Slashdot Mirror
'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.
Though I am sad that he didn't finish the game, I rather feel more sorry for Josh Parnell than for me or my money.
He gave everything he got and it was not enough. Things like this happen. As far as I can see it, he did not spend money for things outside the project. Rather the contrary: my impression is that he poured is own resources and health into it beyond any reasonable expectation.
Other projects (e.g. Clang from Neal Stephenson) spent less effort for more money and tried to sell the sorry result (the game was less finished than Limit Theory by several orders of magnitude) as success.
As a result I am neither angry nor mad and wish Josh Parnell all the best.
I was a backer on the game, from me perspective, it was small money on a long shot cool idea. The guy didn't steal the money and run, he spent 6+ years of his life and got burned out. He's open-sourcing the project to see if the community will help continue it on, so at worst I just help bootstrap an open source game engine. It was a couple bucks, big deal. This isn't like these scam projects where the people disappear a few months after the project closes - this guy posted regular updates with screenshots and progress, etc.
Another AC diversion, eh? Let me make some attempt to intrude in a more constructive direction. Or has "constructive" become a dirty word on today's Slashdot? (Only your AC troll knows for sure?)
Project management is hard, but Kickstarter doesn't care. They just take their cut without regard to results. From the Kickstarter perspective it's great if the project blows past its goal.
In terms of a constructive solution, I wish there were a crowdfunding website that EARNED its cut by providing project management support. Please let me know if such exists, but I've visited LOTS of them and haven't detected such an approach.
Let me try to make that more concrete: The imaginary website would vet the proposals before seeking funding. The proposals would have to be complete in terms of schedule, budget, resources (including people), such oft-forgotten factors as adequate testing, and success criteria. I actually think the success criteria are the most important part of project management. In exchange for doing that work, the website would EARN a percentage for providing the project management support, which should include evaluating the finished projects against their success criteria and reporting the results to all of the donors and to the public.
This approach would actually relate to MEPR, in that proposals involving people who have earned high reputations should be more attractive for funding. However I've already spent too much time on this topic for now, so I bid you ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The guy initially asked for $50.000. That doesn't seem nearly enough for a game even if it's partly a labor of love; after paying for licenses for a decent game engine that leaves you barely enough to pay a rather crappy wage to 1 (one) developer for a year. The fact that he stuck with it for 6 years is a testament to his dedication.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...