a few months back I covered the top 10
best looking Kickstarter games that
sadly never got funded and due to the
popularity of that video I've decided to
do the video to pretty much every other
person in the comment section suggested
I do next
failed Kickstarter's that did get funded
right ok so to start my journey off I
fought the infamous mighty number 9 of
its constant delays and eventual under
par release would be a good place to
start
Burano compared to what I talk about on
this list that game can pretty much be
rivaled with megaman 2 in regards to
quality mainly because well it actually
got released you see pretty much
everything on this list not only
exceeded the funding needed to make the
project a reality but actually took the
combined total of seven hundred and nine
thousand four hundred and eighty six
dollars from fourteen thousand seven
hundred and seventy three backers yes I
did the math and well they even never
finished the game went bankrupt or just
disappeared running away with the money
leaving all those backers empty-handed
hey guys I'm Daniel Batson and here are
five video game Kickstarter's that
didn't deliver number one
[Music]
multiplayer survival games are pretty
big business if you get them done right
and the stomping land again that
involves you trying to survive in a
dinosaur field land is an exciting
concept the Kickstarter campaign video
looks great and managed to raise 114
thousand and sixty dollars from 4427
backers of a tiny twenty thousand dollar
goal that's almost six times the amount
requested how the hell did they
this one up well turns out since the
game was funded on June 6 2013 updates
were frequent constantly telling backers
a few times a month in most instances
what was going on with the project and
on May 30th 2014 early access keys make
their way into the hands of all of the
backers that pledged a reward to get
them the game was being talked about on
Steam community pages and the game
subreddit everything was fine then
nothing everything stops with the
website Twitter page and Facebook page
all disappearing leaving nothing but a
long list of angry commenters on the
Kickstarter page even model of Vlad
Konstantinov never got a reply from lead
guy Alex from Dora saying that he didn't
even get paid for his latest work and no
messages were replied to so he had no
choice but to sell what he had done to
pay his team for the work that they have
done that's it I wish I had more to tell
you but it looks obvious that this at
least by the time the Alpha was released
was a scam Alex not only grabbed the
remaining money and ran away but also
put the unfinished game back on sale on
Steam greenlight with his final ever
post being it has had a year of progress
and will continue to undergo production
with frequent updates until the end of
2015 and that is it
[Music]
number two for anyone out there that is
watch the previous Kickstarter video
you'll know I'm a bit of a board and
card gamer outside of video gaming and
youtubing which is why I'm happy as hell
to not have known about Zico if I knew
about the Kickstarter I would have
backed it however at least 973 backers
did know about it as it was able to beat
the 250 thousand dollar goal by raising
two hundred and fifty seven thousand
eight hundred and seventy dollars for
those who don't know Zico was originally
a board and card game that was marketed
as Pokemon with a purpose the campaign
video is actually quite heartwarming
explaining how Amy Tucker made the game
to raise awareness of endangered animals
and thankfully for a while at least
actually succeeded it ended up getting
interest for major American chains and
coffee shops before the recession
happened which was lowered in almost all
of those connections pulling out if you
go over to BoardGameGeek comm an
absolute must of a site for any tabletop
fans the people that did actually play
that original card game seem to quite
enjoy it and the feedback was great a
truly brilliant car experience for alder
family sadly even though the game was a
critical success due to a lot of the
major partners pulling out the company
went under the Kickstarter campaign was
Amy's chance to bring Zico back from the
brink the game had amazing artwork and a
great team behind it and even had
legends such as Mike Williams and Nolan
Bushnell working on it
yes the nolan bushnell the guy who is
known to many as the father of video
games being the guy who started Atari
and chuck-e-cheese these guys would
actually be helping create the game
anyway funding was successful me 12
hours before cutoff point and that's
when updates started to slow down sure
you had the standard survey and thanks
are all involved including a special
thanks to Michael Williams eCos biggest
fan who I can only assume is the guy
that put down ten thousand to help the
project but then six months passed
before any kind of an update then
another two months after that not
updating the game's progress but instead
just saying that rewards are still being
worked on before being shipped out
another month passes with an update that
explains that there have been a number
of issues that we've had to address and
we assure you the rewards will be coming
many thanks for your patience that was
on June the 10th 2013 three months after
the estimated delivery date and that's
it until you look in the comment section
on December 14th and December 17th 2013
Zico posted a comment explaining that
the company creating the game called
boomba the company that created the
campaign called Weber and game designer
Amy Tucker couldn't reach an agreement
and boom Weber went bankrupt it was
explained that a lawsuit by one of the
previous directors of hairy
entertainment was put in place another
company that had previously purchased
Zico when it was a card game for 80,000
dollars plus another 100,000 still to
