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'Limit Theory' Game Cancelled Six Years After Its Kickstarter Raised $187K (rockpapershotgun.com)
AmiMoJo quotes Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Sandbox space sim Limit Theory has been cancelled, six years after a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, because main developer Josh Parnell is simply exhausted from working on it for so long. He's spent, he says: emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially. "Not in my darkest nightmares did I expect this day to ever come, but circumstances have reached a point that even my endless optimism can no longer rectify," Parnell said on Friday. He plans to release the source code for folks to poke around but makes clear "it's not a working game."
Though Limit Theory blew past its $50,000 goal, drawing $187,865 in pledges (and remember Kickstarter takes a cut), development has gone on years longer than anticipated. Costs have burned through that initial cash and started eating into Parnell's personal savings but, more than that, he's just exhausted.
Though Limit Theory blew past its $50,000 goal, drawing $187,865 in pledges (and remember Kickstarter takes a cut), development has gone on years longer than anticipated. Costs have burned through that initial cash and started eating into Parnell's personal savings but, more than that, he's just exhausted.
We're not perfect—we're just less likely to season your beverage with polonium than some folks are.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If he does release the source code, I don't even consider it a complete failure. There's nothing preventing anyone who's interested from picking up the project and trying to finish it. Maybe even the original developer will come back after some time off.
I'm American. Do not trust us. Ever. About anything. We are either actively attempting to fuck you over or being so self-centered it happens anyway. It is our national character.
So if it is fraud, where is the deception?
All the relevant facts were available to investors upfront, including his own level of experience, the scope of the game, and the fact that they wouldn't get the money back if he didn't deliver.
Why is this so hard to understand? Why do people not grasp this? Kickstarter is a STORE, it is NOT an "investment" platform!
When you post a project to Kickstarter, you are stating that you have a thing that is ready to go, but it requires a certain amount of initial capital in order to kick start the production process. Rather than INVESTING in the company, you PAY for a good, to be delivered only if enough other people agree to PAY for that good to cover the costs required to kick start producing that good.
The deception is right there in claiming - falsely - that all he required was the $50,000 Kickstarter goal to produce the game. Which, by creating a Kickstarter project with a $50,000 goal, is exactly what he was doing.
Now the Kickstarter TOS have changed over the years, so it's possible that this is before they clarified the rules, but you do NOT "invest" in a thing on Kickstarter. You pre-order it. If it is not delivered, then the pre-orders MUST be refunded, because it is NOT an investment. It is a sale.
You have no clue what "fraud" is. You are not buying a product on Kickstarter. You are buying the potential of a product. Apparently that simple thing is too difficult for you to understand. Makes you the "fucker" here.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Actually, you can manage the 90% done problem pretty easily with various PM techniques and detailed plans. Both waterfall and Agile software methodologies tackle this problem in multiple ways. The real issue IMO is that the poster above wants cheap PM services. For a company like Kickstarter to take on project management duties for every project run on the site it would need a massive staff of PMs all with a standard skillset and tools. The costs would be significant and the cost passed on to the projects would mean a much larger cut would be taken. You can't shift risk and work to a third-party without significant financial compensation. For big company projects they already have these skills and for individuals they can't afford them or don't need them. Kickstarter works the way it does because of the economics involved. If you want what is being described you can visit a VC firm. Now it might be possible for KS to offer various PM tools that would make life easier for projects but if you're a solo indie music artist on your 5th album who knows what she is doing do you want to subsidize PM tools for everyone else?