Itâs the biggest fear of anyone who spends $10 or $50 to help fund a new game.
You see a cool-looking game on Kickstarter or some other website where creative people can ask fans to help pay for their projects. You think it sounds awesome. You give them your money, maybe in exchange for some cool swag, or a copy of the game when itâs released. The Kickstarter is funded. Everyoneâs happy.
And you never hear from them again.
In August of 2010, Brooklyn-based game designer Max Drzewinski raised over $10,000 for a side-scrolling action-adventure game called Perdition (whose art is pictured above). With this money, Drzewinski and his team promised theyâd create a prototype of the game and pitch it to publishers in hopes of getting their game picked up and distributed on services like Xbox Live. They promised that backers would receive concept art, t-shirts, and other Perdition-themed goodies in exchange for their donations.
Two and a half years later, Perdition has disappeared.
The latest update from Drzewinskiâs companyâcalled, incidentally, Abandon Hope Gamesâsays that the project isnât dead yet. That was in August of 2011. The latest update on Perditionâs Kickstarter page is from December of 2010.
Last week I reached out to Drzewinski to ask about Perdition. He said the game is still happening, and he sent over the following statement:
As our flagship game we feel that its first impression is paramount and we have a high standard for its level of quality. We donât want to compromise anything to meet an arbitrary release date, so weâve been taking the time to polish every detail and interaction before we release it to the general public. In the long run, we believe our backers will appreciate the effort weâve put into making it a beautiful, seamless game. Importantly, we will also have something that we are proud of.
I asked why he hasnât said anything to the people who gave him $10,000, but he didnât respond. I called him this afternoon, but havenât heard back.
And Perditionâs backers havenât heard back either.
âWow, it has been a while since I have heard anything from these guys,â said Anibal Arocho, a video game consultant for Hit Detection who gave $20 to Perdition
So what can people like Arocho do in cases like this? While Kickstarter wonât give out refunds, the crowdfunding site says that creators are legally required to dole out the rewards that they promise for each donation. I reached out to Kickstarter last week to ask about this specific case, but they have yet to get back to me. For now, Iâll just quote their FAQ:
Is a creator legally obligated to fulfill the promises of their project?
Yes. Kickstarterâs Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. (This is what creators see before they launch.) We crafted these terms to create a legal requirement for creators to follow through on their projects, and to give backers a recourse if they donât. We hope that backers will consider using this provision only in cases where they feel that a creator has not made a good faith effort to complete the project and fulfill.
At least one unhappy Kickstarter donator has sued a creator in small claims court and won, so legal action is viable in situations like this.
Last year, Kickstarter made quite a few waves within the gaming world: the siteâs game projects earned a whopping $83,144,565 in 2012 alone. Some of those projects, like Double Fineâs adventure game and the Android-based Ouya gaming console, made millions of dollars.
https://lastchance.cc/kickstarter-backers-pledged-83-144-565-to-games-in-201-5974291%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
And while weâve seen some of these game projects succeedâOuya, for example, will be out this Juneâhow many more will turn out like Perdition? How many people disappear after earning thousands of dollars? How many people will never receive the rewards that theyâre promised?
https://lastchance.cc/looking-for-a-launch-game-for-ouya-5984339%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
