stuff!

I'm, not worried about any of the projects I backed... I just found it curious that they all were delayed for the same reason.

Yeah, $ = man-hours. But from what I can tell companies will rather expand the time their existing team can work on their project than add people to get it done faster. There's many reasons for this so it's really natural that the stretch-goals expand the development time.

I've never backed anything on kickstarter, but I do have a friend that does regularly. We both seem to agree (and from my point of view of working on comission - which kickstarter is in a way) that once you're paid for it, you sometimeslose interest in working on the project.
Maybe that's what the case is here?
All I see are people fishing for money for "ideas" on the whole - mostly not good ones at that.

Like others have said, KS devs either underprepared, or underallocated time or resources to bits and pieces of the project.
I generally dont mind if it takes longer, but what gets me is if the dev's have a lack of communication in general, even more so as to why project has been delayed months (Star Command is in this boat. lack of proper communication really gave me the shits to be frank - i actually suspect they are pumping the money from the recent PC/Mac KS for the game to finish the iOS crap before doing proper port to PC/Mac))

How many crowd-funded games got finished by now anyway? I've read articles about those "heroes" of Kickstarter who got the funds for projects that wouldn't have ever gotten funded by a publisher, who have proven that crowd-funding is the future etc. but it seems to me that people have been celebrating too early.

What probably bothers me most is that it's perfectly normal that developers end up requiring more money than originally planned when their project is being funded by a publisher but everyone seems to be convinced that the money developers ask for on Kickstarter has to suffice.

The most successful projects tend to have a lot of stretch goals promised and met.

9 women can't have a baby in one month and all that. They can't just throw extra bodies at the extra functionality and get it done faster. Such is the way of developing software.
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams

Defense Grid: Containment DLC.

It's working fine. There's no reason to panic over the undelivered ones, they're still well within the margins of "this shit just takes awhile".

Surely a few will end up as dogs, but I think rational people have expected that all a long.