Once again, A Kickstarter asks for too little money hoping that they would exceed the pledge minimum to hit the actual goal.
Another.
GRIN (not the same Grin Studios that did Bionic Commmando) successfully Kickstarted Woolfe: The Red Hood Diaries. They brought it to Steam and launched in March. Despite that, they are going out of business and won’t be able to send all the Kickstarter rewards to backers.
It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed.
The team is now dismantled and we have requested bankruptcy unable to pay outstanding bills.
I guess our public silence the last few months already said a lot. It is not out of disrespect that our communication dropped to almost zero… it is out of shame. It is truly devastating to read the negative comments we received by some press and players. With Woolfe being the most passion driven thing we have ever created, it feels horrible to live with the feeling we let you down.
What about our Kickstarter backers?
The people that believed in us from the beginning? People we made promises too. People we have let down. Even worse… people we will not be able to give the full rewards they invested in.
The crazy thing is, that we have most of the rewards ready for postage. All the backer stickers and letters of enlistment just need a stamp. All the poster sets printed, signed and ready. The artbook is ready to be printed, the soundtrack is ready for distribution, the DVD case is ready for production. But we have literally no money whatsoever to pay for stamps, let alone print the artbooks and dvd-cases.
What about Volume 2?
I think it is quite obvious now that we will not be able to finalise production of Woolfe Volume 2. With the low rating of Volume 1, all interested publishers have backed off and we no longer have the financial means to self publish…
http://woolfegame.com/blog/?p=924
JoshL
3669
I’ll never understand why a kickstarter for a video game has to come with a t-shirt. Seems like the stupid t-shirts end up killing kickstarters more than anything. I don’t want a stupid t-shirt! I want a game! If I want a t-shirt I will go to woot. Or, you know, a store. That sells clothes.
JoshV
3670
Yeah… I think most of the newer Kickstarters have learned this lesson. Physical rewards are a pain in the ass, and really should only given out if the backer is willing to pay some ridiculous amount of money for something easy to ship. It’s much easier to do some basic digital rewards, “name in the game” or whatever type stuff.
mok
3671
Yeah, dropping out right at your goal is really rough. They need better planning.
rowe33
3672
I was pretty sure the Heroes one was doomed from the beginning. $40K with that many miniatures was insane.
In happier news, this Kickstarter looks great y’all. ;)
mok
3674
Hopefully Derek Smart will knock it down a couple of notches. He has backed the project. What is interesting is Derek’s support for KS projects has been dormant for about 2 years until recently.
Why do you want it knocked down a couple of notches? It looks great.
mok
3676
I was missing the sarcasm tag, because it does look good.
Oh, okay. Good. :) We talked to the CEO of the company for about two hours today for our podcast, and it’s got me SUPER excited about it.
Pod
3678
It’s not a game, so I don’t know if it goes in this thread, but :
Architects are trying to crowdfund £1.85 billion to build life-size Minas Tirith replica.
Wow. I’m just floored at how pretty these space sim games have become in the last few years, and especially on a relatively meager (225k euro) budget. It’s not just the graphics engines (though UE4 looks great), but the new(?) trend towards more colors and more debris. Flying through empty black space has its charms, but these environments with icy pillar asteroids and spaceship junkyards look like a much more interesting setting for exploration and dogfighting.
The overall design looks great too. Combining space sim combat with the directed exploration, story events, and meta-character progression of FTL sounds brilliant to me. I don’t play a lot of regular roguelikes, but I really like these softer versions that let you ‘level up’ future characters even when your current playthrough fails.
Thanks for sharing Brian.
@Pod: I’m surprised they want to build Minas Tirith in England. I thought for sure they’d be doing this somewhere in China, where replica cities are all the rage: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/02/duplitectural-marvels-exploring-chinas-replica-western-cities/273366/
Haha! That is awesome and ridiculous at the same time. They say they are scouting two different sites to build in southern England. Isn’t southern England a little FLAT for a Minis Tirith? I suppose way out West in Exmoor and Dartmoor there is enough elevation to do it, but those are fairly remote places to attempt to build what amounts to a small city.
Razgon
3681
So, eh - Indiegogo is where the money goes to the project owners EVEN if they dont meet their goal, correct?
I don’t really understand these comedy projects, like the guy who had an indiegogo to pay off the Greek debt. I mean, they aren’t funny enough to be worth the effort as comedy, and they aren’t good for much else.
I guess maybe these guys are viral marketing an architectural firm or something?
Indiegogo has different campain options. This one is fixed, so like KS if the goal is not met, they get nothing.
I like CLWheeljack’s hyothesis - viral marketing.
It’s actually viral marketing for the new Tolkien book coming out, though. BRILLIANT.
;)
The whole thing reminds me a lot of “The Shire”, a LotR-themed community some investors tried to build a decade ago in Bend, Oregon during the height of the housing boom. They had amazing designs for the homes, incorporating fantasy/medieval design (faux thatched roofs, dragon-shaped support beams) with modern materials, they even had hobbit doors on the sheds and common buildings. The landscaping was amazing, like something right out of The Shire. Sadly, the market crashed about the time they sold the first home and they only had one other home (near completion) being built at the time. With interest suddenly completely gone for Lord of the Rings themed homes in the $800,000 range, the developers quickly went under, and sadly one of the investors took his own life shortly thereafter as he and his wife owed the banks somewhere around $3 million at the time.
Admirably, the only homeowner stuck it out, and for several months he single-handedly maintained the site, mowing all the plots and keeping the grounds looking nice as people from all over the world would stop by to gawk. About a year after the community went under, another developer came in and bought the common areas, the nearly finished home and all the original plots (excepting the single homeowner of course) for a mere $750,000. They rebranded the community “Forest Creek” and tried to sell more modestly priced “European Cottage” style homes. They managed to sell a couple, but for the most part Ringbearer Court (the only street in the subdivision) is still full of empty lots and broken dreams.
The original website of the initial devlopers (now long gone) has some truly amazing renderings and plans for the different styles of home they were selling. I wish I would have thought to negotiate to purchase the architecture plans for the one they call “The Swordsman” when they ran into money trouble, as it was a very cool design that left a lasting impression on me. Someday I’d like to build a smaller scale version of it to retire to.
