9 Video Game Failures That Made A Mockery Of Kickstarter
Built on broken promises.
Crowdfunding is great, it allows cash-strapped creative types to realize dreams that would otherwise be forever beyond reach.
The proof is in the pudding: without platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and RocketHub giving start-ups the injection of financial support needed to get a project off the ground, we may never have been gifted the likes of Yacht Club's retro platformer Shovel Knight, or Red Hook's mercilessly difficult Darkest Dungeon.
Sadly, when novel ideas capture the hearts and minds of a generous public, the bad eggs arrive, like clockwork, to try and take advantage of that goodwill.
From budgets squandered on strippers to deceptive campaign-runners that upped and vanished like a fart in the wind, there's no shortage of horror stories detailing the misuse of people's trust, money and enthusiasm for an idea they believe in. Spinners of those deceitful, lie-infested webs should, of course, be ashamed of themselves, but not all motives are disingenuous.
Often, poor planning and a vast underestimation of the resources required to create a video game end up as the final nail in the coffin, even for those with decades of experience.
Oh, Inafune, where did it all go wrong?
9. The Stomping Land
What it was: An ambitious open-world survival game where the most valuable resource wasn't money, but the ever-so-tasty offcuts of dinosaur corpses.
The Stomping Land's Kickstarter gained huge traction for its unique gameplay proposals - food chain mechanics, co-operative raiding of other player camps, etc - and hit Steam early access shortly after reaching its funding goal.
Why it failed: Prior to soft launching on Valve's service, Stomping Land's creator Alex Fundora promised a smorgasbord of content updates would follow. None of them came to fruition; Fundora upped and vanished off the face of the Earth shortly after the dino survival sim went on sale, leaving behind naught but a hollow shell of the game he'd promised to deliver a year prior.
What happened to Fundora?
There's no absolute answer, but if a series of comments left by a character designer on the game's official forums (via Eurogamer) is anything to go by, it's hardly a stretch to suggest the illusive man legged it with any potential profits, never to be seen again.
Valve has since pulled Fundora's unfinished work from sale, but here's some buggy gameplay for your viewing pleasure.