Kickstarter-funded Yogscast Game Cancelled

[ToastiestZombie]

Most of you have probably at least heard of the Yogscast, many of you have watched their videos, and if you've been keeping up with them in the slightest you would have heard about their kickstarter game Yogventures. What was originally going to be a game that could beat Minecraft raised a whopping $570,000 for the creating of the project, with some backers spending $10,000 or more on the game. Well, it's been cancelled, and instead of refunding the backer's money they have instead decided on giving out a Steam key for the game TUG which costs $7.

So what do you think of the whole thing? Were you a backer or did you stay far away from it? Should the team behind the game be punished or not? The link below contains a lot more information on the matter.

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-17-kickstarter-funded-yogventures-canned-backers-given-steam-key-for-another-game-instead?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialoomph

 

[Sean Hollyman]

I was never a fan of them so this doesn't mean anyything to me, but I guess this sucks if you were looking forward to the game (was anyone actually?)

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Seems like another case of a dev Kickstarting a project that is out of their league and, surprise, they ended up unable to live up to their promises, so they wipe their hands clean and throw in the towel.

That sucks for all those backers, but frankly, that is the risk that comes with the investing gamble. Sometimes you lose.

 

[Keoul]

Well I'm not surprised, what videos of the game they provided showed that the game was shit.
Graphics were right down there in uncanny valley and really what could they make a game about? it's about 2 guys that do let's plays on minecraft, can't make much of a game off that.

 

[Eve Charm]

I guess they can technically get away with it since all *physical* rewards were giving out, But ya I hope they get the huge backlash they deserve and a lawsuit thrown at them anyway

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I haven't heard about this game in ages. Shit, I remember them showing videos of it on their page years ago. I thought it had come out at some point and everyone just forgot about it. Although what they did show looked pretty awful and pointless, I thought they had at the very least gotten it done.

That's a lot of money, and that's a pretty underwhelming concession to the backers. What the hell happened?

 

[PsychicTaco115]

Feel bad for the people who gave $10,000 but they knew the risks...

Instead of giving a steam key for a game though, I feel they should have given a refund of more substantial value

Yes, an extra hour in the piss-stained ballpit would have been a grand refund indeed

 

[josemlopes]

All they had to do (since they arent game devs) would be hire actual programmers, animatiors and sound designers and supervise the entire thing, they had the money but instead clearly used the money poorly. Its like they think that they are already at the final stage of game development (seeing the game finished and being paid by its success) just because they received money from customers.

 

[Alhazred]

I love their videos, but the Yogscast are idiots. I'm not surprised they didn't have the expertise to make a game, they barely know how to play Minecraft sometimes.

 

[Smooth Operator]

YOG took the money and ran, and recently someone accused them of shilling too. I am not sure on the shilling charge, but its kinda obvious they took the money and ran.

Well that part of the story I'm not familiar with, who is YOG and what has he been doing exactly?

I hate to repeat it now but I did call it at the time, completely novice developer trying to make a super complex game and enticing people via completely unrelated internet celebrities... that is a disaster waiting to happen.
And the developer Winterkewl Games deserves all the shit for it because they essentially burned the money on nothing.

But apparently Yogscast are getting all the assets of Yogventures and those are being handed over to TUG developers in an effort to salvage as much as possible. So that combined with the Steam keys and the two games being very similar makes this at least not a complete disaster.
I am also quite surprised Yogscast handling this as they are, I would never have called them more then a pack of bumbling buffoons but this is actually pretty damn well thought out.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Short for YOGcast. They were accused of shilling not to long ago after Destructoid found 25% of all youtube channels take money from companies to promote products without labeling the content as an advertisement.

And that's kinda illegal. This isn't exactly helping.

Oh I see. Well the kickstarter money went to the Yogventures developer Winterkewl and for those physical rewards, Yogscast was lending their name and promotions until the game started selling... if they were just taking that money then why would there even be a playable game being developed.

As for promotions... that 25% is way off, I would say at least 75% do it and not one of them will ever tell you. Obviously that includes the Yogscast, this is just the lay of the land at the moment for anyone trying to make money.
The only one I know that mentions promotions is Totalbiscuit, and even he will only put it into video descriptions which no one will read.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Yeah Yogscast basically took the money and ran, and if you want more evidence of how shady that company is, go look into Yogsdiscovery where they are taking a cut of sales for covering indie games.

Yogscast are NOT a bunch of buffoons, they just pretend to be that on Youtube. Behind the scenes they are a small but growing company with a couple of dozen employees, bigger than a lot of indie devs from whom they're willing to take money to cover games.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Yeah Yogscast basically took the money and ran, and if you want more evidence of how shady that company is, go look into Yogsdiscovery where they are taking a cut of sales for covering indie games.

Yogscast are NOT a bunch of buffoons, they just pretend to be that on Youtube. Behind the scenes they are a small but growing company with a couple of dozen employees, bigger than a lot of indie devs from whom they're willing to take money to cover games.

Well not to be a Debby Downer on any impending riots but Yogsdiscovery is the same shit as all the other promotional deals, but this time the Yogscast is the one offering deals.
Is it shady as hell... of course it fucking is, the whole bloody concept of marketing is hustling people into buying shit they don't want. Is it a completely new kind of evil, come on people this shit has been going on since the dawn of trade and it will continue to do so as long as you jump on hype sales.