pay to complete the purchase and no one
knows apart from the people making the
game where the rest of the money went
but don't feel bad according to the
game's creator that two hundred and
fifty seven thousand eight hundred and
seventy dollars actually came from
friends and family of the members of
their company and the number of Zico
players able to willingly support the
project was actually less than 40 people
so let me get this straight
you managed to get at least 933 family
and friends to back a project that less
than 40 people were interested in if
that is true which is surely can't be
that's one member of the family that's
definitely getting knocked off the
Christmas list
[Music]
number three the fall of Nemesis clash
of the Cajun or kco one as it was Frank
phileas is the final word in giant
monster battle games it takes the call
team and Technology from pipeworks Atari
Godzilla fighting games and merges them
with the design input and creative
output of our amazing fans yep sign me
up I didn't know that this game when it
was live thankfully but after looking at
the campaign video which claims that
this will be the ultimate monster
fighting game with direct input from the
fans well it would have been right up my
street however what have we learned from
videos like this never back games that
show no real game footage and this game
only showed one tiny bit of animation
help nice artwork though am i right
either way 1247 backers did help fund
the project's goal of $100,000 and even
exceeded it by getting the project up to
one hundred and twelve thousand five
hundred and thirteen dollars and who
knows how much was put towards the
project using the PayPal donation option
officially the game is not cancelled
according to the developer who actually
posted a replied to forum backers as
recently as the 23rd of November this
year however the game's progress is
suspended that means the company is no
longer actively doing development on the
game apparently money was not the issue
but instead it was the unexpected death
of environment artist Ron Claiborne that
halted what was several months of good
development on the game up to this point
and sadly it started with all team
members not being able to work with an
environment artist and no longer are
able to work on the project whatsoever
money was not an issue and in this
instance at least the main developer
Simon strange still responds to the odd
comment on the Kickstarter page and on
his son stone game forum page - one of
the saddest stories on this list
that in my opinion is down
to ever see a proper release here's to
you Sunstone games let's hope you
actually do get to continue working on
the game and here's to the five backers
who pledged two hundred and fifty
dollars a piece the fifty backers who
pledged $500 a piece and the two backers
who pledged five thousand dollars a
piece
ouch number four
[Music]
Alex pink really really wanted this game
to happen code hero a game that teaches
you to make games was a Kickstarter
backed by seven thousand four hundred
and fifty nine backers spending a
hundred and seventy thousand nine
hundred and fifty four dollars above one
hundred thousand dollar Target yep
people were obviously really into the
look of the game and during the campaign
the guys over at primer labs were
constantly update in the site page with
celebration videos of hitting their
target updating fans almost every single
day and then after the Kickstarter ended
on February 24 2012 the updates well
they actually continued fairly
frequently every few months or so giving
those seven thousand odd backers an
update as to what was happening although
those updates were not always great just
what practically every kick started
going it got delayed from its expected
February 2014 release date several times
over this mix with updates becoming more
and more infrequent was followed up on
March the 4th 2014 over two years after
the expected release date showing 22
sixth graders playtesting the game and
the text I'm sad to say that I'm
probably not going to be able to update
as regular always often but even though
you may not hear from us as often we'll
still be working on code hero and moving
forward with development this was a
common theme with this project the
infrequent updates that they did give
were $0.99 at a time when backers know
that the game was getting delayed or to
give bad news like fewer updates or that
they needed more time but hardly ever
giving any more information or
explaining the reasons why these
as you would expect left the comments
section to become a pretty dark place of
nothing but angry backers who had lost
their money claiming that they would be
asking Kickstarter to get their money
back money that they were soon to be
discovered had completely gone Peak paid
between 4,000 and 5,000 a month for each
program of which he claims he had ten
employees one of which was david lopez a
game designer from california who quit
working at red giant studios to the
offer of $55,000 a year however this
actually equated to every paycheck
bouncing and peak having to pay lopez
$800 from his personal account david
lopez said in an interview regarding
this that I gave him tons of time I quit
my job in the gaming industry to come
and help this dude out a couple of weeks
later he disappears and drops the whole
project backers had to search far and
wide for this information as the final
update to them was on April the 4th 2014
code heroes April updates good boys and
code-based soapbox I suggest going over
to the site and checking out it's
surprising how little is actually
explained and that's a real shame
leaving the comment section themed
backers updating other backers in a
nutshell the money run out and pink was
unable to get outside of funding asking
his team to work for free which they did
it legal action for the larger
