Rather than place the Dreamcast version of the game within the regular base goal of $16,400, it was instead set as a stretch goal of $22,400. This made it extremely difficult and rather irresponsible for us to promote the project to our readers; should the stretch goal have not been met, the money would be taken regardless and instead said backers would be left with a PC Engine or PC version of the game. Certainly not a deal breaker for some, but something that should be carefully considered by potential backers - especially those expecting to receive a Dreamcast game for their efforts.
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Secondly, almost all indie games promote their games on a wide variety of social media platforms, one of which is Facebook. So let's take a look at some of the analytics for various Facebook pages of Kickstarted games to get a sense of what things usually look like.
Elysian Shadows
Elsysian Shadows had a total of 2.282 backers raising a total of $185,322.
Their Facebook page has been going since 2008 and has accumulated a total of 2,652 likes with an average likes, comments and shares per post of 45 per post.
Their YouTube Channel also has over 12,983 subs.
Yooka-Laylee
Yooka-Laylee had a total of 73,260 backers raising a total of £2,090,104 (Yes pounds, not dollars)
Their Facebook page has been going since 2015 and has accumulated a total of 13,927 likes with an average likes, comments and shares per post of 1,082.
Xenocider
Xenocider had a total of 342 backers raising a total of $24,061.
The Retro Samus Facebook page has accumulated a total of 595 likes with an average likes, comments and shares per post of 22.
Henshin Engine
Henshin Engine currently has a total of 335 backers thus far rasing a total of $24,125.
Their Facebook page has been going since February of this year and has accumulated a total of 8,038 likes with an average likes, comments and shares per post of 23.
Their YouTube Channel also has 63 subs.
Sarumaru (lead designer and team leader of Henshin Engine)
Sarumaru has a total of 26,981 likes on his Facebook page.
With an average likes, comments and shares per post of 4.
What's more, posts regularly seem to get just 3 likes or less on both pages and the same names come up over and over: Ruben, Henshin Engine (himself), D.J.Melina (his personal FB account), a friend or member of Sarumaru's family, Alicia, Jesse Hernandez (a team member), Sarumaru (liking himself again) and even the fictional Bit the Robot (his own character that he created for an event, so yeah...that's another like from himself then). It's a rather small pool of people for a page not far off 30,000 followers. You'll notice this even more if you go back a year or so on the Sarumaru page when it still had a miraculous 20,000+ likes.
What's more, posts regularly seem to get just 3 likes or less on both pages and the same names come up over and over: Ruben, Henshin Engine (himself), D.J.Melina (his personal FB account), a friend or member of Sarumaru's family, Alicia, Jesse Hernandez (a team member), Sarumaru (liking himself again) and even the fictional Bit the Robot (his own character that he created for an event, so yeah...that's another like from himself then). It's a rather small pool of people for a page not far off 30,000 followers. You'll notice this even more if you go back a year or so on the Sarumaru page when it still had a miraculous 20,000+ likes.
With this in mind, here are some key inconsistencies with the data:
- How can a page possibly have 26,981 likes but only 4 likes, comments and shares per post?
- How has Henshin Engine managed to accumulate more likes than Retro Sumus, Elysian Shadows, Red Spot Games, NG:DEV team, Hucast and Watermelon (developers of Piersolar) combined in the space of roughly half a year?
- Why does Yooka Laylee have roughly a third more likes but almost fifty times more engagement with posts?
- Despite Elysian Shadows' huge number of backers and popular YouTube series Adventures in Game Development, why does it have roughly a third of the number of Facebook likes?
This data is courtesy of the website Like Analyzer
It's fairly well known in the Facebook community that some more unscrupulous organisations are into the business of paying for likes. Usually this involves paying a one off or recurring monthly fee in exchange for the guarantee from a shady third party to supply an agreed number of likes to a Facebook page of one's choice. These likes generally come from third world or developing countries with a weak economy for obvious reasons.
If only we were able to view where these likes came from. Well, courtesy of Likes Check we can!
Elysian Shadows
Yooka-Laylee
Xenocider (Retro Sumus)
All pretty normal so far, as all three had by far the greatest number of supporters in the United States, with the UK coming in second. The Xenocider team are based in Spain which would explain their higher numbers in that territory. Now lets take a look at the results for Henshin Engine and Sarumaru.
Henshin Engine
Wow! 6,929 of their 8,038 likes came from the Philippines and a further 425 from India. Saudi Arabia, Mexio and Kuwait also place suspiciously high in the table, while the USA accounts for just 3.5% of their total, and the UK makes up a pitiful 11 likes. 11 likes from the UK! Henshin Engine is surprisingly popular in the Philippines though, wouldn't you say? Bear in mind that this is a country that never received an official release of either the PC Engine or Dreamcast.
Sarumaru
It was quite a shock to see that Sarumaru had almost 27,000 likes despite his portfolio consisting of only two issues of a web comic, a character for a gaming event and some work for a small browser-based game. For reference, that's almost three times as many as the popular YouTube channel Gamesack, and over three times the number SEGAbits have managed to accumulate in their decade of existence. What's even more surprising is the huge number of followers he has in Mexico and the Philippines. He's also not doing too badly in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and Puerto Rico despite his page being entirely in English. Oh, and just 802 of his 26,981 likes are from the U.S.A.
I don't think a conclusion is really necessary, you can judge the data for yourself.