 

[Muspelheim]

First of all, were there any money stolen, or were they just unwisely spent on the development?

Second, who were in charge of the money? Remember, there were two entities involved, the cast itself and the Winterkewl studio that were making the game.

And last, remember; Kickstarter-backing is not the same as preordering. You might very well end up with nothing, if it goes wrong. Although suspicion is healthy in the Kickstarter enviroment, it doesn't automatically entail theft. Kickstarter is a gamble, a risk investment. You might lose.

Of course, their PR isn't exactly helping. They need to do something a bit better for compensation. Not because they necessarily have to (once more, way it with me; risk investment), but because that will help mend the wounds. But poor PR management has been shadowing them since the start.

 

[Aerosteam]

The fact that no one new was hired for this thing shows how much of the money they wanted to keep for themselves.

 

[NinthPlanet86]

I love their videos, but the Yogscast are idiots. I'm not surprised they didn't have the expertise to make a game, they barely know how to play Minecraft sometimes.

As Smooth Operator correctly pointed out (see below), Yogscast were not involved in the programming of Yogventures.

Oh I see. Well the kickstarter money went to the Yogventures developer Winterkewl and for those physical rewards, Yogscast was lending their name and promotions until the game started selling.

The over-arching theme of this debacle is one of of two young, relatively inexperienced companies trying to punch well above their weight.

In the case of Winterkewl Games, they've acknowledged that their failure was one of project management. Essentially they underestimated how much time and resource the project would take to complete and probably underestimated how much money it would cost. On the project management triangle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle], they aimed for quality and failed on both the time and cost aspects.

As for Yogscast, well they're a company that is less than ten years old. I remember when it was little more than Hannah, Lewis and Simon playing games from a shared house in Reading (IIRC). They've come a long way since then, had a right old spat with Notch and are currently in hot water over Yogsdiscovery. Yogscast is a company that's growing and these are, in some ways, growing pains.

My business knowledge and software project management experience are both incredibly limited, so I can only make an unsupported assumption that Yogscast will learn lessons from the failure of Yogventures and not make the same mistakes again.

 

[BrotherRool]

Feel bad for the people who gave $10,000 but they knew the risks...

Instead of giving a steam key for a game though, I feel they should have given a refund of more substantial value

Yes, an extra hour in the piss-stained ballpit would have been a grand refund indeed

I don't know why anyone would ever backa game for $10,000. There is literally no game on earth worth that money and if you want to be charitable you could always give to an actual charity. Still this must be absolutely crushing for them and a lot of other people who invested money, so that sucks.

It comes back to the 'making games is really hard' thing. You need to know that the people kickstarting have a reason why they would be able to complete this game, and it sounds like they didn't. The worst thing is, I bet there were a lot of young people and people who were new to kickstarter and I'm worried Yogscast wouldn't have ever really made the risks clear to them.

The thing about the refund is, if they'd genuinely run out of money (which it seems like they did if one of the guys had been giving multiple 10's of thousands of his personal money) then they probably didn't have anyway to give a more substantial refund.

But I bet Yogscast and the developer don't realise how serious this is. Kickstarter is designed so that you're liable if you fail to deliver. I don't know how the law works, but it's possible that they're actually obligated to use all the money they have to refund. If someone sues them this might be a bankruptcy affair. (And Yogscast might find that they're the ones responsible and not the developers)

All they had to do (since they arent game devs) would be hire actual programmers, animatiors and sound designers and supervise the entire thing, they had the money but instead clearly used the money poorly. Its like they think that they are already at the final stage of game development (seeing the game finished and being paid by its success) just because they received money from customers.

They did what you said. They hired a gamedev called Winterkewl who were the ones responsible for making the game. Saying that, it looks Winterkewl had never actually made a game before and their lead designer had never made a game before (he was an animator in some high budget films and a software programmer).

It looks like a really poor choice of developer. I don't think the Yogscast guys were aware that make games is really really hard either.

Yogventures have been dead for a while. We all knew this was coming.

YOG took the money and ran, and recently someone accused them of shilling too. I am not sure on the shilling charge, but its kinda obvious they took the money and ran.

Given how unexperienced the dev team was it's more likely they just screwed up and ran out of money than that they took the money and ran. I couldn't find any precise numbers, but it look like the development studio had at least 5 people working in it. The game was in production for two year and it was being made in the USA (and not just the USA but Los Angeles). The median income in the US is $50,000 and given that at least their lead dev was married and middle-aged*, plus the LA thing, it's unlikely they could sustain themselves off of much less than that money.

5 people working for two years on the (very low for highly qualified professionals) wage of $50,000 = $500,000. That's their budget right there.

Incidentally, that's another thing to look out for when kickstarting. Where do the developers come from? If it's a county like the UK or USA be even more careful. Cost of living is super high over here and that means that they can afford to spend less time on the game for the money. On the other hand, an indie dev in a country like Poland can live off $18,000 a year, so the money goes over twice as far.


*Its kind of scary how quick and easy it is to stalk people on the internet nowadays.