contributors have gone forward but pink
says that they will not get their
refunds until after the game is released
that is if it ever is released
strangely enough code heroes website
actually has reappeared with updates
going up and giving you the chance to
even pre-ordered a soundtrack however
sadly nothing is being done with those
seven thousand four hundred and fifty
nine backers that helped the project get
off the ground in the beginning and the
fact that those backers aren't even
getting updates really does go to show
how little Alex Peake actually cares
about his backers
[Music]
number fine this game actually asked for
the least ironically titled greed monger
disappointing 667 people by taking
ninety thousand one hundred and thirty
two dollars of a thirty thousand dollar
goal but that's not all
including the paypal donations they
apparently exceeded over one hundred
thousand dollars who the hell knows
exactly how many people and how much was
wasted on this project
well Jason Appleton probably knows hi
everyone this is Jason Appleton producer
and lead designer of green bonger the
game was a free D free-to-play sandbox
MMORPG with a focus on crafting
economics and politics in a world where
you can literally do whatever you want
sounds good right well I'm sure if you
into that sort of thing it is plus it's
probably good for all of those backers
that were looking to get land in the
game as part of Awards in an
attempt to sell that land for real money
when the game eventually came out ah
good old flippers PU dares wins you see
the biggest problem here and one to keep
in mind the most is that this is not a
typical small indie platformer it's not
an RPG it's not a puzzle game it's an
MMORPG probably the most expensive and
hardest games to ever make an electric
crow a company that has never released a
single game to date with limited funds
was the company that was behind it
however limited funds technically
shouldn't be an issue because after the
Kickstarter finished and the shitstorm
that was greed monger started to unfold
Jason actually stated in a video
clearing his name that he is in fact a
credible guy to take on a project like
this and that he already had enough
money to make a server farm even
if the Kickstarter failed yep money was
not a problem to Jason as he was
probably the biggest entrepreneur I'd
ever seen just looking down the guys
personal Facebook shows him doing more
jobs than all of his backers combined
there's his web design work his mortgage
consultancy work Club promoting
voice-over work
DJ competitions jiu-jitsu competitions
and his very own marketing SEO company
yep Jason is not ashamed to get his
hands dirty
dan is looking at it you think he's the
sort of guy to very much get the job
done well except for finishing greed
monger that is after scrolling back for
a couple years I couldn't find anything
related to the game whatsoever now
that's enough about Jason James Proctor
the lead programmer wasn't any better
and in the unity forums unity being the
game engine that they were going to be
using to make the game he was starting
new projects every five minutes
none of which ever got completed as much
as James for he was probably the world's
greatest coder he was far far from it
greed monger was an MMORPG with hardly
anything made from scratch and instead
the majority of that Kickstarter money
was going on store bought already made
assets to literally just paste into
James's barebone world eventually a
build of the game was shown three years
after the Kickstarter campaign ended and
as expected it was awful problems
continued when James quit after three
years of being on the project and went
on to explain how working with Jason was
abysmal apparently the deal was that he
would not be getting paid until
completion and then he would be getting
a cut of the profits because of this
James played the sympathy card
explaining that he couldn't continue to
afford the long hours spent on the game
and tried to leave on at least one
occasion beforehand but
do so because he was being threatened to
be sued by Jason if he did keep in mind
no contract was signed between the two
and all they had was their Skype
conversations now the story gets even
stranger when you find out that James
was actually disabled with depression
and couldn't leave his house that the
pressure was so severe that he would get
panic attacks if he saw a large crowd
and this was how he was able to get by
making the game on absolutely no salary
at all he was getting disability
allowance meaning that that $100,000 at
least spent on the game was going on
other people's hard work buying off the
shelf unity assets and the creation of
the game was being funded by the
taxpayer anyway like I said James the
sole developer of the game quit Jason
left the project presumably taking the
remaining Kickstarter money with him and
now he's gone silent not even going by
Kickstarter's own laws of explaining
where the money actually went and what
we have left is a lot of pissed-off
backers with nothing to show for the
crazy amount of money that was spent on
the project
the websites gone and almost all talk of
the game other than the understandably
upset backers in the comments section of
the campaign has become non-existent
that is other than a random update from
James from time to time who still has a
quick gun building the game in between
our projects adding even more unity
store-bought assets and let's face it
never ever being able to finish it hey
there guys whether you're watching this
on larry bundy juniors channel or my
slopes game room channel thanks very
much for watching click the links on the
screen or in the description to check
out either of our channels and patreon
pages but for now that's it from me this
is DJ slope signing out and hopefully
I'll see you all next time