9 Video Game Failures That Made A Mockery Of Kickstarter
6. Yogventures!
What it was: An open world sandbox adventure game commissioned by YouTube stars Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane, i.e. The Yogscast.
Placed in charge of the project was Winterkewl Games, a six-man strong studio tasked with translating $567,665 of backer cash into an ambitious, bespoke world featuring the YouTube duo partaking in weird and wacky adventures.
Why it failed: Naivety and non-existent risk management. Not long after Yogventures! entered production, Winterkewl suffered a crippling setback when a senior artist departed the project with a fat $35,000 paycheck after just two weeks in order to go and work for LucasArts. The fallout, according to a heartfelt final update on the game's Kickstarter page, led to distrust between Winterkewl, Simon, and Lewis, a fractured partnership that never recovered.
After repeated delays and with little reserve funds left to speak of, Yogscast later confirmed the game was dead in the water and instead offered backers a free copy of another 'promising' Kickstarter title, TUG, as a goodwill gesture. Winterkewl, on the other hand, was so devoid of financial assets that it was unable to offer refunds.
Ironically, Nerd Kingdom's TUG turned out to be nothing but vaporware too. Four years later, the game is nowhere to be seen.