EDIT: The Henshin Engine team have been kind enough to comment on the likes situation mentioned above.
David Lee Perry: Okay so I asked about the regional Likes, because that caught my eye as well. As I am not involved with the promotional stuff, I don't really have any kind of input in this aspect of the production, and seeing as how I've gotten plenty of bait-mail from the Philippines in the past, I wanted to know what's up. Turns out that this is a result of Facebook's targeted advertising. Being as Henshin Engine is both an anime and a game, the advertising is targeted to regions high in otaku/gamer culture but that are also affordable. DJ has a very limited budget to advertise with, so he chose regions which were high in relevant exposure but low in cost... that includes places like the Philippines, Mexico, Malaysia, etc. These are also places with plenty of English speakers. Additionally, Henshin Engine is available in Spanish.
D.J. Medina (a Facebook account of Sarumaru): The ad itself reads something like "Check out this free web comic" or whatever. back then, there was no team. Just me and a comic book with a dream of doing something I have always wanted to do. It's now turned into something much bigger. I'm not sure why Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are there because they are not in the ad campaign at all. It's all in the campaign stats though. I can show you whatever you need, just ask. We're really trying here.
Dreamcast Junkyard: I have a few questions if you wouldn't mind answering them:
Why have you continued to spend $30 a month across both pages if you're asking for money through a Kickstarter? (That's $480 since February.)
Why spend so much money to promote a free comic?
Was your intention to gain likes for your pages?
The only benefit I can see from paying $30 a month for ads to countries where neither the Dreamcast nor PC Engine were launched would be to gain likes. Is that a fair assumption?
D.J.Medina: Two pages? I spend 30-ish dollars on just the Henshin Engine fb page. And why not? What's 30 dollars if it'll get people to come and potentially read the comic? I think that's kind of the point to advertise. if advertising was illegal, why would fb let you do it? Because it's a business. We are also trying to run a business. Businesses run ads. Even if I am pissing my money away in ads, why does it concern you?
Dreamcast Junkyard: There's no need to get defensive. So your answer is that you were spending money to promote a free comic book that happens to share the same name and page as the Kickstarter you were running. Building likes for the page had nothing to do with it?
Unfortunately, this is where the interview was concluded because the Henshin Engine team no longer wished to continue. It's worth noting again that the comic ran for just two issues, the last of which was released in July. Sarumaru made no comment regarding his personal page and where the 27,000 likes came from.
Sarumaru's Patreon
Dispite having almost 30,000 supporters on Facebook, Sarumaru's Patreon is rather bare. He currently has just six Patreons that donate a total of $17 per month, the only of which who has ever commented on the page is the aforementioned Ruben, but that's not the biggest takeaway...
Sarumaru himself supports just two Patreons, one of which is Johnny Millenium, owner of the Happy Console Gamer YouTube channel, one of the biggest retro videogame YouTube channels with a total of 132,889 subscribers.
This is relevant because thus far the most watched YouTube video featuring Henshin Engine is on the Happy Console Gamer channel with over 10,000 views. Johnny does not mention that he is receiving payments from Sarumaru via Patreon.
Please note: it is unknown for how long Sarumaru has been supporting Johnny Millenium. That information is not disclosed publicly on Patreon. Nor can one view the comments on Johnny Millenium's page without becoming a Patreon member. With over 250 Patreon members it is entirely possible that Johnny was not even aware that Sarumaru had supported him or that support began after release of the above video.
Lucretia: The Previously Unfinished Crowd Funded Project
It has recently come to our attention that this is in fact not the first time Henshin Engine team members have used crowdfunding. David Lee Perry and Jesse Hernandez both worked on a PC Engine indie game called Lucretia. Prepayments were taken for the game that was due to be released in 2013. The game still hasn't been released, nor has a refund been given to backers.
Here's a side by side comparison of Lucretia and Henshin Engine.
Lucretia
Henshin Engine
Lucretia
Henshin Engine
The Henshin Engine team claim that the two projects are being worked on simultaneously and that Lucretia has not been cancelled.
EDIT: It has come to our attention that much of this figure of $4,529 came from shipping fees. With Kickstarter, money taken for shipping is added to your total. Henshin Engine charge between $7 - $15 for shipping on the standard game alone depending on the backer's country of residence.
So there's the data, make of it what you will. We're certainly not insinuating anything about the quality of the product or that it wont be finished, only that there has perhaps been some manipulation of data, when it comes to their social media presence. Perhaps it was thought that artificially inflating their perceived popularity would help with promotion of their game or give them more credibility, who knows? Either way, the situation at hand makes it very difficult for us to continue promoting the game.
Furthermore, the Henshin Engine web comic is rather average to be honest...the main character, Yuki's catchphrase seems to be the ingenious "Holy Crap!" and only two issues (38 pages) were ever made available online before the project was seemingly abandoned in July.
Finally, the team have openly admitted their inexperience with the Dreamcast platform; not one of the members has ever as much as programmed a simple tester to run on the hardware. While the lead programmer does apparently have a lot of experience in the field, any examples of his previous work haven't been mentioned publicly from what we can tell. Even worse, the project lead has never been involved in game development before with the exception of drawing some artwork for a simple browser based game.
If this were the Dragons' Den (aka Shark Tank), we'd be saying "I'm out."
All figures were correct at the time of writing (31/10/2016)